A Nick & Carter Holiday #21
It's Nick's birthday and he's turning 45!
After quietly living on Kauai for several months, Nick is happy to be doing not much of anything apart from reading the mail shipped in weekly from San Francisco.
He certainly doesn't want a fuss made over his birthday and he's made that clear to Carter.
After lunch, however, he takes a nap and has another dreamtime conversation with Pele who always appears to him in male form.
Pele says that he's giving Nick two presents for his birthday and Nick is powerless to refuse, of course.
In the end, it might just be Nick's favorite birthday to date.
If he can get through it, that is...
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is the twenty-first in a series of short stories and novellas all centered around specific holidays.
Each story is a vignette that stands on its own and takes place from the 1920s to 2008.
This is a short story containing about 10,500 words.
Nick's plan for his birthday: to have a quiet, peaceful, and lusty time with his longtime other half, Carter and skip all the hullabaloo that seems to follow them around. Will he get his birthday wish? Does Carter have a sneaky surprise up his sleeve? Will fate step in with other SNAFUs that always seem to find them? For those answers you'll have to read this short for yourself but I promise you won't be bored.
Nick and Carter have a way of worming their way into the readers heart just as fate's participant have a way of becoming family or at the very least friends who have a permanent place at the mens' table. Nick's Birthday, 1967 and the eclectic cast of characters is a perfect example of just that.
With old friends and new, even one of Nick's dream visitors you just can't help but smile waiting for Nick to celebrate his big day. This may not have been the actual last entry in the series but as I read them over the course of 2 years while pick and choosing to read for the current day holidays, Nick's Birthday seemed like the perfect way to close out their special days journeys. If you haven't read this short story series, I highly recommend giving it a go, if you are new like me to the world of Nick and Carter it's an excellent way to meet them and if you are already well acquainted with the pair these gems are a perfect treat.
RATING:
R.R. 3, Box 17A
Hanalei, HI 96714
Wednesday, November 29, 1967
5:48 a.m.
Suddenly awake, I sat up in bed and looked outside. Although it was cloudy off in the distance, the sky was turning from a deep purple to more of a pink.
"Huh?" That was Carter turning over and mumbling to himself.
I patted him on the back and then carefully slid out of bed. I padded around to the bathroom, sliding the door closed on my way to the toilet.
Once that was done, I washed my hands and then my face. As I did so, I thought I could feel the house shake a little in the wind which hadn't stopped blowing for the last couple of days.
Moving back into the bedroom, I quietly pulled on a pair of green board shorts. I started to open the sliding glass door in the bedroom but figured the wind would wake Carter up, so I walked into the living room, through the hall, and out the front door.
As I made my way down the rock steps that led to the beach, I began to wish I'd thought to put on a pair of rubber slippers. The steps were cut from volcanic rock and sometimes hurt. Actually, they almost always hurt when I was in my bare feet. About halfway down, I suddenly realized the surf was way up and was almost to the bottom of the steps, so I turned around and gingerly walked back up to the lawn.
Looking up at the sky, I saw that more clouds were moving in. I wondered if it was going to rain. After spending close to ten months on Kauai, I was beginning to figure out when rain was on its way. The humidity would usually go up, but not a lot. If clouds were just passing overhead and no rain was coming, the humidity stayed the same. Or that was my personal theory. I really had no idea, to be honest.
Running my feet through the lush grass, I made my way to the bottom of the lawn. I jumped up and then sat down on the white stone wall, hanging my legs over the side. There, I was about forty feet above the ocean, which was crashing against the cliff below. It was also the best place to see the sun rise. If you couldn't get down to the beach...
Nick Williams Mystery Series
In 1953, the richest homosexual in San Francisco is a private investigator.
Nick Williams lives in a modest bungalow with his fireman husband, a sweet fellow from Georgia by the name of Carter Jones.
Nick's gem of a secretary, Marnie Wilson, is worried that Nick isn't working enough. She knits a lot.
Jeffrey Klein, Esquire, is Nick's friend and lawyer. He represents the guys and gals who get caught in police raids in the Tenderloin.
Lt. Mike Robertson is Nick's first love and best friend. He's a good guy who's one hell of a cop.
The Unexpected Heiress is where their stories begin. Read along and fall in love with the City where cable cars climb halfway to the stars.
Long before the Summer of Love, pride parades down Market Street, and the fight for marriage equality, San Francisco was all about the Red Scare, F.B.I. investigations, yellow journalism run amok, and the ladies who play mahjong over tea.
Nick & Carter Holiday Series
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is a series of short stories with each centered around a specific holiday.
From New Year's Day to Boxing Day, each story stands on its own and might occur in any year from the early 1920s to the first decade of the 21st Century.
Saturday Series Spotlights
Author Bio:
Frank W. Butterfield is the Amazon best-selling author of 89 (and counting) self-published novels, novellas, and short stories. Born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, he has traveled all over the US and Canada and now makes his home in Daytona Beach, Florida. His first attempt at writing at the age of nine with a ball-point pen and a notepad was a failure. Forty years later, he tried again and hasn't stopped since.
Nick's Birthday, 1967 #21
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