Laurel Holidays #1
Can the magic of Christmas, and the soft voice of a man who has seen too much, show Bryan a future where anything is possible?
Bryan Graham is shocked to find he’s inherited a hunting cabin in north-central Pennsylvania. From his grandfather of all people; a stubborn man who went out of his way to make Bryan’s childhood miserable. He’d vowed never to go back to the small, rural community of Kutter’s Summit, not that he didn’t have fond memories of the place. It’s just that he’d rather be celebrating a quiet Christmas back in Nashville with his cat and his contracts.
A couple of weeks of hunting, cleaning, and handyman work, and he can hopefully put the place up for sale and move on with his life. He never expected to find his childhood friend Parson Greer living in the cabin. Parson is no longer a boy, but a handsome, wary man consumed by the demons of a faraway desert war. When a rekindled friendship shifts into something deeper, Bryan finds himself lost in emotions that a workaholic like him has never made time to experience before.
Original Review December 2019:
Sometimes going back can be the scariest and yet strangely rewarding experience. Sometimes sticking it to someone who has hurt you can also be incredibly rewarding and that is what Bryan's plans are: to sell the beloved cabin his grandfather left him and give the money to LGBT charity since his grandfather painfully rejected him after coming out. Fate may have other plans for Bryan though when his old friend(and the only one who supported him, besides his sister after coming out) who is battling his own demons is living in said cabin. Fate can be cruel at times but it can be equally understanding when it comes to what we need and perhaps it knows exactly what it is doing when it brings Bryan home and reconnects him with Parson.
VL Locey tells an amazing story full of aches and warmth. Your heart will run the gauntlet of emotions in this holiday romance. So often holiday tales are full of sunshine, roses, rainbows, and unicorns - basically everything happy, happy and there is nothing wrong with that because I love a good holiday happy, happy but every so often you find a Christmas setting that is definitely romance but so much more than just the holiday magic and that is what The Christmas Oaks is. Amazing characters with goods and bads, setting that isn't always easy but still peaceful, internal struggles that make you want to whack them with a frying pan one minute and wrap them in the tightest Mama Bear Hug the next. A feel good story that has it's struggles and being Christmas just gives it an extra layer of warmth, that warm sweater on a cold winter night.
RATING:
VL Locey
Bryan Graham is shocked to find he’s inherited a hunting cabin in north-central Pennsylvania. From his grandfather of all people; a stubborn man who went out of his way to make Bryan’s childhood miserable. He’d vowed never to go back to the small, rural community of Kutter’s Summit, not that he didn’t have fond memories of the place. It’s just that he’d rather be celebrating a quiet Christmas back in Nashville with his cat and his contracts.
A couple of weeks of hunting, cleaning, and handyman work, and he can hopefully put the place up for sale and move on with his life. He never expected to find his childhood friend Parson Greer living in the cabin. Parson is no longer a boy, but a handsome, wary man consumed by the demons of a faraway desert war. When a rekindled friendship shifts into something deeper, Bryan finds himself lost in emotions that a workaholic like him has never made time to experience before.
Sometimes going back can be the scariest and yet strangely rewarding experience. Sometimes sticking it to someone who has hurt you can also be incredibly rewarding and that is what Bryan's plans are: to sell the beloved cabin his grandfather left him and give the money to LGBT charity since his grandfather painfully rejected him after coming out. Fate may have other plans for Bryan though when his old friend(and the only one who supported him, besides his sister after coming out) who is battling his own demons is living in said cabin. Fate can be cruel at times but it can be equally understanding when it comes to what we need and perhaps it knows exactly what it is doing when it brings Bryan home and reconnects him with Parson.
VL Locey tells an amazing story full of aches and warmth. Your heart will run the gauntlet of emotions in this holiday romance. So often holiday tales are full of sunshine, roses, rainbows, and unicorns - basically everything happy, happy and there is nothing wrong with that because I love a good holiday happy, happy but every so often you find a Christmas setting that is definitely romance but so much more than just the holiday magic and that is what The Christmas Oaks is. Amazing characters with goods and bads, setting that isn't always easy but still peaceful, internal struggles that make you want to whack them with a frying pan one minute and wrap them in the tightest Mama Bear Hug the next. A feel good story that has it's struggles and being Christmas just gives it an extra layer of warmth, that warm sweater on a cold winter night.
Chapter One
“Betty, I’ll need Dottie’s updated schedule in my hand when I land. No, not the tour schedule, we’ll have to see how she looks once she’s out of rehab. I need the schedule for the holiday specials she’s been booked on. Oh, and the phone numbers for all the producers of those stupid TV shows. Yes, I know, it’s a clusterfuck of biblical proportions. Were you talking about Dottie’s dive into dependency or this stupid trip home to bury Jim? Both are miserable.”
I shuffled around a large group of Middle Eastern people chatting away merrily, smiling, cell to my ear, desperate to get onto my flight out of Nashville International so I could have a damn drink. Merrily. Right. I guess it was the holiday season, so merry and bright was the theme of the month. Ho-fucking-ho.
Today had been one of those days that talent agents dread. Someone dying and someone signing themselves into rehab. Again. The rehab bit, not the dying bit. As I moved past departing passengers on my mad rush to my plane, I tried to weigh which bit of news had been worse. My grandfather Jim dying, or my highest paid client going into rehab out on the west coast when she was supposed to be doing three live streaming events here in Nashville over the next week.
My personal assistant and all-around savior, Betty Forde, yes that was her name, and no she didn’t think it was funny in the least, gave me a sound tsk.
“He was your grandfather, Bryan. You could at least try to sound remorseful about his passing. As for Dottie, well, maybe this time it will stick,” Betty said then sighed, the shuffle of papers ever-present when she was on the phone. The woman never rested, kind of like me. Betty had no life, also kind of like me, but she was in her late sixties and had lived a lot of hers. She’d been married to her childhood sweetheart for over forty years, had kids who were now spread over the globe making grandkids and doing philanthropic social work, and had buried her husband ten years ago. Me? I was thirty-three and married to my job and my cat. Speaking of Aesop…
“Don’t forget to stop and—”
“Pick up your cat.”
I smiled wearily. Thank God for this woman.
“Already have that jotted down in my schedule. Cat carrier still in the hall closet?”
“Yep. And don’t let him give you any shit. Close the bedroom door before you try to catch him. If he gets under the bed you’ll get clawed trying to reach for him. I have the battle scars to prove it.” I slipped around a couple kissing goodbye. Since this was just a flight to Elmira, New York, I couldn’t see why the need for so much face sucking was taking place right by the kiosk desk. Wasn’t like the guy was being sent off to war, unless someone had decided to invade us. Who would launch an invasion in a tiny town like Elmira? There was nothing but cows and grape vines in the Finger Lakes region. Go a little farther north, into Pennsylvania where it butted up against New York State, and all you’d find were more cows, snow, and stiff conservative ideology. Which brought us back to Jim and his sudden death and my need to go to Kutter’s Summit two weeks before Christmas to bury his judgmental ass.
“I know how to handle him. Oh, I have Brock Callahan on another line. Do you want to talk to him?”
Ah, my top male performer. “Yes, tell him…shit, no. I have to get through security and get on the plane. Betty, tell him to shine up his belt buckle and be ready to stand in for Dotty. And make sure you grab Aesop’s toys. That pink catnip mouse and his purple cactus.”
“Okay, I’ll handle Brock. Just get on the plane. Call me when you’re able.”
The line went dead and I jumped ahead of some old man with fourteen suitcases. I just had a carry-on and a wheelie suitcase.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, then began toeing off my sneakers.
We sailed through security and I made a dash into the nearest men’s room to try to contact the desk at Oasis Way Rehabilitation Center in San Juan Capistrano, California. I was politely told that Dottie Anders was currently unable to come to the phone but my message would be delivered. I ran my fingers through my hair, cussed at the stall door, and then flushed the toilet several times just for the fucking hell of it.
Why in God’s name had I decided to start a talent agency? I could have taken my bachelor’s degree in Organizational Communications and Public Relations and done any number of things. But no, I had to go into business for myself so I could play nursemaid to egotistical country and western singers. I could have been a lobbyist, for fuck sake, slipping cash into the pockets of greedy politicians in exchange for a yes vote on legalizing something really bad for the American people. I’d be rich and stress-free. Maybe I’d have a hot Senatorial aide for a lover, and we’d be the stars of the Washington gay scene.
I padded to the sink and stared at myself in the mirror as men came and went. I looked like I’d just gotten out of bed, which I had. The call from my sister had come in at four a.m. sharp. Jim couldn’t even die at a decent time. My brown eyes were puffy and my face covered with thick dark stubble. I hadn’t had time to shower or shave. Not even Aesop would look at me when I’d slipped from the bed I shared with my cat and only my cat. I wasn’t even going to try to remember the last man who’d been between my sheets. The long drought was too depressing to contemplate. Who had time to work on a relationship when you had to be at the beck and call of celebrity singers? Was ten percent really worth it? I looked closer to forty than thirty and felt closer to a hundred.
“Oh, the glamour of the music business,” I grunted, poked at the bag under my left eye, and shuffled along to my waiting plane. Once I was settled into first class and had a vodka and tonic with extra lime in hand, I began checking off things to attend to once I landed. Rental car, hotel room in Kutter’s Summit because no way was I staying with Debbie and her twins. Nope. Eight-year-old boys and me did not jibe. Any child under the age of college freshman and I didn’t mesh well. Too much yelling and whining. I dealt with that all day long with my clients, who the hell wanted to come home to more of the same? Thanks, but no thanks.
So, hotel in town, funeral as soon as humanly possible, reading of the will, leaving the backwoods rural community I’d grown up in with all due haste after the not-surprising discovery that Jim had left me nothing. He had disliked my being gay. Hated it actually, so I was reasonably sure Deb and her boys would get the bulk of the inheritance. Which was fine. I wanted nothing from the homophobic old prick. Deb needed the money more than I did. She was a single mom with two kids. I was a successful agent with a cat. But just in case Jim had decided to bequeath me something, I already had plans in mind for anything he’d left me. Selling it and donating the money to my favorite LGBTQ charity in Nashville, Danny’s Place, which was a mecca for homeless gay kids in the Nashville area. I sniggered into my vodka and tonic at the thought of giving Jim’s bigoted and tightly hoarded cash to a bunch of fag boys. His slur, not mine.
I tossed back my drink and flagged down the flight attendant for another. Perhaps if I had a few more cocktails, my grandfather’s intolerable disgust of me and men of my kind wouldn’t hurt quite so badly.
Kutter’s Summit never changed.
Seriously.
It had been fifteen years since I’d been here. Was that right? Yes, fifteen years since I’d left for college, a beautiful campus in the heart of Nashville that was a little more faith-based than I would have liked, but the communication and media studies program was the most highly-rated curriculum among the schools that had accepted me. I just kept a wide berth of the chapel and hung out off campus with the other queers around Church Street. Despite what people would think the city has a thriving LGBT community, a tiny blue island of acceptance in a predominantly red state as it were. I fell in love with the city, the gay community, and so set up shop. Using what money I could beg or borrow from relatives—not Jim—and sold myself as an inclusive agent willing to represent all. And amazingly I had flourished.
Not everyone who wears a cowboy hat and croons about girls in tight jeans and his love for his pick-up truck is straight. My client list has several rainbow talents on it. Some are out, some not. Matters not to me, as long as you’re not bedding anyone under eighteen or farm animals, I’ll represent you if you have the chops and the drive. Sadly that wasn’t the case for many agents in the deep South.
I slowed to a stop by the Kinnerson farm, about a mile outside of Kutter’s Summit proper, and waited for a kid in chore boots and a flannel shirt to catch the half-grown red beef cow standing along the side of the road. Ah rural life. I missed it so. Not. I’d never been one of those kids who wanted to show sheep or learn how to grow corn. No Future Farmers of America club for Bryan. I really didn’t participate much aside from a stint on the high school basketball team. That had ended badly when the student body found out I was gay.
Let’s just say that one can only be concussed so many times by errant elbows from both his own team—oops sorry Graham, didn’t see you there—and opposing teams before one got some sense knocked into him. I removed my lanky self from the team, and the locker room, and everyone including the coach was pleased. The only person who had been supportive had been Parson Greer, fellow gangly guy and the single male in our high school who didn’t hurl hurtful comments at me after I had come out. I smiled softly at the memory of Parson. He and I had been buddies of a sort. I wondered how he was doing in the military. Deb would know. She knew all the gossip working at our tiny rural electric company as the lone dayshift switchboard operator.
I wondered if old Kinnerson was still coaching the boys’ basketball team. His farm looked a little ragged, but then again who could make a decent living in a town like Kutter’s Summit? There was no industry, only cows and opioid addictions. And of course old men like my grandfather who refused to leave because this was God’s country, and he had roots like a mighty oak. I rolled my eyes.
Someone in a pick-up truck behind me hit their horn. The urge to flip them off was strong, but I simply motioned to the kid draping a rope around his steer’s neck and asshole in the red Ford stopped being a dick. As soon as the kid and cow were safely back in the pasture, I hit the gas, following the familiar route that led me past Kutter’s Summit High School and right into town. The few street lights had been decorated with the same gold bells that had been used when I was a kid. The stores had blinking lights in the windows. Oh, but it was quaint and festive.
The town consisted of two red lights, a sub/pizza shop, a bar, and four churches, all with nativity scenes half-buried with snow. There was not a synagogue or a mosque. Although there was a Catholic church outside of town. Talk about acceptance! My toxicity rose with every breath. By the time I was checked into my hotel room I’d be a seething ball of acid. This was what this town did to me. How Deb could live here made no sense. She should move down south with me and get away from the creeping death that was slowly choking the life out of this small town. I kept asking her to but she refused. Her reasons were many, but I suspected it was because she hoped to reconcile with her ex-husband, the biggest ass rash I had ever met.
After a quick stop at the red light by the sub shop, I eyeballed the liquor store. It was locked up tighter than a nun’s drawers. Sunday blue laws were still highly regarded here in Kutter’s Summit. The urge to drive right through my hometown and not stop until I hit Canada was strong, but being the good boy that I was, I pulled into the parking lot of the Tumbling Pines Hotel on Main Street. Little Margie Pinkens was sitting behind the reservations desk. Her gaze lit up when I pushed through the doors, snow whirling around me as I entered.
“Deb said you were flying in! Thank goodness you made it before this clipper came in,” Margie exclaimed, her cheeks still freckled and her hair still as red as the town’s lone fire engine. “You look good! I saved you the best room.”
I gave her a warm smile. Deb and Margie had been friends since elementary school. “Thanks for that,” I said as I signed the ledger, yes a ledger, and then handed her my debit card. “I’ll only be here for maybe three days, so I’ll pay up front. You do have free Wi-Fi, right?”
“Oh, of course! We’re all modernized now, well, aside from the ledger here.” She patted the book that probably dated back to the early eighties. “You know Uncle Dave. He likes to see who comes and goes.”
“He could see who comes and goes online,” I pointed out as she ran my card several times, each time her frown growing deeper. “Problem?”
“Oh, it’s this old reader.” She huffed and typed the card number in by hand. “Bad weather slows the internet.”
I nodded. My sister’s internet still dropped out when her phone rang. Ah, rural living. I had to remind myself to say that every time I got mired in all the backwoods charm, or I’d start to weep openly. Nashville glowed in my mind like an oasis in an arid desert of bucolic bullshit.
“So, while we wait for this to go through to the bank, how are things in the big city? Deb tells me that you’re still not married or even seeing anyone. I have a cousin who’s gay. He’s just adorable! Would you like his number?”
“God. No.” Her eyes flared. “I mean, God, no way would I turn that down.”
“Yay! I told Deb that you and Clarence would hit it right off,” she grinned up at me. I swallowed down a glob of despair. First thing when I got to my room and located enough bars to make my fucking phone work I was calling my sister and ranting at her.
“He’s just so cute. Works for a lawyer and sings in the church chorus. He’s one of those gays who aren’t making it weird for people. You know, he’s kind of like you. Just not as normal as the rest of us, but in a good not-normal way.”
Wow. That was an exemplary display of a backhanded compliment. It had more shade than a lamp shop. And the sad thing was that Margie had been being nice, or what she thought was nice. I sighed, signed the damn slip when the card reader finally coughed it out, and went to the executive suite. Turns out the only thing that made this room more expensive is that it was closer to the router in the main office. Yep. Still no bars for cell service but I could yell at my sister online now. Which I planned to do right after I threw my bag to the floor and tried to find somewhere in this miserable town where I could buy a damn lime, some tonic, and a bottle of vodka. Maybe a case of each would be wise. It promised to be a long ass three days.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee.
(Not necessarily in that order.)
She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and two Jersey steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
EMAIL: vicki@vllocey.com
The Christmas Oaks #1
Laurel Holidays Series
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