Breakfast at Bennett's #2
Colby Bennett is straight.
At twenty-five, he’s the middle of three boys raised by a single father. He’s always been a jock, so managing a gym feels like his calling. If only being a big brother were as easy. When Colby stumbles on his younger brother trying on feminine clothing, Taylor is angry and embarrassed. Looking for a way to make amends, Colby seeks the help of a new gym member whose eyeshadow and shimmering lips capture his attention.
Milo Kennedy is recently single.
Having broken up with his boyfriend, he’s trying to reclaim the person he used to be. Ashamed that he let someone take so much away from him, he’s determined to find himself again. The last thing he needs is another gym-bro in his life, but Colby seems sincere in his mission to help his brother and Milo can’t make himself say no.
Being around Milo has Colby questioning if he’s actually straight… or if there are things he still has left to learn about his own identity. But even though he can’t stop thinking about Milo, he knows better than to make a move. His little brother needs someone like Milo and Colby doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize their budding friendship.
But as Colby is exploring and embracing his sexuality, and Milo reclaiming the pieces of himself that he lost to a bad relationship, they discover they might need each other despite their reasons for hesitating. Will they learn that the best things in life are worth taking a risk for?
Breakfast at Bennett’s is a four book series consisting of The Virgin, The Jock, The Princess, and The Outcast. For maximum enjoyment, it is best to read the series in order.
CHAPTER 1
COLBY
There was a fancy word for killing your brother and Colby was sure his older brother Jonah would know what it was. Of the three of them, Jonah was the brains. Colby was the brawn. And Taylor was a dead man walking.
“What the fuck am I going to do with…” Colby examined the potted plants. “Trees, of some kind. Probably fucking orange trees.”
Colby wanted to kick something, but he refrained, only because the last time he let his temper get the best of him, he broke a toe. Running a CrossFit gym and having a broken toe was a bad combination. There was no such thing as downtime.
“Fucking orange trees.” Colby moved them to the window of his apartment where they could at least get some light until he figured out what to do with them. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he dialed Taylor’s number.
“Yes?” Taylor answered, the sounds of the kitchen at Bennett’s Diner clattering in the background. The youngest child, Taylor was the only one who wanted to work at the family diner long term.
“I’m going to kill you, Taylor. And then I’m going to kill your plants. Stay out of my apartment.” Colby hung up the phone to the sound of Taylor’s cackling laughter.
“Glad you’re proud of yourself, you little shit.” Colby loved his brothers, but Taylor’s plant obsession had gone too far. It started a few years ago when the internet taught him how to propagate plants from seeds. Done with your avocado? Why throw the pit away like a normal human being when you can grow a fucking tree to leave in your brother’s apartment to drive him insane.
Colby lived in a secured building across town from the diner. It was closer to work, so he had to go out of his way for Sunday morning family breakfasts, but it was a tradition Colby clung to. Taylor was probably too young to remember their mom… Hell, some days Colby was sure he’d imagined her. Jonah was the only one with real, concrete memories of her. Sometimes Colby envied that. Sometimes he didn’t.
The diner was almost a member of the family and some of the women Colby dated didn’t understand that. Yes, he would sneak out of bed Sunday morning to have breakfast with his dad and his pain-in-the-ass brothers. And no, they weren’t invited. He didn’t want to give them the wrong impression by bringing them to family breakfast.
When Jonah had been away at school, Colby would make him FaceTime during breakfast whenever possible. It wasn’t the same, but it helped with the itchy feeling that something was missing.
Colby scowled at the orange trees again. Maybe they were lemon trees. Who knew? He sure as hell didn’t. Ever since Taylor discovered he could grow anything, he’d been a menace. His green thumb would’ve been impressive had it not been for him using his powers for evil. Colby didn’t have plants for a reason. He was a terrible plant dad. He was either at the gym all the time working, or working out, or he was at the diner. His apartment wasn’t much because he was never there.
Colby didn’t have room for plants in his life. He’d probably end up killing them. He didn’t know what Taylor was thinking when he’d snuck in. Which brought up another question in Colby’s mind. How the hell had Taylor gained access to his apartment?
He stewed about it while he heated his dinner. Every Wednesday was meal prep day, which meant Thursday was his favorite day of the week because everything was freshly made and he hadn’t yet grown tired of this week’s selection.
Tonight’s dinner was a turkey salad wrap that Colby ate standing in the kitchen, staring at the plants forced upon him. There was no way he was going to keep them, but what the hell was he going to do with them?
An idea took root in Colby’s head and before he could think better of it, he grabbed the plants and headed out, locking the door behind him. Taylor still lived at home. Sort of. He’d taken over the basement unit in their childhood home, which meant that Colby could easily gain entry into Taylor’s apartment.
If Taylor kept insisting on sneaking plants into his house, Colby was going to fight back. He’d simply return the plants. And then he’d have his locks changed. He could simply put the trees outside and see if they survived on their own, but that would be cruel. For as much of a pain as Taylor was, his plants were important to him and Colby couldn’t stand the thought of hurting his brother like that.
Sure, he might hate that Taylor had broken into his apartment, but that didn’t mean he wanted to actually upset him by taking his annoyance out on an innocent plant. It never asked to be dragged into this.
Colby carefully set the plants in the back floorboard between the seats. They would make the journey fine if Colby drove carefully. Looking after himself was enough work, and he didn’t need to add other living beings into the mix.
The diner was close to their childhood home, and it wasn’t unusual for Taylor to walk to work, so the presence of his car didn’t mean much to Colby when he parked behind it and carefully retrieved the plants from the back seat.
The house was a single-story ranch with a basement suite that could be accessed by a door in the kitchen. It hadn’t been used much by anyone until Taylor took over the suite for himself. Everyone respected his space, but Taylor had been the first one to declare war.
Colby sneaked into the house. Their dad was still at the diner most likely, which meant Taylor was probably there still too, even though he should’ve been off hours ago.
Quiet as a mouse, Colby tiptoed through the house and to the kitchen. He opened the basement door slowly and crept down the stairs. He made a point to walk on the right side near the wall because the other side of the stairs squeaked.
“Holy Christ. Is he playing Jumanji? It’s a fucking jungle in here.” Colby looked around at the space. Grow lights compensated for the lack of natural light, and suddenly it wasn’t a secret why Taylor was sneaking his plants into other people’s houses. There wasn’t room for anything else down here. The walls were covered in climbing vines and there was an entire wall of trees in the living room. Even his television was surrounded by plants.
Colby set the trees down on the kitchen counter. A potted plant sat on top of the fridge. It was a damned good thing the basement wasn’t dug deep like some that only offered tiny windows at the tops of the walls or nothing down here would grow at all.
“What the fuck, Taylor” Colby whispered to himself.
From down the hallway, Colby heard a sneeze and he went still. Taylor was home. Colby grinned and tiptoed down the hall. The bathroom door was open and the room was dark. That left Taylor’s bedroom.
As slowly as possible, Colby turned the knob on Taylor’s door, and then all at once he flung it open and shouted, “Hey, fucker!”
Taylor scrambled for cover, yelling obscenities at Colby, a ferociousness in his voice that he’d never heard before.
“Get the fuck out, Colby!” Taylor flung himself into his bed and grabbed for the blankets. Wrapping himself up like a burrito, he buried his face.
Colby stood still for a minute. An array of makeup was scattered across Taylor’s dresser, surrounding a mirror propped up there. Taylor had looked different in the split second Colby saw him before he dove for cover. He looked shinier—and what the hell was he wearing? Were those nylons?
“I said get out!” Taylor yelled again, this time a shoe flying at Colby. “Get out, get out, get out. Get. Out!”
Another shoe was launched at Colby and it would’ve hit his face, but he deflected it. The shoe flew into the mirror instead, and the sound of it shattering broke Colby out of his stupor. He found himself suddenly angry at Taylor for his reaction. It wasn’t rational, but Colby was tired and he hated that he’d upset his brother. Lashing out at him therefore made even less sense, but sibling interactions seldom did.
“That’s seven years of bad luck. Stay the hell out of my apartment.” Colby slammed Taylor’s bedroom door shut. He stomped down the hallway and made it halfway up the stairs before he exhaled and returned to Taylor’s kitchen.
“Stupid fucking plants. I should throw you in the blender. Or a river. Fuck sake.”
Colby collected the plants and took them home. He googled what type of trees they were and how to care for them. He ordered a grow light online because he wasn’t sure if the sun came from the right direction for the trees. Or if that mattered.
Hours later, he sat on the floor of his living room, nursing a beer and staring at all the text messages that Taylor hadn’t returned. Clearly Colby wasn’t meant to see that. It was obviously something Taylor wasn’t ready to share, or maybe he never wanted to share it.
Colby raked his hand through his hair and tugged on it before dropping his hand back into his lap. He took another long drink of his beer. It was clear to Colby that he’d fucked up where Taylor was concerned and even though he’d apologized via text, Taylor wasn’t yet receptive to hearing anything Colby had to say.
Or at least he wasn’t ready to talk. He was reading Colby’s messages. He had the little grey checkmark to prove it. Colby had to find a way to earn Taylor’s forgiveness, but he couldn’t if Taylor wasn’t even talking to him.
Colby waited until Sunday to try and smooth things over with Taylor, but when he arrived at the diner, his younger brother was still in a snit about the whole thing. Taylor was at the range, grilling up a variety of breakfast foods, but his usual sunny demeanor was nowhere to be seen.
“Not here, Colby.” Taylor’s jaw was set and he refused to so much as glance his way.
Colby crossed his arms over his chest. He’d sent no less than a dozen apologies and explanations to Taylor over the past couple of days but had only received silence in return, and Colby was getting tired of it.
“I said I was sorry, okay. It’s not a big deal, Taylor.” From the corner of his eye, he saw his older brother Jonah enter. “Let’s ask Jonah if he thinks it’s a big deal. I bet he doesn’t.”
Taylor whirled on Colby, pointing his metal spatula at him. “Don’t you dare. You’ve already—God—I fucking hate you sometimes.” Taylor threw the spatula down on the stove and stormed out the back door.
“Well, fuck.” Colby took his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. “I have to go fix that. Can you man the stove, Jonah?” Colby asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer before following Taylor outside.
The back door of the restaurant slammed shut and Colby glanced around, quickly locating Taylor.
“I wish you’d accept my apology, Taylor. I didn’t mean to see any of that, but you know I don’t fucking care what you do.”
“Ugh, you don’t even get it. I don’t want to talk about this with you. And you won’t leave it alone.” Taylor threw his hands up in the air.
“Maybe I would if you’d stop being mad at me.” Colby hated having people mad at him. He didn’t want to describe himself as a people pleaser, and mostly he wasn’t. Unless it was his brothers.
“Maybe I would stop being mad if you left me the hell alone.” Taylor stomped back into the kitchen and Colby followed, hot on his heels.
“I said I was sorry, Taylor. Jesus. Don’t be such a baby.”
“You’re such a jerk, Colby. Stay out of my face.” Taylor stepped into Jonah’s space and took the spatula from him. “Thanks, Jonah.”
Jonah stepped away from the stove. “You’re not welcome. Neither one of you are. Fuck you both. I wanted one day. One fucking minute where my shit mattered. I even texted that I was coming to breakfast and had something to tell everyone. But no one cares. And most of the time, I don’t care that you ignore me. But I just wanted ten fucking minutes today to tell you that I’m in love with Spencer and we’re really fucking happy, and I come here and you two have to act like little bitches all the time. It’s always about Colby and Taylor because they’re the youngest and they need the most. And when we were kids, that was fine.”
Colby realized too late that Jonah was upset and before he could say anything, Jonah fled the restaurant. Hanging his head in shame, he took his hat off and snapped it against his leg to vent some of his frustration before putting it back on his head.
“Fuck.” Taylor whispered. “He’s really mad.”
“Yeah, looks like I fucked this up too. Go me.”
“Don’t be stupid, Colby.” Taylor said softly. Usually his voice would have more bite to it when he said shit like that to Colby. “Maybe I should get over what happened. I’m embarrassed.”
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you. For what it’s worth, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Taylor nodded, but didn’t say anything else. He turned back to the range and went back to cooking. Colby quickly washed up and grabbed another spatula and gave him a hand flipping and frying.
“I am sorry I intruded though. Am I forgiven?”
Taylor turned to the sound of the back door opening and closing again.
“Spencer is waiting for you at our table. We’ll be out in a minute. And…we’re sorry, Jonah.” Taylor said, looking pretty fucking morose. Colby suspected his bad feelings weren’t all about hurting Jonah and Colby still wanted to find a way to make it up to him.
But he could only deal with one problem at a time and, right now, the crisis with Jonah was more easily solved. “We didn’t mean to steal your thunder, man. We’re sorry.”
With the apology and the promise of French toast, Jonah was going to forgive them. Especially when Colby and Taylor went out there and offered a proper congratulations to the happy couple. It was nice that Jonah had found someone to be happy with and there wasn’t a more perfect person for him than Spencer.
If only things with Taylor were as easily corrected. By the time breakfast was over, Taylor was back at the stove, and while he was talking to Colby again, there was an undercurrent of sadness there that Colby didn’t know how to fix. Only that he wanted to try.
E. M. Denning is a writer from British Columbia. She loves her family and animals, and anything cute and fuzzy. She writes romance for the 18+ plus crowd because she's both a hopeless romantic and a dirty old woman.
You can find her on her website, Facebook or on her blog.
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EMAIL: emdenningauthor@gmail.com
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