Will Rowan’s festival fling with sexy dancer Seth lead to something more permanent?
Rowan is stuck at a folk festival helping out a mate, and it really isn’t his scene. The yoga and singing workshops are bad enough, but morris dancing is the final straw. Bearded men with beer guts prancing around wearing bells—who wants to watch that?
All Rowan’s preconceptions are shattered when he meets Seth—a morris dancer, and the stuff Rowan’s fantasies are made of. Seth persuades Rowan to come to a dancing workshop, and Rowan’s willing to do whatever it takes to get to know Seth better. The attraction is mutual, and a lesson filled with innuendo and flirting leads to an incredible night together.
When Rowan arrives home, he’s gutted to find that Seth has given him the wrong phone number. Assuming Seth did it on purpose, Rowan resolves to forget about him. But fate—and friends—conspire to get them back together. Will they manage to stay in step this time around?
When Rowan agreed to help his mate out with his stand at a weekend festival he wasn't aware there would be Morris dancing. He isn't exactly quiet when he makes his feelings known but when Seth walks in and hears him, Rowan had no idea he was looking at one of the dreaded Morris dancers. Will Rowan learn what Morris dancing is really all about just to have a weekend fling with the buff Seth? And could it lead to more than just a hot weekend fling?
I think we have all at one time or another(okay more than one time) know what its like to experience foot-in-mouth disease so it was pretty easy to sympathize with Rowan. I have to admit I probably would have had the same feelings that he has but I doubt I would have had the same luck he has when he meets Seth. Tops Down Bottoms Up is simply put: fun, enjoyable, and absolutely lovely. That's not to say it is all smooth sailing for the pair but sometimes dumb luck or simple mistakes can lead us on a path that is even better than we imagined. This is a tale where assumptions play a big part and as the saying goes, "when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me".
Having grown up watching British sitcoms and mysteries on our local PBS station and now with digital television, internet live streaming services, DVDs, Blu-Rays, etc, I actually find myself watching more United Kingdom produced television than American. As proud as I am to be an American, I find that 98% of what we put on television is . . . well lets just leave it at I prefer the material the UK provide. Anywho, the reason I put that out there was because I knew what Morris dancing was, I may not know all the traditions and history behind it but I knew what to expect and Jay presents it wonderfully. However, I realize that many might not and that's okay, you don't need to know before reading Tops Down, it will be a new experience for you and I think you will enjoy the discovery and who knows maybe you will learn to love it too.
Having said all that about the Morris dancers, I can safely and honestly say that they are the reason Tops Down got the full 5 bookmark rating from me. I love the story, loved Rowan and Seth, especially loved how Rowan discovers that sometimes foot-in-mouth disease can actually lead to amazing goodness. But I rarely find a novella that I love enough to not knock off at least 1/2 a bookmark just because I wasn't ready for the story to end and wanted more. However, the Morris dancing scenes put such a huge smile on my face that I just could not justify not giving the full 5 bookmarks.
RATING:
One
It was the first night of Riverbank Festival, and despite being in the bar with a drink in his hand, Rowan was already wishing it was time to go home.
Camping in a muddy field wasn’t his cup of tea, but his best friend and flatmate, Max, had begged and offered him a free ticket if he helped out on his stall during the day. The stall was Max’s latest idea in a string of unorthodox moneymaking schemes alongside working part-time in a pub, but he seemed to be doing all right this summer. Rowan was bemused at the apparent demand for what he liked to teasingly refer to as festival tat: glow sticks, crystals, hippy jewellery, sarongs, hats…. It amazed him what people would spend their cash on.
Rowan hadn’t had anything better to do, so he’d thought— why not? Free entry to a festival for a few hours a day selling luminous bracelets and transfer tattoos to teenagers didn’t seem like a bad deal. It would be a change of pace from his weekday job at Stourbury Arts Centre anyway.
Now, shivering in his damp leather jacket, with his skinny jeans glued to his legs by the rain, Rowan looked around at the strange mixture of people swilling dubious-looking liquid out of plastic pint glasses. His own sofa, his own company, and a weekend marathon of Game of Thrones suddenly seemed a great deal more appealing. But he was stuck here now, sitting in a soggy tent. How ironic that his warm, dry flat was only ten minutes drive away from the festival site. But Max was the one with transport, and there was no way Max would be going anywhere tonight after two pints of the stuff he was drinking.
Rowan drained the dregs of his beer and caught the eye of the burly man behind the bar who came over to serve him.
“What can I get for you, mate?”
Rowan turned to Max, who was leaning on the bar next to him, already looking a little the worse for wear. “You want more of that lethal cider, yeah?”
Max nodded. “’ S fucking good stuff. You should try it.”
Rowan grinned at the barman. “Will he still be saying that tomorrow morning?”
The barman chuckled. “Who knows? So that’s a pint of Black Rat then. What else?”
“I’ll stick with the festival ale. It looks safer. I’ll have another pint of that please. Cheers.”
Rowan was more of a bottled lager man as a rule, or whatever cocktails and shots were on offer if he was out in a club. But ale out of a barrel seemed like the appropriate drink for a folk festival—“ when in Rome” and all that jazz. He pulled a handful of crumpled notes out of his pocket and rifled through them to find a tenner.
“Here you go.” The barman put two pints in front of him and took the ten-pound note from Rowan’s hand. The plastic glasses were full to the brim, one a scary-looking orange, the other a reassuring shade of brown. Rowan took a sip of the brown one as he waited for his change. The beer was bloody good, even if it wasn’t his normal poison.
Rowan pocketed the handful of coins he got back from the man behind the bar. The tent was getting more and more crowded as the rain outside got heavier. It was only early on the first evening of the festival, and none of the acts in the stage tents were due to start for an hour or so. As a result, all the festivalgoers were piling into the beer tent.
“Shall we see if we can find somewhere to sit?” Max asked, tucking a dirty-blond lock of hair behind his ear.
“I suppose.”
Rowan sighed as he looked around the interior of the marquee. The bar took up the whole of one side, and a few plastic tables and chairs stood around the edge, but the central space was lush green grass with a few groups of people sitting around on it. It was particularly lush after the crappy weather they’d been having recently. The forecast had promised sun for this weekend, but Rowan would believe it when he saw it.
They found a spot to sit, and Rowan winced as he felt the dampness from the ground seep up through the seat of his jeans. The experienced festivalgoers around them were mostly sitting on picnic rugs or even folding chairs. But Rowan and Max were completely unprepared. Oh well, Rowan thought. After another beer he might not care about having a wet arse. He ran a hand through his hair. At least the rain hadn’t fucked that up too much. He’d had it cut that week, and it was short— shorter than it had been in ages. So it probably didn’t look any worse for the persistent rain that had been falling ever since they’d arrived, but the rainwater would have dulled his usual bright bronze spikes to a less exciting shade.
As the tent filled up, the space around them got smaller. Max took his programme out of his coat pocket and started looking through to see what was on. Rowan peered over his shoulder, but most of the bands were pretty obscure and Rowan had only heard of one of the local ones. He sat back and sipped at his drink, letting his gaze roam around the interior of the tent. There was an eclectic mixture of people, from babes-in-arms to twenty-somethings like Rowan, to people who looked as old as Rowan’s granny. Some were dressed very conventionally in jeans and sensible waterproofs— which Rowan ogled enviously— while others were dressed in what Rowan thought of as typical hippy festival clothes. Patchwork trousers featured heavily, and Rowan spotted some bizarre-looking hats around the place.
Rowan’s attention was caught by a guy standing at the bar. Judging by the people around him, he was tall— well over six feet— and broad too, with powerful shoulders, and thick thighs. His black jeans showed off a well-shaped arse. But the most noticeable thing about him was the magnificent mane of dark hair that fell over his shoulders in tangled curls. He was facing away from Rowan while he ordered a drink, and Rowan waited, wanting to see if the front view was as good as the back.
Max was rambling on about some ska-klezmer fusion band he wanted to go and see later that night, but Rowan was barely listening. He had no clue what klezmer even was.
“Yeah,” he replied absently. “Sounds alright… whatever.”
The guy at the bar turned— fucking finally— and Rowan’s hand clenched reflexively on his flimsy plastic pint glass, slopping beer onto the leg of his jeans where he sat cross-legged. But Rowan couldn’t give a shit about his jeans at that particular moment in time.
“Oh my God. I think I’m in love. Max, look!” he hissed, unable to tear his eyes away from the high cheekbones and the dark scruffy beard that covered the man’s jaw.
Then the guy at the bar looked directly at Rowan, as though he could read every dirty thought in Rowan’s head— where he was currently playing a starring, and extremely dominant, role. Rowan met those fierce dark eyes for a moment before he looked away quickly, his cheeks heating.
“What?” Max asked belatedly, looking around to see who had caught Rowan’s attention. “Who are you eyeing up now?”
“The bloke walking away from the bar,” Rowan muttered, not daring to look up again. “Huge, long hair, looks like a more butch version of Captain Jack Sparrow.”
“Oh yeah. He’s definitely your type, isn’t he?” Max was well aware of Rowan’s penchant for large well-built men— not that Rowan usually had much luck pulling them and definitely no luck at keeping them. “He’s looking at you,” Max informed him. “Fuck… he’s coming over!”
Rowan jerked his head up again, but the man’s intense gaze was no longer fixed on him, and Rowan didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed as the man came and joined a group of people sitting a few yards away. Rowan watched the man’s mates greet him raucously as he sat down with them. A buxom girl with dyed purple hair and a lot of black eyeliner moved in next to him and put her hand on his thigh as she kissed his cheek.
“Bollocks,” Rowan muttered. “Of course he’s bloody straight.”
He turned his attention back to Max, pushing his fantasies aside. “Give us a look at the programme, then. I’m stuck here for the weekend. I might as well make the best of it.”
The list of performers didn’t do much to convince Rowan that this whole weekend wasn’t a mistake.
“Wasn’t this band around in the sixties? Surely this isn’t the original line-up?”
Not that he was even interested in some old hippy band his mum might have listened to back in the day. Modern indie and a bit of dance music were more Rowan’s thing. He turned the page to look at what was on during the day. “Early morning meditation, yoga, and a singing workshop? Jesus Christ,” he muttered. And then his voice rose in mock horror. “Morris dancing? Oh my God. Shoot me now.”
“Oh, stop being such a drama queen. What’s wrong with morris dancers?” Max asked mildly, refusing to be drawn in by Rowan’s foul mood.
“What’s right with bloody morris dancers, you mean?” Rowan was ranting now, his building irritation finally finding a focus and spilling out in a dramatic tirade. “Peace shatterers is what they are. You’re sitting in some nice pub garden, minding your own business, and then a load of fat sweaty old men turn up and start prancing around with bells and hankies. It’s terrible.”
When he stopped for air, Rowan was suddenly aware the chatter around them had died down a bit. He swallowed, and his cheeks flamed as he realised that slagging off morris dancers at a folk festival was probably a lot like bitching about Christians in church. He risked a glance around and saw a few people looking at him with varying expressions of incredulity on their faces. But when he reached a pair of familiar dark eyes that pinned and held his gaze, Rowan’s heart lurched, and his face flamed hotter.
What a great way to make an impression, he thought. Throwing my toys out of the pram in public. Awesome. But he couldn’t look away.
The gorgeous man from the bar grinned at him, and the slow curve of his lips stretched his brooding face into something dazzling. “We’re not all old and fat, you know… although we do get pretty sweaty.” His voice was deep and rich, and it made Rowan’s heart flutter despite his mortification. The group with Rowan’s fantasy man laughed, and Rowan looked around at them, taking in some other big fit-looking blokes of varying ages, as well as a couple of women. “And sometimes we use sticks, not hankies.”
“I… um….” Rowan gaped like a fish on a hook, scrabbling around for the right words to apologise.
“And some of us aren’t even men.”
The purple-haired girl was glaring at him, obviously less amused by Rowan’s faux pas than her companion.
“Yeah. Okay, this is awkward.” Rowan looked to Max for support, but he was stifling laughter and clearly going to be no fucking help at all.
“It is rather, isn’t it?”
The dark-haired man smiled wider as Rowan turned his gaze back to him. He was obviously enjoying every second of Rowan’s discomfort.
“So, anyway. Sorry,” Rowan muttered, looking down at his pint and wishing the soggy ground beneath him would swallow him up.
“It’s all right, we’re used to it,” the man replied. “Morris dancers get a lot of bad press. But if you want to find out what morris dancing is really all about you should come and watch us perform tomorrow. You might be surprised.”
The man turned back to his companions, and as their conversation started up again, Rowan sagged with relief. Having his head kicked in by a horde of offended morris dancers would be a very embarrassing way to end up in A & E.
Jay lives just outside Bristol in the West of England. He comes from a family of writers, but always used to believe that the gene for fiction writing had passed him by. He spent years only ever writing emails, articles, or website content.
One day, Jay decided to try and write a short story—just to see if he could—and found it rather addictive. He hasn’t stopped writing since.
Jay writes contemporary romance about men who fall in love with other men. He self-publishes under the imprint Jaybird Press.
