🍀💚☘️ St. Patrick's Day 2026☘️💚🍀

Sparring with Shadows by Erin O'Quinn

Summary:

Gaslight Mystery #2

Something about Simon Hart’s new PI partner Michael McCree—not to mention his secret vocation—invites trouble. Simon finds himself sparring with shadows: in the hidden bedrooms of a roaring twenties version of a gay bar…as a chained wall decoration in the flat of a thief and sexual deviant…as the quarry in a deadly confrontation in an exhibitionist’s bed…and finally in a sewer tunnel beneath the streets of a 1923 city somewhere in Ireland.

Above all, Simon is sparring with the shadow of his own secret urges. Michael will not allow him to turn away from a kind of private investigation of which he has not even dreamed, until now.

Follow a fastidious, surly investigator and his randy yet secretive partner through the very cracks in a city of gaslights and vintage motorcars, into a hidden homosexual culture, as both men find themselves sparring with shadows.

Books #1-3
Original Review May 2014:
I read all three books and since the time frame from page 1 of Heart to Hart to the last page of To the Bone only covers about two to three weeks, I'm going to do an overall review for these entries.  I won't lie, the beginning was a bit tricky to get into with the Irish slang of the time but I was able to become comfortable with it after only a chapter or so.  As I write this I am thinking that it had more to do with me not letting go of the previous book before starting this series and less of the slang language, but whatever the reason, after that first chapter I was hooked.  Simon and Michael grabbed my heart and didn't let go.  I loved the humorous banter between the new found partners.  I found them to be very enjoyable and likeable despite their moments of infuriating debates.  At times, they reminded me very much of the banter and bickering of Bogey and Bacall in The Big Sleep.  The mysteries are quite intriguing and definitely hold the reader's interest as does the humor and the obvious attraction between the pair.  Michael McCree and Simon Hart are a captivating pair that I look forward to read many times over.

Overall Series 1st Re-Read Review 2016:
Gaslight Mysteries in another one of those series that even knowing who did what, why, and how it still gets me sitting on the edge of my seat.  Simon and Michael may be polar opposites when it comes to attitude and how they face life but at the heart of it all they are a perfect match.  The offset each other in a way that only makes them stronger.  I'll definitely be revisiting this investigative duo more than once in the upcoming years, perhaps not annually but I'll say hi to them again.

RATING:

Make Mine A Double by LE Franks

Summary:

Cocktails & Chaos #1

Nick specializes in drinks, not feelings. With a passion shaken not stirred, can the new guy serve up romance?

If love ever walked into his bar, mixologist Nick Valentine would send it right back out the door. Figuring casual hookups are the best he can expect, he’d rather give his time to his makeshift family of inebriated patrons. But when the delicious new bouncer catches his eye, he can’t deny the flutters of his watered-down heart.Former soldier Davis “FatBoy” Newman can’t imagine coming out. But when the snarky hunk behind the bar proves irresistible, he wonders if he should risk it all for love. After days of subtle hints and flirty looks, the smitten security man finally secures an after-hours first kiss.Just as Nick thinks he might have something real, St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans and an offensive live Irish band conspire to keep them apart. And while FatBoy is head-over-heels, staying safely in the closet may cost him everything.Can their perfectly mixed connection pour them a happily-ever-after?

Note: Make Mine A Doubleis the laugh-out-loud first novel in the Cocktails and Chaos M/M romance series. If you like undeniable chemistry, outrageous antics, and touching connections, then you’ll adore LE Franks’s sidesplitting tale.Buy Make Mine A Double for a full-proof attraction today!This material previously released under Book One & Two of the 6 Days Series (6 Days to Valentine & 6 Days To Get Lucky). series re-editing done to integrate into a single 90k+ novel.

Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch

Summary:

Royals & Romances #2

It’s enemies to lovers in this sexy and delightful holiday mash up that pairs the spare prince of Christmas with the crown prince of St. Patrick’s Day!

Someone has been stealing Christmas’s joy, and there’s only one clue to the culprit―a single shamrock.

With Coal busy restructuring Christmas―and their dad now having a full midlife crisis in the Caribbean―Kris volunteers to investigate St. Patrick’s Day. His cover: an ambassador from Christmas to foster goodwill. What could go wrong?

Everything, it seems. Because Prince Lochlann Patrick, Crown Prince of St. Patrick’s Day, happens to be the mysterious student that Kris has been in a small war with at Cambridge. They attempt to play nice for the tabloids, but Kris can’t get through one conversation without wanting to smash Loch’s face in―he’s infuriating, stubborn, loud, obstinate, hot―

Wait―hot?

Kris might be in some trouble. Especially when it turns out that the mystery behind Christmas’s stolen magic isn’t as simple as an outright theft. But why would a Holiday that Christmas has never had contact with, one that’s always been the very basis of carefree, want to steal joy? Can a spare prince even hope to unravel all this, or will Kris lose something way more valuable than his Holiday’s resources―like his heart?

Powder by RJ Scott & VL Locey

Summary:

Railers Leagcy #3

Two weeks. No promises. Just passion… until the Winter Games change everything.

Jack O’Leary, veteran defenseman and captain of the Railers, isn’t sure where his life’s headed. Fresh off a painful divorce and staring down the end of his career, he books a vacation to clear his head—romance not included. But when he meets a fiery young snowboarder who refuses to let him hide behind his walls, Jack finds himself falling hard for the first time in years. When their paths cross again at the Winter Games, Jack must decide if he’s brave enough to chase the future he never expected.

Tian-Lei Cai-Wilder’s living the dream—endorsements, medals, and the bright spotlight of snowboarding fame. His reward? Two weeks in the sun to finally breathe. Meeting Jack wasn’t part of the plan, but the gruff, gorgeous hockey legend is impossible to resist. Their vacation fling burns hot and ends clean… or so Tian thinks. When they’re both chosen for Team USA, sparks fly all over again—only this time, the whole world is watching.

Powder is a steamy age-gap, opposites-attract, second-chance sports romance featuring a brooding hockey veteran, a golden-boy snowboarder, and a fling that refuses to stay in the past.

Original Review March 2026:

This has been on my kindle longer than I care to admit and I'm embarrassed by the fact that I hadn't read the blurp closer because had I, I would have read this before the Winter Games a couple of weeks ago instead of after. Though, TBH, with the Paralympics about to start it is still Olympic season so I guess it's okay😉.

Gotta admit something else, I am not much of a snowboarding follower, I watched a couple of the runs during the Games while waiting for sledding & curling events but that's it, so I can't speak to the accuracy the authors gave it but knowing their work as I do, I'm guessing they did their research to give it the respect it deserves.

Onto Powder . . . 

This is the third entry in the authors' next generation in their hockey universe, Railers Legacy and I found it interesting to see an older member of the team as the focus(or half of the focus😉) of this story. When people think of next generations in entertainment, they tend to expect younger characters, so this was a nice surprise. Jack and Tian go together so perfectly, and the fact that their age difference really didn't come into lay other than some minor brother/sister dialog, and I love the fact that it wasn't their shared goal of medal aspirations that connect them(ie their first meeting but I won't go beyond detail-wise😉). Don't get me wrong, an actual Olympic meet would have been great too but IMO, this made for an even better story.

If I'm 100% honest, as much as I love the guys, it's Jack's relationship with his sister that really jumped out at me. I'm an only child but having read this near my uncle's(who is no longer with us) birthday(finished it on the day actually) and barely a year past losing my mom, I couldn't help but think of what they were like as kids. They grew apart after he got married but I think there was an unexpected snarkyness to them growing up(going by stories Mom told) and Jack & Fiona spoke to those story memories. For that, I want to thank RJ Scott & VL Locey, giving me a chance to picture them in Jack & Fi's place, it brought more than a few tears but they were all happy tears. Thank you 💓 

I won't go further so as not to spoil anything. I will add that Jack and Tian are great together and though they are seemingly at different places in their sporting careers, they both give it everything they have but they manage to not let it get in the way of their growing co-journey. They are both characters I would be happy to know in my daily life which helped me connect to and root for them. There is some build-up to the authors' next Legacy entry, Fly, which I have a feeling will be more angsty/dramatic than Powder but that won't keep me away. 

Powder is a lovely heartwarming and enjoyable gem and though it may be less dramatic than many of their entries, its not all laughs either, a great blend of romance, humor, healing making for an all around gem that will make you smile, we all need more of them in our lives.

RATING:

Oz by Lily Morton

Summary:

Findng Home #1

What happens when temporary becomes forever?

Oz Gallagher does not do relationships well. Bored and jobless after another disastrous hook up, he decides to leave London for a temporary job in the wilds of Cornwall. Surely managing a stately home on a country estate will be easier than navigating the detritus of his relationships at home. Six months there will alleviate a bit of his wanderlust and then he can come back to London as footloose and fancy free as the day he left it.

However, when he gets there he finds a house in danger of crumbling to the ground and a man who is completely unlike anyone he’s ever met. An earl belonging to a family whose roots go back hundreds of years,

Silas is the living embodiment of duty and sacrifice. Two things that Oz has never wanted. He's also warm and funny and he draws Oz to him like a magnet. Oz banks on the fact that they're from two very different worlds to stop himself falling for Silas. But what will he do when he realises that these differences are actually part of the pull to one another? Will falling in love be enough to make him stop moving at last and realise that he's finally home?

From bestselling author, Lily Morton, comes a romantic comedy about two very different men and one very dilapidated house.

This is the first book in the Finding Home series.

Sparring with Shadows by Erin O'Quinn

Simon felt happy. A fleeting sense of well-being, of some satisfying dream just resolved, caused him to waken slowly instead of experiencing his usual jolt into reality. He was warm. In fact, an unusual kind of heat had invaded the entire area of his groin. Instead of fighting it, he sank into it, allowing his penis to sit rigidly in a place of refuge. He pushed closer to the source of emanating warmth. And then it moved.

His haven, his harbor, seized the entire length of his flesh with a gentle squeeze, and he moaned, spurring it deeper, willing the dream to continue.

At some level, he realized he’d entered Michael, whether by his own urgent need or by his bedmate’s polished maneuvering. Other than his inner muscle’s sudden seizure, the man was not moving at all, letting Simon push into his anus and groan into his broad back.

For once in his life, Simon let his needing flesh dictate his actions. The sensation of being inside another human being had thickened him, made him harder and longer than he’d ever been. The hot walls of his lover’s rectum seemed to swell and subside, collapse and widen as he thrust himself to the very root of his testicles. And then he withdrew a few inches, only to slam himself into those walls again, plunging and battering.

Now Michael’s buttocks had begun to move in waves and swells, letting Simon ride him, urge him, run him while he cried out a name in his approaching release. The moment of climax left him shuddering in joy and disbelief, biting into the man’s back, drawing blood.

Not once had Michael uttered a word. It was as though he had slept through Simon’s own dream and now was returning to deep slumber. Grateful, Simon lay with his arms around the big man’s chest, his penis still inside the hot buttocks, listening to his own heart crash against his ribs.

Before he withdrew and rolled to the far side, Simon let his lips move against Michael’s naked shoulders. It was a silent appreciation, lasting only a few seconds, and then he escaped the large mahogany bed.

His jock strap was halfway down his shins, and his kaffies were nowhere to be seen. He let the underwear drop to the carpet. Seizing his robe from the leather chair, he shrugged it on and reached into his linen chest. Towel in hand, he left without looking back, closing the door softly behind him.

Almost running down the thinly carpeted hallway on this way to the tenants’ bathing room, Simon almost wished he’d looked back. Would Michael still have been pretending sleep? Or would he have been watching him in the soft gaslight as he made his escape?

He tried the door of the water closet, and the lever gave to his pull. Once inside the small room, he bolted the door and disrobed.

Simon stood in the small claw-footed bathtub, watching the water fill, realizing this room was the only one where he could truly be alone. Even his own bedchamber was now the stalking ground of his new roomer, a circumstance he himself had allowed to exist.

He settled into the water, letting his sticky groin become immersed in the cleansing warmth. He could lavish only about ten minutes here before the next roomer would no doubt beat on the door, demanding his turn on the toilet or in the cast iron tub.

He let his head fall back and his shoulders relax. His mouth, too, moved in an inchoate smile, remembering his astonishing climax. Michael. His conniving, experienced, constantly aroused flat-mate had maneuvered him into an act of anal intercourse.

From that moment, there could be no question as to whether Simon was a practicing omi-palone. Michael had caused him to enter a realm that set him forever after in a special niche. He had just entered the world of homosexual men. Until a while ago, Simon could still fool himself into thinking Michael had taken him by force. From now on, the conniving bastard seemed to be saying, Simon was the sodomite.

He wondered how he’d explain that to the melancholy-eyed God he sometimes prayed to.

Make Mine A Double by LE Franks

Chapter One

The Day after the Night Before

The man on the floor was hard to ignore. If I got up now, I’d be stepping on him—not that I planned on leaving anytime soon. It wasn’t every day a man fell at my feet, much less one of the pretty ones. I wasn’t complaining—I needed the distraction. February with its faux-holiday was always my own personal hell, and this week, with the tidal wave of red and pink already threatening to swamp me, things kept getting worse. Maybe my luck was finally changing. I hoped so.

I squinted in the dim light to get a better look. His strawberry blond hair was disheveled, uncovered now that the ball cap he’d worn into the bar was resting against the chrome leg of my barstool. He stared up at me with eyes like some cartoon character from a Looney Tunes classic. Comically huge saucers of Arctic blue overwhelmed a nose too pert for a man; his rosy lips forming a perfect ‘O’ of shock and surprise completed the picture as he lay stunned.

I’d watched the cap spin merrily away as he landed face-first onto the industrial-grade carpet, and winced—not in sympathy for the blow to his face, per se. No, it was due to the knowledge that FatBoy Newman had thrown up on that exact spot the previous day. I groaned as unwelcome memories of FatBoy and the events of last night flooded my mind, distracting me from the blond.

The Night Before

FatBoy was the newest addition to our little Frisson bar family. He’d been working the door for a couple of months, doing his job by lurking in the background and monitoring the crowds stirring each other up on weekends. One minute, he'd be wallpaper, and the next, he was hanging out at my end of the bar where he played a nightly game of twenty questions. Last night it was a string of questions like Marie Claire–or-Vogue? and Barbeque Beans-or-Pork & Beans or, more disturbing, Brad Pitt-or-Yoda?"

Normally, I would have blown FatBoy off as I do every other asshole annoying me while I’m working; even the bouncers who leaned their way through their shifts stealing olives and fruit, won’t linger if I was there. FatBoy was different. He might’ve looked like a giant hick with the brains the size of a pea and a case of ’roid rage--but I was doubtful. For all I knew, he had balls the size of an elephant’s, and he’d need them. He’d been pressuring me for weeks to date his cousin, ever since he figured out that I was gay, and I’d been equally absolute in my refusal.

I don’t date, no matter how smoky blue the eyes are when asked.

Not that I tried to hide my orientation. It’s just none of anyone’s damn business and not a topic of conversation I usually led with. At six-two with a naturally muscled build—bar patrons assumed I was straight. It made things pleasant and light with our mixed crowd of tourists and local party boys and girls, and—most importantly—the happy mood kept tips pouring in.

I also wasn't a megalomaniac thinking everyone wanted to sleep with me—though working the bar I got plenty of come-ons and come-hithers, and compliments on my brown hair and green eyes. And despite the occasional tumble with Juan, I hadn't met anyone who inspired me to make the effort to change.

If you want to know the truth, in my heart of hearts, I was a romantic; I dreamed of being swept off my feet by the "one".

In the meantime, I kept my head down, mixed my drinks and kept my dreams and hands mostly to myself. So, despite the nightly grilling, FatBoy wouldn't have known any different if he hadn't walked in on my attempt to seduce Juan, our bar-back, during a very slow Saturday afternoon.

FatBoy caught us in the cold room seconds after a collision wrapped me around Juan's wiry body and forced our lips together. Fortunately, our tongues took the brunt of the impact and ensured no lasting damage to our libidos. No, Mr. Newman took the blame for that particular injury and our subsequent failure-to-launch sequence that resulted.

Instead of backing out like a normal person, he stayed and leaned against the frame of the door watching us quietly, until I pulled away from Juan.

“Why the fuck are you still here? Can’t you see we’re busy?” I snapped in frustration.

FatBoy didn’t respond beyond a little twitch at the corner of his mouth—though he did lean slightly out of the way as Juan slipped past him, buttoning his jeans as he went.

I sighed deeply and watched him go. Our relationship was more about convenience than romance, but it was going to be long days of skittish looks before Juan settled down and overcame his fear of discovery.

Like that would ever happen.

I glared at FatBoy and adjusted my cock.

"Boys, huh?" he drawled and settled back into his pose.

“Not boys, men. I’m not a pedophile, asshole.” As I stomped back to the bar, I ran through a list of unpleasant scenarios I could subject the prick to before I had to see him again—a fall into an active volcano, his screams…my joy…

I sensed his eyes on my back and the same silent force field I'd experienced ever since he’d started working there.

I whirled around. "What? What! What? Did you need something? Did your calendar say it was Be-a-dick-at-work-day?' 'Cuz I have to tell you, I've got a serious case of blue balls going on here, and unless you plan on dropping and giving me head right here and now, I'm pretty sure I'm not interested."

I might have caught a slight glimmer in his eyes when I said that—but really, who cared?

"Blake asked after you. Figured you'd rather I tracked you down instead of sending him into the icebox after you." FatBoy smirked and pivoted, leaving me alone with the unhappy thought that I owed him one. With a silent apology to Juan’s fears, I wound my way back to the office to check on the latest from the boss.

Best efforts of ignoring the new bouncer aside, we were now out to the six-five former linebacker from Tennessee—a “Vol” who’d majored in French poets of the seventeenth century. Listening to FatBoy recite Molière in the original French, drunk off his ass, at four in the morning, in a thick southern drawl, wasn’t to be missed.

Despite all of that, or perhaps because of it, FatBoy was a bit of a prick—a trait I usually found entertaining when directed toward someone else, but after my fobbing off all the gentle nudges and hints about his cousin, he must have decided it was time to bring out the heavy artillery and press the issue once and for all.

In this case, he used his prickdom to force me into the drinking contest. He was, he said, a gentleman of the South and therefore was obliged to offer me a game of chance rather than the outright blackmail he’d originally planned. Not that I believed he'd risk anyone's job, but it did make me curious.

I wasn't sure what was so important about finding his cousin a date. I'd said no enough times any other muscle-head would have dropped it long ago. FatBoy's cousin must have been horribly disfigured or suffering from some social disease, or on parole for unspeakable acts as a minor, for him to be this relentlessly annoying.

More likely, his aunt was nagging him to death—afraid her baby was going to meet a big bad leather daddy now that he liked cock; I’d heard stories. I was just lucky to be the first gay he’d met. This hadn't been a problem in my own family—there was no one left to care the last time the door hit me on my way out. But all in all, I wasn't surprised when he finally cornered me.

I wasn’t surprised when he finally cornered me. The terms of the bet were simple. We would each drink at the same time until we stopped. First one to pass out or throw up lost. Winner named his prize.

The reason I thought FatBoy might have been juicing—beyond the imposing build and lack of neck under that starched white collar and tie—he'd overlooked the fact I had total control over the very medium determining the outcome of the bet.

I am not just any bartender—I had the skills to make your taste buds dance and your liver weep. I was an alchemist with alcohol, a God with a bottle of Cachaça and an ebony muddler. If I’d been a prissy fuck, I'd have left stacks of business cards lying around trumpeting my expertise as a master mixologist.

My plan was simple. To win, and win with enough collateral damage he would never think to mention any of his family members as long as he lived—possibly not even then. I would end him with a fresh batch of Blackberry Collins, one of the nastiest concoctions I've ever had the misfortune to encounter.

FatBoy blanched as I pulled out the gin, Blackberry Liqueur, fresh lemons, and the sugar syrup Juan had made earlier and left in the cold storage to chill. Ironic, eh?

Eschewing my elegant monogrammed shaker set, I opted for a silver champagne bucket to mix the quantities we were going to need. It was slick in my hands, and I grinned evilly at the big bastard as I stroked fingers up and down the shiny surface of the bucket—his eyes following my motions

“Ya wanna back out? Now’d be the time ta do it.” I purred. I could be such a fucker when I got into it, and this poor schmuck had no chance at all.

“Nah, let’s get this show on the road. Bien?” FatBoy waved his hand disagreeably at the jumble of ingredients on the bar, wrinkling his nose as if he smelled something foul. The French syllables writhed their way across his tongue. The “Bien” sounded more like “Bee-ing” and I shuddered. Madame Robertson would be having kittens by now—yes, two years of required college-level French, I wasn’t a totally illiterate fuckup.

Since he wouldn’t back out, we quickly settled on the terms of the bet. If I lost, I’d agree to a blind date with the much-ballyhooed gay cousin, whatever-his-name-was. If he lost, FatBoy would never, ever speak to me again about dating his cousin, his brother, or any other shirttail relation he could come up with.

As an added bonus, he’d be my personal bitch for a day. I couldn’t wait. I had plans for FatBoy that had nothing to do with the selection of imported lubes currently displayed along the bathroom shelf in my apartment and everything to do with the grimy porcelain beneath it.

I had him sign a release of liability waiver hastily penned in Cherry Jubilee lipstick on the back of a bar napkin, courtesy of Rachel M Renoir, Esq., who’d been sitting at the bar nursing her vodka for the last hour watching this unfold. If I killed him with the little trick I planned, I certainly didn’t want to be sued by some red-necked relative fresh from the woods.

Idly I fingered the napkin, my thoughts sharply derailed by Rachel as she slapped the back of my head.

Hard.

“Yow! What the fuck?”

“I don’t want to know what you’re planning, but I think we can safely assume that you deserve to be slapped.”

FatBoy’s interest perked way up at that point so I just shrugged in agreement and turned away and resumed my preparations.

Rachel was a regular of mine, an attorney specializing in family law. She'd been slapping hands away from her gorgeous rack all night—a trespass the less-than-honorable Rachel only wanted to grant our cocktail server Simone. Simone, however, played hard-to-get, banking all the tips from Rachel at a rate that would make a madam blush. At some point, I'd step in and inform her Simone was married and had a son in high school. Rachel was merely the latest contributor to the Charles Lopes college fund. When it came to the happiness and safety of her boy, Simone would cut off body parts if anyone messed with it.

I wasn't risking my nuts as long as Simone kept it to harmless flirting. God knows I did enough of that myself, ogling the hot men and pretty boys from behind my bar. I might’ve been many things, but a hypocrite I was not.

Rachel was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed despite my best efforts to dull her awareness with my drinks. The one I'd slid in front of her when I'd asked for the waiver, sat half-melted in a puddle of condensation—an impression of her lipstick barely marred the rim dusted in chili powder and sugar.

I swirled a clean towel across the oak top in front of her. "Don'tcha like it, Rach?"

Her narrowed eyes sent a ripple of alarm up my spine and I swiped the glass away, depositing it gently into the bar tub.

I was going to have to up my game with the next one.

As I turned to consider the bottles on the wall, she grabbed my arm to stop me. Pulling the napkin over in front of me she tapped a long red nail under FatBoy's X.

"Seriously, Nick, think about it a minute. I can tell—you're about to do something epically stupid, possibly dangerous, if not flat out illegal."

I shook my head and dismissed her concerns. "It's all in fun." I flashed her a grin. "Don't worry about it. It's my way of sayin' stay-the-fuck-out-of-my-life in the only language a Neanderthal understands."

Rachel's face darkened like a tornado warning at twilight. I half-stepped back, though not far enough, or fast enough, to avoid the storm when it hit.

“Everyone knows you don’t have a life, Nick. You think playing slap and tickle with some twink is going to satisfy you, but it won’t. You’re getting old, and you’re turning into one of those cranky, bitter old men.”

She was hissing now, breasts pressed against the wood, her face jutted forward. Any moment she was going to cyclone across the bar and fling me into the air with the force of her words.

“One morning, you’re going to wake up and realize that you’ve run to seed, and you’re drinking more than you’re making for your customers. And it will be a waste.”

I waited for her to blow herself out.

“Jesus, Rach. Get back on the meds for fuck’s sake. I’m twenty-five, not fifty, and if I don’t want to hook up with every needy man that sits on a barstool begging, then I don’t have to.”

I grabbed a glass and poured two fingers’ worth of top-shelf tequila, and pushed it in front of her. “Here, drink this. I think your blood alcohol has fallen below optimum level for rational thought. Do you have to take a hip flask into court with you? ’Cuz I’m thinkin’ it’s a poor example for all the widows and orphans you have as clients.”

Her eyes flamed. "You're such a child!"

Watching her like that was fun. She threw back the shot and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, leaving bright red smears across the knuckles--the Cherry Jubilee lipstick was getting quite a workout this evening.

I glanced away. At some point in the conversation, FatBoy had moved back to the door and was checking the ID of a teenybopper with a bad dye job. I guessed the plastic card in his hand had about three seconds of life left before it was shredded.

I turned back and grinned at her. "You said I was old a minute ago. Which is it?"

Rachel grabbed my chin, no longer playing around, nose to nose. "I'm not watching you make an ass of yourself and possibly hurting a very kind man. I don't know why you're so rude to Davis."

"Davis?" I asked her and checked around to see if I missed anyone entering the bar earlier.

Rachel huffed, slapped a ten spot down. She stood, pointing to the door. "That's Davis!"

It was also the end of Rachel for the evening. She stalked away from me, patted FatBoy on the shoulder and headed out into the night.

I shrugged again and returned to slicing lemons.

This time the slap to the back of my head nearly severed my thumb.

“Fuck! Simone. What the hell?”

“No tip, asshole!” She smacked me again, this time harder since I’d already dropped the knife.

"Jesus. Stop it. What was that one for?"

“It’s for your brains, you clueless, self-absorbed pendejo! You call Davis ‘FatBoy’.”

“I do?” Shocking. I had no idea FatBoy had another name. It made sense; most mothers don’t insult their children straight from the womb—not like I'd known from personal experience.

Simone rolled her eyes. “Yes, you do! And it’s not okay. You’re the only one who does.”

“I am?” The surprise was real. “Why am I the only one who calls him FatBoy?”

This time I had to duck. It looked as though Simone was putting serious power behind her arm.

“Focus! You owe me for Rachel. You chased her out, and I shoulda made another ten dollars in tips before the night was done.” I absently pulled a bill from my pocket and dropped it onto her tray—it was a twenty.

Mollified, she opened the bar fridge and grabbed a Diet Dr Pepper for me. I must have seemed dazed, usually I had to pay for Simone’s attention—oh, wait… I glared at her, and she smiled sweetly, then tucked the twenty into her bra, as if that would keep it safe—which it would.

“Well, whatever his name is—he’s going down and his little cousin too!” I waved the knife in the air before resuming prep.

Simone snorted. “You’re soooo gay. That was a Wizard of Oz reference.”

“Go away, Simone, spread your harpy wings and find some man, woman, or beast who will succumb to your thrall so you can suck their blood dry.”

“Touchy.” She smirked again and sauntered over to a newly populated table of jocks. They were barely legal so all she’d get out of them would be a few fumbled gropes and a number smeared on sweaty paper.

Dammit, she still had my twenty.

Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch

Chapter One

Two Months after Christmas

I really was making a concerted effort not to be a prick today.

I took the time to work out because that always puts me in a better mood, but honestly, that was my first mistake, letting myself be in public. Home, classes, studying, that’s it—I am not fit for community involvement yet.

So tripping off the treadmill and falling on my ass in the crowded gym when a text came through our group chat from Iris?

My fault. Entirely. I accept that. But I put on my big boy pants and attempted to reclaim said concerted effort by grabbing a ridiculously overindulgent mocha on my way to the library.

Which triggered mistake number two: I didn’t see one of the café doors was locked and rammed right into it, mocha acting like a scalding, syrupy airbag.

So now, I don’t have time to run back to my flat to change—I booked that study room and I’m going to get it today, goddamn it—which means the best I can do is towel off the caramel mocha mess in the washroom, zip my sweater over my ruined shirt, and cut over to the library, smelling faintly of espresso and cocoa.

Do not be a prick.

Do not be a prick.

It’s been almost two months, and it isn’t like I even broke up with her—so why does it feel like a breakup?

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I push into the Cambridge University Library, shower-damp hair falling in my face as I look at the screen like it’s a bomb that might go off.

PEEP, MINI CANDY CANE, AND THE BEST CLAUS

IRIS

my sister delayed her wedding. AGAIN.

COAL

what was it this time, she couldn’t book that metallica cover band she wanted

IRIS

some bullshit about the centerpieces

oh yeah coal you know my sister, big into 80s heavy metal to go with her Springtime Renewal theme

but my point is you can cancel your travel plans, no wedding next weekend

I exhale, loudly, and stop walking up the south wing staircase to collapse against the wall.

Some of my prick-ness does evaporate now.

I won’t have to see Iris next weekend. I won’t have to plaster on a smile like I didn’t profess my love to her eight weeks ago, right after her engagement to my brother got called off, only to realize halfway through my drunken spewing of feelings that I was not, actually, in love with her. And she was not, in any way, in love with me.

Which should’ve deflated the awkwardness right out of the whole situation, but the singular moment my brain continues reliving, the thing that keeps me pinned to the wall in the staircase as another student sidles past me and down to the exit, is the bone-aching embarrassment of realizing that she knew I’d been at least trying to be in love with her our whole friendship, and she’d been dreading this proclamation all that while.

It made sense for us to be together. It’d made sense since we were twelve years old, and something about her walking into our Christmas Eve Ball like the personification of springtime, Persephone come to life in pastel purple and airy fuchsia, made all those stories I was obsessed with say She’s a Princess of Easter, you’re a Prince of Christmas, that’s happy ever after.

But I’d realized at a younger age that being Santa’s son isn’t the storybook dream it should be. Not even my own father thought I should be the one to marry Iris when he wanted to forge an alliance with Easter; he’d foisted the situation on Coal. So why did I keep ahold of the prince and princess, happy ever after dream, when nothing else in my life was a fantasy?

Because marrying her would’ve made you useful, and you have nothing else to offer.

My eyes at least don’t sting when I think that now. Two months of reeling in the vortex of realizing that I have nothing to contribute to Christmas has helped me progress past grieving to numbness.

Coal and Iris banter in our group chat some more, errant wedding stuff, and my thumb hovers over the Settings button. I could mute the chat. Why they continue to use it, to loop me in on their conversations, I don’t know. Well, I know why Coal does—he’s determined to keep our friend group from falling apart. He and Iris were never even remotely interested in getting married, so their relationship well survived any fallout of their almost-marriage. But is Iris going along with including me in the group chat because it’s what Coal wants? Or does she want me in her life, even after I proved what an oblivious ass I am?

On paper, she and I worked. Oh my god, the hours of my life I wasted writing about that happy ending, bullshit poems and stories and letters, some love-struck sap. And I didn’t realize until the very moment of telling Iris I love you that I only loved the idea of a happy ending, not her.

But the look on her face—she knew. And she gently said, “Kris…” in that delicate, trying-to-talk-down-a-crazy-person tone, and that was what clinched it for me.

Had I been that disgusting the whole time? Had I been using her for my own ends all along? We were friends once, right?

We have a whole separate text thread for the two of us, where she sends me the absurd, overly pompous words her professors use that she doesn’t even believe are real; and I send her photos of objects that are particularly odd looking or interesting people around campus that she can use as studies for sketching or sculpting or whatever her art outlet of the day is.

That was real, wasn’t it? That friendship?

I swipe over to that private thread. The last text was weeks ago, the morning classes started for this term:

IRIS

IRIS

this poli-sci professor just used the word myrmecophilous

did i spell that right

even spell check is like wtf

She initiated it. She reached out. I was the one who chose not to respond.

I can’t deal with this right now.

Ever the psychic, my brother sends me a private text.

COAL

COAL

you not responding to the group chat is like if you were lurking in the same room and creepily watching us have fun without you

Then switch to a private thread.

COAL

coward

Fuck off

COAL

asshole

Pissant

There’s a long enough pause that I push off the wall and continue up to the third floor of the library. My shirt is stuck to my stomach now, the drying mocha making the fabric stiff and tacky. And I now connect that this means I haven’t had coffee all morning, and it’s, what, almost ten? I booked the study room for two hours, no time to make another coffee run before my reservation, so this session will have to be done sans caffeine and this is still no reason to get fucking pissy.

Deep breaths. I’m making an effort today. Shirking this fog.

My phone buzzes.

COAL

oh that’s a new one. i had to google it.

You’re going to graduate from Yale in three months and you don’t know what ‘pissant’ means?

COAL

dude i love you but you text like a boomer

That is quite possibly the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.

COAL

who else texts in full proper punctuation

Hex texts like an evolved human being too.

COAL

oh he does!

wait

oh ew is hex you

did i fall for someone who is basically my brother but goth

Better than someone who is Dad but goth.

In response, Coal sends about fifteen middle finger emojis.

One side of my mouth cocks. He’d be way too pleased with himself if he knew the only time I’ve smiled the past few weeks was at his bullshit.

Got a paper on the French Revolution to finish, but I have time if there’s anything you need me to do. I can work on more correspondence, or speeches? I sent a few things to Wren last week but haven’t heard if you need more.

COAL

i’m good on all written requests. i swear. besides, what have we agreed on?

You agreed. I ignored you.

COAL

we agreed that i need to learn to handle this stuff on my own. if there’s anything super important, i’ll loop you in. but for now, just worry about making louis xvi your bitch

Coal doesn’t need to learn to stand on his own as Christmas’s leader, though. He’s already crushing it.

Which means he doesn’t need me as much. He never really did.

I rub my chest as I mute my phone and push into the third floor.

Desks and tables sit in perfectly organized rows between shelves of reference books, but I weave through them all to reach the handful of private rooms. My third year at Cambridge, and just last term I found the perfect work setup: a study room that gets ideal air circulation because the vent actually opens, is far enough from the main stairwell so noise is minimal, and has whiteboard markers that always work. I’m not too proud to admit that I can be bought with office supplies.

But as I come up to the study room, I stop. Dead in my tracks.

The door is shut. The chalkboard on the front has a word scrawled across it in handwriting I know too well:

Occupied

That overly stylized cursive is mocking me. Flat out pretentious for pretentious’s sake at this point. And the window to the right has the blinds drawn, but the light is clearly on inside.

I pull out my phone again—ignoring another stream of texts between Iris and Coal—and check the time. Five after my scheduled window started.

No fucking way.

I booked it this time. I fucking booked it this time.

It’s a big university. I get that I’m not the only one here. Like, logically, I know that other people have discovered that this study room is excellent, and doesn’t have that weird smell that the others do, but as I stand in the middle of the aisle between students typing away on papers like I should be doing, my vision goes red.

This is the fifth time in the past two weeks that I’ve come to use the room and found this same cursive OCCUPIED drawn across the chalkboard. The first two times, bad luck on my part, whatever; I’d try again later. C’est la fucking vie. But by the third time, I realized that something about this jackass’s study schedule lines up exactly with mine, only they always get here before I’m able to no matter how early I shift things around, so today, I booked it in advance and that study room is mine.

There’s something at Cambridge called the Week Five Blues: midway through a term, when the end isn’t in sight yet, the drag of slogging through the first half catches up to students and everyone goes a little droopy. Only I’m not having Week Five Blues right now; I’m having Week Five Blind Fury.

I stomp the remaining space to the study room and bang my fist on the door. Which earns me a startled shush from a nearby guy who looks like he’s on the my-blood-is-now-energy-drinks end of the Week Five Blues spectrum.

There’s no response from the room thief.

I try the handle. Locked. Fucker.

Knock again. Louder. I get another shush and I concave my body around the door like that will muffle what is now full-on pounding.

Finally, there’s the sound of a chair creaking inside.

Then a voice. Masculine, annoyed. “Yeah?”

“This room is mine,” I say into the door’s seam.

A pause.

The lock clicks. The door cracks open a sliver, and a guy peers out at me.

Pale skin. Red hair poking out from under a gray beanie. High, sharp cheekbones. Freckles scattered across his face, full lips twisted in derision through his short red facial hair. Chunky headphones hang around his neck with the faintest pulse of music vibrating out of them.

I have several immediate thoughts:

I should send Iris a picture of this guy. He’d make a great character study.

And: fuck, he’s hot.

The latter one might as well be a mental ball gag for the way my throat closes over.

Aaaaaaand now there are two thoughts strangling me.

I legitimately cannot remember the last time I found anyone attractive outside of Iris. The people I dated as half-assed attempts to distract myself from her were more just … okay? And even the sight of Iris never choked me up like this.

I blink dumbly. I’ve been quiet for an unacceptably long time.

“The fuck you want?” the guy snaps in an Irish accent so thick my already teetering brain blacks out, resets, and barely registers what he said.

Stop thinking about ball gags.

I whip out my phone—Iris and Coal are still talking, now about how her sister almost had tiers of donuts instead of a wedding cake—and pull up the app to show him my reservation. “This study room is mine.”

The guy squints at the screen. “I got no idea what you’re showing me. Who the fuck is Lily and why does she hate—are those the words cream filled?”

I yank my phone back. The texts popped down over the app.

My cheeks burn. “Not that—”

“Cream filled. Ya pervert.” Then he cocks his head and frowns. “Do I know you?”

I glower at him. “I don’t make a habit out of associating with thieves.”

His eyes roll. “Christ—”

“I booked this study room.” I shove my phone into my pocket. “I got on the app. I booked this room. It’s mine. You need to leave.”

He sizes me up with renewed interest and leans one shoulder against the doorframe. “Ah. So you’re the one.”

“The one?”

“The bastard who’s been stealing it from me.”

I scoff. “Stealing it from you? You’re the one illegally here now.”

“Illegally? Get off it.”

Someone shushes us.

I rip a hand through my hair as I drop my voice. “At the very least”—all right, let’s not get carried away—“negligently here. I booked this room.”

“I do na care if the King himself gifted this room to you. Is there some repercussion for not obeying that almighty app of yours?”

… is there?

My pause is answer, and he grins, victorious.

“I’ll be getting back to my work, then.”

He starts to shut the door.

I wedge my foot in it.

The look he gives is half disbelief, half disgust. “Oh, piss off—you canna be this high on the room?”

“You’re the one high on it. Give it up. There are others you can use without breaching the agreed-upon social constructs of the Spacefinder app.” Do I sound as batshit as I think I do?

The guy’s brows twist in stifled repulsion.

Yeah. I do.

He leans towards me through the door. He’s taller than I am, which isn’t exactly a rarity, but he’s using that height now to his advantage, so I hate him even more on principle.

A billow of spice hits me, too-rich cologne undercut with a bitter chemical scent that makes my nose itch. And I feel like a moron for smelling him, because he’s definitely not smelling me, but I can’t move back without relinquishing my hold on the door. He realizes that and presses closer, closer, and I bend back farther, farther, as mocking scorn rises on his face—

He stops. Sniffs.

“What kind of cologne is that, boyo?”

Boyo? “Eau de mind your own business.”

He snorts. “Rather more of an eau de I dropped my coffee all over myself?”

I was really trying to break out of my gloom today.

And you know what? I am.

I’m going from wallowing in self-hatred to being actively irate.

Which is an … unusual reaction for me. I can’t remember the last time I got angry. Even my aforementioned prickish state manifests in me swallowing whatever irritable comments I want to make so I just end up depressed and sulky.

This is the first time I’m letting the anger out.

And I gotta admit. It feels good.

“Listen up, pal—I am two days from this paper on French political thought determining whether I pass this course on European politics,” and that won’t save me from having to do a fourth year at what is typically a three-year school, but fuck that. “Which means right now, my body is being held together by obscure facts about the French Revolution. I don’t care how hot you are, if you don’t get out of that room in the next ten seconds, I will grab you by that tank top you think makes you look effortlessly relaxed but really makes you look like you’re trying too hard and go full Robespierre on your ass.”

The guy peels back from me with a tawdry grin.

Then I hear what I said.

Ohhhhhh for fuck’s sake.

“Hot, eh?” His eyes trail over me so very, very slowly, but his conceited smirk is an equalizer to any reaction that tries to prickle along my skin.

“Not…” I stutter. “That isn’t the point of what I said.”

“Nah. Rather the bit where you wanted to grab me by my tank top and do what with me?”

Jesus fuck. “Get out of my study room.”

His jaw cocks to the side and he arches one thick brow. “Or what? You’ll enact your fancy wee death threat?”

This situation.

Might be getting away from me.

I’m in too deep now. So I hold, seething, and the guy chuckles dryly.

“Christ, but this university will kill us all.” He scratches his forehead and fixes me with a resolved glower. “I got my own overhanging schedule of misery to dance with, so bring it on, Coffee Shop.”

He punts my foot out of the way and slams the door in my face.

I grab the knob, but he instantly locks it, and I rattle the handle futilely. I swear I hear him laugh inside.

Part of me wants to hammer on the door again, cause all kinds of pandemonium until he gives it up. But I don’t want to risk being thrown out of the library or losing access to this study room entirely, so I force myself to breathe slowly through my nose.

What would I do if I wasn’t mentally and emotionally drained from school and home shit, and overall stretched in like seventeen directions? What would I do. What would I …

No. Screw that.

I don’t want to take the High Road.

I don’t want to do the responsible thing because I did the responsible thing and this asshole is in my study room.

So what would my brother do? Or what would he have done before he reformed, back when he was a whirlwind of rashness and chaos?

I look down at my hand and flex my palm.

Christmas’s magic lets me spread my Holiday’s cheer far and wide. It also lets me create a lot of things spontaneously.

Like, for instance, for a totally innocent example, tinsel.

Enough to fill a whole study room?

This is a horrific use of magic. It breaks pretty much all the don’t use excessive displays of magic around normal people rules, but Dad isn’t really in charge of Christmas anymore, is he? Coal is. And Coal would absolutely be behind this use of Christmas’s magic.

So fuck it.

There’s a moment. Where I’m staring at the door. And I think to myself, This is my rock bottom.

But I might as well find out what the full depth of my rock bottom looks like. Maybe there’s something interesting down here, like my dignity.

I lay my hand flat on the door and grab on to every connection I have to Christmas’s magic and pummel that study room with tinsel. In Cambridge blue, school spirit and all.

A sharp cry pops from within the room.

“JESUS FUCKING SHITE—”

Time stretches in a weird pause as I nonchalantly walk a few feet back towards the desks. I get to a bookshelf and duck against it as the knob is twisting, and everyone seated is looking at the room. Someone is already shushing.

The door heaves inward, shoving against the tinsel, until he manages to get it open enough that he can stumble out—along with a waterfall, a deluge, a whole ass bunch of bright blue tinsel.

The study hub goes utterly still.

The guy stands there, arms out helplessly, looking like the Swamp Thing from the Cambridge lagoon. I can’t even see his face, he’s so covered.

I’m proud to say that I’m not the first one to laugh.

That honor goes to energy-drink-in-my-blood guy, who cackles and yanks out his phone and records, and soon the whole study hub is busting up and filming this guy getting pranked.

I pull out my phone and hit record as he removes a handful of tinsel from his face. His eyes snap around at the laughing students and he looks more irritated than embarrassed as he bobs his head in a yeah, have a laugh at my expense way.

His gaze locks on my phone.

I lower it and give him a cheesy grin.

He’ll probably blame it on some kind of confetti bomb. I don’t care. Let him know it was me though. I want this credit.

Don’t mess with my study room, asshole.

His face dissolves into a withering glare and he flips me off.

If I’d known it was that easy to vanquish this squatter from my study room, I’d have tinseled him weeks ago.

The guy digs his stuff out of the piles of glittery mess and stomps off, leaving a trail of shimmering blue in his wake. I watch him go from where I’m leaning on a bookshelf, and as he gets to the stairs, he glances back, meets my eyes again, and grimaces.

I waggle my fingers at him, my princely upbringing channeled into that fuck-you cordiality.

He disappears down the stairs.

I do feel bad for whatever janitorial staff will have to deal with this mess, so after I magic away the tinsel from the room and finish my paper—in peace and quiet, the luxury—I follow that guy’s path through the library and make the rest of the tinsel vanish when no one’s looking. The trail takes me down into the main stacks, weaving among shelves dedicated to—art history? That makes sense. The beanie. The designer tank. That rancid expensive cologne. He’d definitely be in something as pompous as art history.

As I get rid of the final evidence of my first nefarious magic act, I can see why Coal got so into it; I feel a hell of a lot better than I did earlier.

At least until I do a calculation of how much magic I used to create all that tinsel and make it vanish.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry about magic use. We’ve always had enough, more than enough, and that was kind of our problem.

But now …

I honestly don’t know how much magic we can spare for stupid shit.

My chest gets too hot, ribs tensing in a crush of shame.

See, this is why I think things through.

COAL

If one were to, say, fill a room with tinsel as retaliation in a totally justified study room war;

how much magic would that use and would that magic be within acceptable limits?

COAL

wait did you do something interesting

study room war?

never mind, you did something boring and cambridgey didn’t you

I pull up the video and almost, almost send it to him.

The freeze frame is that guy peeking up through the blue tinsel. Gray eyes are pinched with annoyance. Mouth is agape in a breathy gasp.

A shiver walks down my spine and I close out the video.

Is everything all right? I didn’t drain the Merry Measure?

COAL

over creating tinsel? nah dude, we’re fine. go crazy with it

well not crazy crazy

but yeah use it to win a study room war

like a fucking nerd

god you’re dull

I don’t know, you may have some competition for future tabloid grabbing.

COAL

oh no, my title shant be stolen from me, take my eyes before you take my disastrous reputation

you’re coming home next weekend?

There’s enough of a tone shift between Coal’s last two texts that I can feel his anxiety twisted up in it.

He’s back in Christmas, finishing out his final semester at Yale online; I came back to Cambridge after he damn near booted me out while claiming that someone needed to have a normal collegiate experience and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him, so I should go have fun.

Nothing says fun like intensive courses in a program I loathe with my whole being.

Coal had been so insistent, so hopeful about the idea of me having fun in a way that told me he felt guilty for letting me take care of him most of our lives, for being the rock while he was the wind. I’m not sure how much I like all the self-actualizing he did over Christmas; I’m happy he’s gaining a better awareness of himself, but it also means he’s gaining a better awareness of me, and I’ll be damned if I can handle getting all introspective after …

After Coal discovered our dad had successfully overtaken half a dozen Holidays and was tapping their joy directly into ours.

After he confronted Dad with the backing of those Holidays and basically forced him out as reigning Santa in all but his control of our magic.

After Dad went from manipulative and angry to sitting quietly in meetings as Coal sets up a fair trade of joy with other winter Holidays, like he surrendered to Coal. But I don’t trust it, and I shouldn’t have come back to school. Coal’s dealing with all this shit, and I left him to fuck around with term papers?

Of course I’m coming back. Give me ten minutes and I can be there today.

COAL

no, no, next weekend’s fine

hex is coming tomorrow anyway

so i’ll have a babysitter

i’m just all alone right now so who

knows what crazy shit i’ll do left to

my own devices

Wren’s there. And you have a whole palace full of staff.

COAL

you know what i mean

You’re sniffing Hex’s pillow right now, aren’t you?

COAL

need i remind you that I am your king

you dishonor me, i shall have you excommunicated

That’s the Pope, dumbass.

And dad’s still the King of Christmas, technically.

COAL

what the fuck do i mean then

exiled, that’s what i mean

i’ll have you exiled

I swipe to a new text thread as I make my way back out of the library.

HEX

Coal said you’re going to visit him tomorrow? How’s he been doing, really?

Hex is in a similar situation to mine—juggling school and his own Holiday duties, but at least his parents are actually doing their jobs and running Halloween. Like Iris, he’s been into the online school thing for a while, so he’s able to pop over to be with Coal more freely.

Which is … weird. Good. But weird. The prevailing theme that came out of Christmas: good but weird.

All these changes—Coal being in charge now, him having a stable relationship—are good.

It’s only the shit I caused that’s decidedly not good.

Nope. Not going to wallow.

HEX

I’m finishing up a few things to leave now, actually.

Now? Why? What happened?

HEX

Nothing happened. My schedule opened up. Really, he’s been doing quite well. Understandably stressed. A few of the negotiation topics with the other winter Holidays have hit sticking points, and you know how he hates anything overtly political.

But I’m proud of him. He’s happy.

Try not to worry.

I know, I know. It’s my job to worry about him.

HEX

Mine as well.

Quite the career path we have, hm?

I stare at Hex’s texts and feel the same lack of weight on my shoulders that I’ve noticed since Christmas. It’s simultaneously freeing and staggering.

Thank you.

HEX

It’s my pleasure, Kris. Truly.

The sun outside the library is bright and bursting through the almost constant British cloud cover, and I stand in its rays for a second, and breathe.

I’m still a Prince of Christmas, still part of Coal’s restructuring to create a collective that pools joy between the winter Holidays. I’ve written a lot of official responses to other Holiday leaders and drafted speeches for Coal to use during meetings. I’ve been a sounding board for his ideas about how to interact with other leaders, what topics to bring up about resource divisions, how he’s arranging to not only share magic among us all but also to pay back what Christmas stole over time—which makes pointless magic use like creating tinsel even dumber.

But is any of what I’ve been doing necessary?

I close Coal’s text box. Close the one with Hex. The group chat remains, Iris and Coal’s bantering filling my screen; and the private thread with Iris.

I almost text her about the cheekbones on that guy.

I almost join the group chat and tell them how Iris’s comment on cream filling came at the worst possible time, join in their lightheartedness like nothing’s wrong, like nothing changed.

But there is stuff wrong.

Things did change.

And I’ve never been good with change.

On autopilot, I swipe to a different text thread, one that’s been silent since right after Christmas.

MOM

MOM

How could you not tell me what was going on? That Nicholas was getting MARRIED?? The mother of the groom should not have to stoop to asking about the wedding at all!

I’ve stopped hoping you could get any consideration for me from your brother, but I thought you at least were well past this childish behavior. Why don’t you think I deserve to know what is happening with my own children?

Answer me!!

You’re behaving like such a brat and now you’ve made me lose my temper. Stop being dramatic about this!!

I finally responded. Just once:

It wasn’t a real engagement, that’s why we didn’t tell you. It was a weird political ploy and it’s over now.

I almost said, If it was real, you would’ve known. But the thought of any real wedding, for me or Coal, being marred by our mother showing up had me ignoring the rest of her barrage of texts.

I scan them now, and even though they’re the shit I expect from her—how could you, get your brother to talk to me, why can’t you do even simple things—my hand shakes and I pocket my phone before I drop it.

A clamp squeezes around my chest.

I duck into the shadows between the wall of the library and an arching ornamental tree still winter-frozen. I dig my fingers into the mortar between the bricks and demand that I take a full, deep breath, in through my nose, in through my nose, in through my—exhale too, goddamn it—

A long, blown-out exhale finally comes, and I rock forward, all my weight on the wall, the coldness of the brick bleeding into my forehead. The rush and rumble of air entering and leaving my body drowns out my thoughts, and I focus on that noise. Nothing else.

And, in place of all other thoughts, I hear that guy say, in his thick accent, cream filled.

An unexpected laugh cuts through my chest, alleviates some of the lingering, relentless tension.

I breathe again, and this time, it goes in and out smoothly.

Three days later, my paper is submitted, it’s almost the weekend, and I wake up feeling more like myself.

Until I turn on my phone and see two dozen missed texts and calls from Coal.

Shock freezes my veins, crackling and crawling up my body.

COAL

COAL

okay remember when i said i’d only drag you home early for an emergency

well

EMERGENCY

GET HOME NOW

ASAP

SOS

dad’s ceding full control of christmas to me

like the magic, the title, all of it

Powder by RJ Scott & VL Locey

ONE

Jack

“Not to be unkind, but is this really all your stuff?” I stared around the last two boxes of hockey memorabilia at my sister, Fiona. She was the prettiest thing, and no, that wasn’t me being biased because I’m her older brother. Long strawberry blonde hair, bright blue eyes, slim and fit, and the owner of two dimples that flashed when she smiled. I nodded as I put the boxes of old sweaters, milestone pucks, and skates as old as Fiona onto the kitchen counter. “Christ, Jack, that’s fucking depressing.”

Oh, and she was also brutally honest, but thank the saints she’d learned to curb that, or her job as a private flight attendant would have ended on day one.

“I wanted Paula to be well-settled,” I mumbled, knowing full well my darling sister would come unglued over that comment.

“‘Settled’ is one thing. Giving her the house, the cars, the dog, and everything else she demanded is another.”

I’d heard this all before. A hundred times. Maybe five hundred. And while I loved that my sibling was on the defensive about me even though she was a hundred pounds lighter and eight inches shorter than me, she was known to get in a person’s face to stick up for me. My ex-wife Paula was one of the biggest examples. Fiona and Paula had never gotten along. The divorce had not improved that strained relationship. Fiona called my ex a horse, and my ex called Fiona an ogre. The two of them fought way more than Paula and I did throughout our marriage. You have to care to fight, and Paula didn’t care how it turned out.

“Fi, please, I’m not in the mood,” I said, then sighed as I looked around my brand-new bachelor pad. One bedroom, one bath, a spacious but empty living room, a kitchen, and a tiny laundry room. All very nice, quite expensive, and overlooking the Walnut Street Bridge, a famed bridge that’d been closed in the seventies but was now used by pedestrians and bikers for access to City Island. It was home now. Not exactly the sprawling three-bedroom, two-bath, two-thousand-two-hundred-square-foot with a two-car garage I’d bought for Paula after our wedding ten years ago in Elizabethtown. I mean… not even close. But it was mine. Empty. Which was kind of how my chest felt whenever I thought about how I’d failed my wife.

“Do keep in mind that she did cheat on you so that should have earned her nothing over the fifty-fifty split the state says she was owed,” Fiona fired back as she shimmied up to sit on the smooth white counter, her long red/gold ponytail sliding over her shoulder. A nice summer breeze blew in through the window over the sink. May was already warming up nicely. “Not sure why you felt that she deserved so much in the settlement when all she did was sit around, and sleep with her yoga instructor.”

I rolled my eyes. “For the last time she wouldn’t have gone looking for another man if I’d been home more,” I repeated clearly and slowly in the hopes she would absorb it.

She reached out to flick my forehead. With a porcelain nail painted soft pink. It stung. “Jonathon Patrick Killian O’Leary, you’ve taken too many hits to the head if you really believe that. Loads of spouses are faithful when their men or women are on the road. She was just using that as a reason to do a double down dog split up the ass with Sage Happy Hatha for three years while you were out bleeding all over the ice.”

“I rarely bleed all over the ice, Fiona Katherine Margaret Shillelagh O’Leary. I make other men bleed all over the ice.”

She flicked my brow again. “Do not add that walking stick moniker to my name. The three plus the surname are bad enough.” I snickered. “And it will not dissuade me from talking about the nag who now owns your dog and drives your cars.”

God, she was tenacious. “The dog was hers, a gift, and the car was also hers. I have my truck. I don’t need or want a pink Audi. How would it look for the captain of the Railers to pull up to the barn in a bright pink car with fake eyelashes over the headlights?”

“Seriously, why does she have to be such a real-life Barbie?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Paula had been a few years younger than me, yes, and so stunningly beautiful that I’d never quite felt fit to be with a young woman of such incredible beauty. She’d modeled in New York before we got married. I’d never found her fondness for pink or her affinity for tiny purse dogs odd. She’d been bubbly and fawned over me. For the first few years. Then it all started to go wrong. I was away too much, she was lonely, life wasn’t as glamorous as she’d expected, and on it went.

“You’re too nice.”

I shrugged. Yeah, maybe so, but when I loved someone, I showered them with affection. That was how men were supposed to act around their heart’s desires. Our father had spoiled our mother terribly. Forty years of wedded bliss they’d had before they’d lost their lives to a drunk driver one dark winter night back home in Montpelier. God, I missed them. They would have been heartbroken and so disappointed in me for allowing my career to ruin my⁠—

“Ow, fucking hell, stop doing that,” I snapped after another hard flick to my forehead. “I’m going to dunk you in the Schuylkill if you do that again.”

Fiona gave me a soft push on the chest. She knew I was full of hot air. I’d throw myself into the river that flowed through Harrisburg before I chucked her in it. Now, when we were kids…

“Okay, I’ll drop it. For now. Do you want me to call a designer to come in and add some life to this place? It has nice bones, Jack, it just needs some color and maybe a picture on the wall that isn’t of a hockey rink?” I leaned my ass on the counter. The place was sparse, but I really didn’t care about all that silliness. “Right, I see that pucker on your forehead so what I’m going to do is make sure you have things like drapes, a nice bedding set, as you left all the sheets and towels in the house for your horse of an ex⁠—”

“Fiona…”

She flipped her ponytail, then winked. “Sorry, it’s her teeth.”

“Her teeth are fine.” They should be. I’d spent tens of thousands of dollars on them. Not that she had modeled again once we’d gotten married, but she liked to be pretty. I liked to look at pretty women, and some men on occasion, and I had the cash, so why not give her what she wanted?

Fiona waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll outfit the place for you because I love you and know that if I don’t get you set up properly, you’ll be drying yourself on paper towels after a shower.”

You do that one time in college, and your sister never forgets.

“I also wanted to talk to you about taking a vacation.” I must have made a noise as she tsked me instantly. “No, no, do not make that Dad sound. He always did that when he disliked something. Sucked air between his teeth. You need to get out into the world, Jack, meet new people, maybe have a wild affair.”

“Nope, I… no, I do not want to have a wild affair with anyone.” I walked out of the kitchen to the living room, folded my arms, and planted my feet. This was my captain’s stance. Next, I locked my jaw. My captain’s expression. Men of great size and meaty fists would see me like this and not push.

Fiona, on the other hand…

“Honey,” she cooed as she followed me into the cavernous room. I really did need a couch to soak up the sound. “I’m not saying you have to propose to anyone. Please, don’t. But just get your willie wet with some bouncy beach babe or surfer dude. Flush that rancid memory of Trigger from your mind and heart.” She came around in front of me, tipped her head back, and met my glower with a loving look before snuggling close for a hug. I kept my arms crossed for about a millisecond before opening them and embracing her. She smelled like vanilla and a flowery scent. “I want you to be happy again. You’ve been so sad since the divorce decree. I know it was a letdown for the team to get knocked out in the first round, too, so all of this is sitting on your chest. Let me see if I can find a nice sunny destination for you. Somewhere packed with singles, where you can lounge on a beach, sip drinks with paper umbrellas, and reacquaint yourself with how damned charming and handsome you are.”

I tucked her head under my hairy chin. I’d yet to shave my red playoff beard. I tended to cling to things for far too long. My marriage, for example. My beard. My old running shoes. My ten-speed. My skates and sticks from my days at Bowling Green. My ragtag collection of Timmy Horton hockey cards. Several pairs of boxer shorts.

“Not sure I’d say handsome,” I mumbled as we hugged it out. My nose was off-center from being broken in a game against Pittsburgh five years ago, then again against the Raptors two years ago. I had surgery scars on my left shoulder, a knee that swelled when the atmospheric pressure dropped, and a jagged white line on my jawline from an errant stick to the kisser that had resulted in ten stitches just this year. Hockey was a tough game.

“See, that right there is your ex talking.” She gave my side a pinch then tilted her head up to gaze at me. “You’re very handsome. Some would say rugged. Beefy, tough as nails, sweet as a honey roll⁠—”

“Do not say that honey roll crap anywhere near the barn or the Railers locker room. The kids like Gunny and Trick need to know that I’ll grind them into paste if they don’t play up to their potential.”

She smiled up at me. “I think they know that you’re a goober belly.” She jabbed my gut, which was not goober-bellied at all but nice and tight. I worked out every day. I even had abs under the thick pelt of reddish-blond hair on my belly. “But I’ll be sure to extoll your pasting abilities when I see them next.”

Which wouldn’t be until September. The season was over, our lockers cleared out, our hopes dashed. Sure, we’d made it to the first round, but then we’d tanked. I’d told the press I was sorry for letting the team and the city down. I’d been so into my own personal shit that I’d not given the team my full one hundred percent on the ice. Our failure was on me. I was the captain. It was down to me to talk the guys up, keep the locker room pumped, and ensure the team stayed mentally on track. I’d failed at that. Just like I’d failed to keep my wife happy and⁠—

“Ow!” I winced at the nail flick.

“You had that I-suck-and-want-to-wallow-in-my-suckiness look on your face.” She reached up to rub my brow. “Sorry, but you need someone to keep you from sliding into that pit of self-loathing that your ex kicked you into with her infidelity. And since we only have each other now, that person is me.”

“I love that you’re my pit person,” I confessed. She nuzzled in for another hug. “I’ll think about a vacation.” I couldn’t see it as her nose was smushed into my chest, but I knew she was smiling her smug smile of success. “I said I’ll think about it. Do not make reservations.”

A week later, I was rolling my boxer shorts that didn’t have elastic showing into tight little logs because Fiona had made reservations and lined up a round-trip flight to Belize. Caye Caulker to be exact. She listened about as well as the Yorkie Paula toted around in oversized bags and called Bapsi-Boodles.

After hurriedly shoving my clothes into my suitcase, I sat on it and shouted at it because I was in a bad mood and couldn’t bring myself to yell at Fiona. Deep down, I knew she was only trying to pull me out of my funk. She loved me and thought a couple of weeks on a Caribbean island would help me feel better. Which, sure, it probably would to some extent, but if she thought I was going to go wild and jump into bed with the first man or woman who looked at me, she was very wrong. Yes, it had been over eighteen months since I’d been with someone intimately. My hand didn’t count, although even using that had started to decline.

I just wasn’t interested. Mom used to say that I loved with my whole being. I guess that was true because ever since Paula and I split, my sex drive has been pretty low. I’ve never been the type to go for one-night stands. I prefer some emotion, or at least for the person I was with to know my name, as silly as that sounds. I’ve had two girlfriends, and I married one. In college, I also dated a man for a few months, but the pressure from school and hockey was just too much. Plus, it was much easier to ask out girls. Not that I did that much. That first girlfriend was my steady from junior year through graduation. Then she moved west, and I got drafted by the New York team, where I met Paula. I fell pretty hard.

We’d gotten married, and she had packed up to move several times before we settled in Pennsylvania when the Railers picked me out of the reduced-for-quick-sale bin. Turned out to be the best thing for me, and the Railers, as I thrived on the ice and was named captain in my third year. The move to the Keystone State did not do my marriage any good. Paula was dour by then, complaining steadily about the dullness of this state, how she longed to return to Manhattan, and how I was unable to meet her emotional needs when I was away so much. Obviously, I wasn’t satisfying a few other of her needs. And if that wasn’t a kick in the balls to a man’s ego, I don’t know what was.

The alarm on my phone rang out, pulling me from the memories of the past. I latched my suitcase, grabbed the handle, and made my way out of the bedroom to the living room. Over the past week, Fiona had flown to Paris with a wealthy businessman in a private jet and had been tipped five grand for her exemplary service. Seemed she knew how to make a dry martini just the way the rich dude’s mistress liked them. Guess no one really cared about vows or fidelity anymore. Anyway, the tip had been blown on my condo. I now had furnishings, plates, pots, a few plants that I would kill sure as hell before the snow flew, and a TV set with a PlayStation. Among all the things delivered here, I used the TV and game console the most. And the bed. The new sheets and duvet were nice; I had to give my sister that.

A text arrived while I was shoving my wallet into my back pocket. Fiona reminded me not to miss my flight, or she would hire a boat to float me to Belize. I hit her back with a kind and loving reply.

I’m 37 yrs old. I know where the airplanes are. – J

I got a row of big eyeballs as a reply. Yeah, yeah, she was always watching me. Shouldn’t I be the one keeping an eye on her? I was the oldest after all. Not sure how our dynamic had changed so drastically. I made a last check of the condo, patted my ass for a wallet check, stuck my cell into the front pocket of my jeans, and grabbed my suitcase. Down the elevator I went to the lobby to find the ride Fiona had arranged—she wasn’t taking any chances that I would not get to the airport—waiting outside the tall tower I now called home. No one waved goodbye, no one kissed my cheek, no one wished me a safe flight at the door.

Being single sucked.

The ride to Harrisburg International was pleasant enough. I’d left my beard on my face, just neatened it a bit, so fans would be thrown off if they spied me at the airport. Not that I didn’t love our fans, I did, but man they could be rough. If one more dude bro came up to me to inform me we’d shit the bed last month I just might run out onto the I-83 and be done with it all. My driver was pleasant but not overly chatty. I arrived with two hours until boarding, checked my bag, went to the bathroom, and bought a soda that I downed. I took my time, no rushing, and made my way with ease through the TSA checkpoint. On the other side I found a seat facing the runway, my sight locked on the planes being readied for their flights. I’d flown a lot in my years. I mean a lot. I had no idea how many miles a hockey player logs in his life, but it was enormous. I’d flown into snowstorms, thunderheads, and the tip of a hurricane. I’d landed on ice strips where the plane went sideways after landing. Once we were blown off-course on a takeoff from Chicago-O’Hare. One time we lost an engine and had to turn around over the Canadian wilderness.

As my group was called to board I ambled forward, carry-on resting on my shoulder, without a care in the world. While some others around me were chatting nervously. I was plotting out my nap. When you’ve flown into a flock of birds and lived to tell the tale there was little that was going to make this flight to paradise anything other than mundane. Since Fiona had booked me in first class—on her—I settled into the large seat in the middle with a seat on my right and one across the aisle. I loved it. Seriously, a guy of my size did not do well in coach. Knowing I could stretch out without getting dirty glances from the people in front of me was everything.

The plane filled quickly. I texted Fiona a selfie of me all tucked into my fancy nook. The doors were closed then, and I found myself scanning the cover of the book I’d picked up in the airport when there was a commotion up front. The door was reopened. Glancing up from my phone, I watched as a man hurried onto the plane, his dark hair windblown as if he had raced through the airport. When the guy glanced my way, my stomach dropped. His dark brown gaze locked with mine for a second. He nodded at the flight attendant and then made his way to his seat. On my right. The smell of citrus and sweat curled around me as he rushed to stow his carry-on down by his feet. I stared. I couldn’t help it. He was perhaps the handsomest man I’d ever seen.

He flashed me a smile that made that turbulent feeling reappear. I hurried to buckle my belt before I did something stupid like gasp and tumble into the aisle. Team captains didn’t gasp at sexy men.

Oz by Lily Morton

“Oh my God, Oz. Shit. Baby, it’s not you, it’s me.”

I stare at my boyfriend of six weeks who is currently dick deep in a strange man’s arse on our bed. The sight of the white and grey striped sheets that I’d painstakingly picked out last week makes me incredibly want to laugh.

“I sort of guessed that,” I say faintly. “Seeing as my penis is safely at home in my jeans while yours is roaming free.” I cast him an acerbic look. “Like a very small wildebeest.” I hold up my fingers and narrow the gap between them. “Tiny, really. Minute.”

“Wait. Are you saying I’ve got a small cock?”

I shake my head. “Out of everything to do with our current situation, that is what you’re focusing on, James.”

I turn away from the bed and make my way over to the huge walk-in dressing room. Time to move on again. I cast a look around at the room that smells of sandalwood with its light oak shelves and the neat rows of clothes. I think I might miss this more than him.

There’s a disturbance on the bed behind me and I wince as I hear the squelching noise as my boyfriend evacuates the arse he’s found a home in today. I don’t need to hear the muttered complaint from the other man to know that he’s dismounted as gracelessly as he usually climbs on. My arse clenches in sympathy. Been there, done that.

Footsteps thud behind me and I turn to face my now ex-boyfriend. That’s current to ex in forty minutes, which was how long it took me to realise that I’d left my wallet in my jacket and come home unexpectedly. Things move quickly in Oz Land.

“Was he waiting in the cupboard?” I ask. I shake my head as he opens his mouth to interrupt me as normal. “I mean, that was quick work. Me first thing, quick shower, and then where did you find this one?” I look at the small blond man climbing back into his clothes quickly.

“He’s my new assistant,” James mutters, pushing his hand through his hair.

I laugh. “Really?” He glares at me as my laughter continues. I pause and clutch my ribs. “How bloody clichéd and yet how utterly you.” I shake my head. “Still, it’s a relief. The speed you moved this one into our bed, I’d imagined you clubbing him on the head in the lobby.”

He folds his arms over his chest, attempting to look dignified, but it must be difficult with half a cockstand and a wrinkled condom clinging to it. “Well, I didn’t have to do that with you, did I? You fell into my bed quickly enough. One look at the Belgravia postcode and you had your legs open quicker than I could get my cock out.”

Oh, great. I sense we’re moving into the insult Oz stage of the proceedings. I straighten up to my full height which unfortunately is only five feet six, but believe me, I work those feet and inches.

“Well, of course it would have to have been the postcode because really, James, this location does bloody wonders for your personality.” I tap my teeth with my nail. “Makes you almost interesting. Almost,” I throw over my shoulder as I grab my suitcase and battered rucksack from the floor behind one of the cupboards.

I should have seen the writing on the wall when he asked me to move in with him and then proceeded to try and act as if he was living with the invisible man. All my belongings stuffed out of sight. The only place he was okay with me spreading out was in his bed. Even then, everything was his. I’d known it was a mistake, but at the time I thought I liked him. I’d paid attention to the way he held me at night and ignored the way he’d dropped my hand as soon as we stepped out of the flat.

“What are you doing?” he demands as I rifle through the clothes in my bag.

“Just checking I’ve got everything,” I mutter. I click my fingers and move over to the wash basket. Upending the clothes all over the floor and enjoying his wince of discomfort, I sort through the laundry and, grabbing my stuff, I throw it into a carrier bag. Classy to the end.

I stride over to the marble bathroom and start to grab my toiletries. He moves towards me and I wave my hand at his now flaccid cock. “James, take that fucking condom off. You look like a complete twat.” He stares down at his cock as if forgetting he was wearing it. I shake my head. “So tight with your cash. You were probably hoping to get a second chance at using it. Or maybe it’s the one you used with me and you wrung it out and went for it again.”

The flare in his eyes tells me I’m not that wrong, and inwardly I want to beat myself round the head. Why did I move in with him? Why did I even move past the first night hook-up with him? It had been hot but there’d been nothing else there. I sigh. I think I was bored and he was good at sex at first. That had deteriorated pretty fast though once he’d had me. I’d been flattered when he moved me in after three weeks but I needn’t have bothered, because all I’d done was saddle myself with an educated idiot with poor impulse control. And no sense of humour, I remind myself.

I straighten my shoulders. Not again. I’m not doing this again. There won’t be any more attempts at relationships. I’ve obviously got the picking ability of Britney Spears. From now on I’m hook-up central and nothing more.

Erin O'Quinn

Erin O’Quinn earned a BA (English) and MA (Comparative Literature) from the University of Southern California. Her life has been a pastiche of fascinating vocations—newspaper marketing manager, university teacher, car salesperson, landscape gardener—until now, in relative retirement, she lives and writes in a small town in central Texas.

O'Quinn has authored more thgan 50 books. Two-thirds are M/M mystery-romance. The others are fantasy for all ages and M/F romance-fantasy.

LE Franks

Bay Area, surrounded by inspiration everywhere, LE is finally taking off the filters and giving the stories free rein. These days, LE can be found frequently writing about sexy men who desperately need a happily ever.

LE writes M/M Romance in a unique mix of humor and drama with enough suspense to produce fast paced stories filled with emotion and passion and featuring characters that are quirky and complicated. Don't expect the typical rugged hero or sophisticated businessman with the world at their feet; LE's men are living in the margins--they're in the middle of their journey, doing the best they can while searching for a connection to something bigger than themselves. With a little effort and a lot of luck they may actually find their happily-ever-afters.

When not writing, LE wrangles an odd assortment of jobs (six - at last count), houseguests (including pro baseball players), family, and friends. Manifesting an odd combination of contradictory talents and traits, LE is tragically honest and personally deceptive, and makes the best piecrust - ever.

Currently LE Franks has several writing projects with author Sara York, including the Wolves & Waves series published by MLR Press.

Sara Raasch

Sara Raasch has known she was destined for bookish things since the age of five, when her friends had a lemonade stand and she tagged along to sell her hand-drawn picture books too. Not much has changed since then — her friends still cock concerned eyebrows when she attempts to draw things and her enthusiasm for the written word still drives her to extreme measures. 

She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of multiple books for teens, including the historical romantasy duology WITCH AND HUNTER, cowritten with Beth Revis; as well as romances for adults, such as THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE KISSMAS and GO LUCK YOURSELF.

RJ Scott

Writing love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards

USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.

She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.

VL Locey

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.

Lily Morton

Lily is a bestselling gay romance author. She writes love stories filled with heat and humour.

She lives in sunny England with her husband and two children, all of whom claim that they haven't had a proper conversation with her since she got her Kindle.

Lily has spent her life with her head full of daydreams, and decided one day to just sit down and start writing about them. In the process she discovered that she actually loved writing, because how else would she get to spend her time with hot and funny men? 

She loves chocolate and Baileys and the best of all creations - Chocolate Baileys!

Erin O'Quinn

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VL Locey

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Lily Morton

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Sparring with Shadows by Erin O'Quinn

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Make Mine A Double by LE Franks

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Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch

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Powder by RJ Scott & VL Locey

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Oz by Lily Morton

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