Small City Heart
Erin McLellan
Copyright © 2018 by Erin McLellan
Small City Heart
All rights reserved.
Cover Art by Erin McLellan
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For inquiries, contact Erin McLellan at www.erinmclellan.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
About Small City Heart
Patrick Pearl’s career is in shambles, and his love life is in even worse shape. The last place he wants to be is his horrid hometown’s biggest shindig and high school reunion, but he’s decided to stomach it for a chance to see his mom.
* * *
After years away, Patrick doesn’t anticipate the longing that hits him the moment he sees his hometown’s hills, the same pull that has him itching for his camera. But Patrick’s biggest shock of all is Charlie North—Small City’s golden boy and resident firefighting hunk.
* * *
Charlie has had a crush on Patrick Pearl since they were fifteen, but avoided him like the plague in high school, intimidated by Patrick’s courage to be different. Now that they’re all grown up, Charlie isn’t going to let Patrick slip through his fingers again, much to Patrick’s surprise.
* * *
If Patrick has to withstand the torture of the Small City Alumni Weekend, then he might as well bang the hottest, most popular guy from his graduating class, right? It’s not like there are hearts involved. What could possibly go wrong?
* * *
Warning: This novella contains a lot of blackberry cobbler, a hometown hunk who didn’t have the good grace to peak in high school, a millennial hot mess that does not have his shit together, and super sweet small-town charm.
Content Note
Please be aware: this book contains a few instances of homophobia, as well as discussion of the abuse of power in a boss/employee relationship, which some readers may find uncomfortable.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Join Erin McLellan’s New Facebook Group!
An Excerpt from CONTROLLED BURN (Farm College #1)
Also by Erin McLellan
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Small City was a cutesy, idyllic town and the subject of Patrick’s nightmares. But calling it a city was a misnomer. A person could get lost in a city. They could blend in, be discreet, be one in a million faces.
No, Small City should have been called Frighteningly Tiny Village. Or Suffocatingly Twee Township.
Most days, though, Patrick just grudgingly called it home.
It didn’t matter how many years he’d lived elsewhere, how many apartments he’d rented, or how many different zip codes he’d claimed, Small City would always have him in its clutches. And today he was making his return, for none other than a high school reunion.
By the time Patrick had passed the open prairies, the grazing land, and the outskirts of town to reach Small City proper, his throat was tight with nervousness. He automatically drove to the main drag, Limestone Drive—an adorable, historic road with red-bricked streets and storefronts with massive hanging baskets of Kansas wildflowers out front. At the ends of the street, there were signs about tow away zones, and special parking instructions for the big Alumni Weekend, but Patrick ignored them, skirting an A-frame orange warning sign with his old Triumph Bonneville, which he lovingly called Blue.
He maneuvered Blue into a spot in front of Ronnie’s Diner, named after his mom, Veronica, and a weird twinge of nostalgia hit him in the chest. He’d parked in this very spot hundreds, if not thousands, of times in his life, but this instance felt different. He was no longer a high school student bursting at the seams to get out of a stifling small town, and he also wasn’t the young adult grudgingly visiting his family over the holidays.
Maybe it was that resignation letter in his desk at home—the one he’d been waiting until after this weekend to send—because he hadn’t felt at such loose ends in all of his adult life. It seemed significant that he found himself here, in his hometown, when his life was in such upheaval.
The door of the diner flew open and there was Mom, hands on her hips, apron covered in who knows what, and a scowl that could make most grown men cower.
His fingers itched for his camera, wished he could freeze her in time and place.
It was worth a shot.
“Mom. Don’t move,” he shouted.
He hitched his leg over Blue and ripped off his helmet. His long hair immediately blew into his eyes and mouth. He spit it out and tried to unlock and unzip his saddlebag before his mom got tired of his shit.
“Oh, give me a break,” she said. “I’m not going to stand here like a statue while you fiddle about. I have customers in there. Now get your ass over here and give me a hug.”
Damn it. She’d moved.
He slumped a little, abandoned his perfect shot, and skipped over the curb to hug his mother.
“Pattie,” she said, once he was in her arms, and tears almost choked him. He’d missed her so much. Missed the way she always smelled like flour, and how her voice could go from stern to warm in the space of a second.
Her breath shuddered, and she held him extra tight. It’d been a hard couple of months.
This, this right here, was why he was back. His mom needed a date, needed to not walk into the Alumni Weekend—Small City’s biggest social event—alone. So here he was.
She finally released him and then held him at arm’s length to really get a gander. He wondered idly what exactly she was looking for. To be sure he was still safe and sound and whole? To check him out with the backdrop of Small City and see if he fit?
He’d always stuck out like a sore thumb in Small City. Too pretty, too artsy-fartsy, too swishy. But he’d learned recently how very isolating a big city could be, how one tiny mistake—all right, one massive mistake—could make a job untenable. He’d always thought running away to the big city was the right answer. The only answer.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Come in, come in. I’ll get you some cornbread,” Mom said.
Patrick groaned. She knew how to soften him up. The diner hadn’t changed one iota since he was a child. It was a charming mix of country kitsch and art—mostly his—with red checked tablecloths, a daisy on every table, and a display case of cobblers at the register.
Mom pushed him into a chair at an empty table, and he waited patiently for her to feed him. There were two tables occupied, both with people from the over-seventy set, so he wasn’t sure if they were there for an early-bird dinner or a late lunch. There was a teenage waitress refilling their iced teas, and Patrick could hear Kris Kristofferson playing faintly from the kitchen, which meant Marjorie was here too.
Ten minutes later, a plate plopped down in front of him. He jumped at the clatter, and then his taste buds pricked to attention as the scent hit him. Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and cornbread.
“Bless you, Mother,” he said. She leaned down for him to kiss her cheek, and he happily obliged. He’d never found chicken fried steak as good as hers in Chicago, which was probably a good thing. H
is ass didn’t exactly need chicken fried steak on tap.
Once he’d cleaned his entire plate, kind of moaning over it like a lover, he skipped back outside to get his camera from his saddlebag.
When he was home, which admittedly had been less and less often in the last five years, he always tried to take candids at the diner. One of his favorite images he’d ever taken was of his mom handing someone a milkshake. She’d been laughing, and the light had been perfect coming through the large front window. She was such a beautiful, large-and-in-charge woman, no nonsense in the best way, and funny. Always smiling and with the most contagious laugh. That picture, which he hadn’t ever put up for sale, preferring to keep it only for himself, was like his mom distilled into a single image, and being back here felt magical. Like he could capture something that great again.
That was how the firefighters found him an hour later. He was standing directly in the doorway, trying to get the perfect picture of his mom and Marjorie arguing about the best kind of whipped cream—a fight they’d been having since the beginning of time—when the first hulking man smacked into him.
“Oh, sorry, son. Didn’t expect anyone to be standing there,” the guy said.
“It’s his own fault, Dan,” Patrick’s mom called across the room. “Standing right in front of the door like a lump.”
The firefighters filed in behind Dan—three of them in total, two men and one woman—wearing SCFD T-shirts and navy pants and fuzzing up Patrick’s brain with hormones. His hormones, not theirs.
God, was there anything better than a man in uniform? And he wouldn’t turn his nose up at the woman either, even if that wasn’t his normal fare. She was . . . well, she was Suzy Michaels from marching band!
“Suzy?”
She jumped out of her chair. “Oh my gosh! Pattie Pearl! Holy crap, your hair.” She gave him a hug, and he laughed. People commenting on his hair, which he was embarrassingly vain about, was pretty normal. It was long.
“You’re a firefighter. Dang.” He felt her biceps. She was jacked. They’d been in band together, and she’d been a little slip of a thing back then.
“Carting that tuba around did me good.”
“I’d say.”
“Are you here for the Alumni Weekend? I’m on shift on Friday, but I’ll be at all the other stuff. I’d love to hear all about your life, you city slicker!” Suzy said.
An oily uneasiness hit him in the chest, and he shrugged it off like it was a tangible weight. He hadn’t exactly been thriving as a city slicker recently, but he tried to smile and nod along with her anyway, happy to see someone who hadn’t completely shunned his swishy gay self in high school.
His mom appeared at his shoulder and said hello to the group. Patrick got the impression they were regulars. She hadn’t asked their drink orders before bringing them lemonade and tea.
“Where’s Charlie?” his mom asked the older man, Dan, who seemed to be the leader at the table.
“Ah, the kid’s out there eyeing that motorcycle. It’s illegally parked.”
Patrick’s head snapped up. “What?”
He whipped around to see out the front window of the diner, and sure enough there was a man leaning against his bike, which was not illegally parked, thank you very much. Patrick had parked in that spot since he was fifteen. But it wasn’t Blue that flustered him. It was the man.
Charlie.
Charles North.
Patrick walked toward the door as if in a fog. Charlie had been voted Mr. Congeniality of their graduating class—popular, friendly, athletic, put together, smart. Everyone had loved him, but he’d avoided Patrick like the plague. Charlie had never been outwardly rude, but he hadn’t been the bubbly, kind kid he was to everyone else either. It was strange enough for Patrick to have noticed.
Of course, it was easy to notice Charlie North. He drew eyes in every room he walked into. He had as a teenager, and the effect was even more jarring as an adult. Because that boy had grown into one fine specimen of masculine beauty.
“That’s my bike,” Patrick said dumbly when the diner door slammed behind him.
A weird smile flitted across Charlie’s face. “I know. I recognized it.”
That was enough to make Patrick’s brain explode. He’d had the bike since high school. It was his baby.
Some of his friends had cats. He had Blue.
Charlie continued to lean against Blue like a goddamn 1950s movie poster.
“Do you remember me?” Charlie asked as Patrick drew closer. “We went to high school together.”
“No,” Patrick lied. Because it felt better to lie than to admit that he could have picked Charlie out of a crowd of a thousand. He was huge now too. Strong, which made sense—he was a firefighter, evidently. The last ten years had been kind to him.
The prick.
Patrick scowled a little. People like Charlie North were supposed to peak in high school, and then fade into obscurity. Not strut around in tight firefighter T-shirts, popping muscles at the unsuspecting public.
The giant prick!
“Ok-ay,” Charlie said slowly. “Well, we graduated the same year, and our class only had about seventy kids in it, so . . . I was . . .” His voice, which Patrick had expected to be self-assured, wavered.
“Popular?” Patrick asked. “The center of attention?”
“Yes. And you were the beautiful boy with painted fingernails that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of.”
Patrick froze like a startled deer. They were about five feet apart now, and he felt light-headed.
Was that a come-on?
Charlie smiled, and it was devastating. “Cat got your tongue?” All the confidence that Patrick had been expecting wound its way back into Charlie’s voice, and the man flicked his gaze up and down Patrick’s body in way that was distinctly intimate.
“What the fuck, Charlie?” he finally managed. His face was hot, and he wanted to pretend it was the pounding Kansas sun, but he knew better. He was flustered by his high school’s golden boy, and he wanted to sink into the sidewalk and disappear. This could not be happening. Surely Charlie was messing with him, which made the guy a complete asshole.
“You do remember me.”
Patrick huffed. “That’s my bike,” he repeated. He didn’t really like Charlie leaning on it. Or touching it. Or in the vicinity of him or his belongings. Maybe he just really didn’t like Charlie.
“I remember. God, you were something else in high school. Pulling up to school on this thing. Your mom told me you still ride it, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what a grown Patrick Pearl would look like astride this baby. I think about it a lot.”
“Bullshit.”
Charlie stood up to his full height. His dark hair was neat, with a razor-sharp part, and his teeth were white in his tanned face. There were adorable dark freckles on his nose, and he had a chin dimple.
A chin dimple, for fuck’s sake. Why was the world cruel?
But Patrick tried not to stare at Charlie’s face. It was too much. Instead, he zoned in on the veins roping around forearms dusted with dark hair, and the sweat stains in the armpits of the SCFD T-shirt. Patrick wanted to bury his face there and inhale.
Fuck, Charlie had grown up hot.
“It’s not bullshit, Patrick,” Charlie said, his voice suddenly too close and warm. “Your bike is going to get a ticket.”
A noise, like a popped balloon, exploded in Patrick’s brain. “What?” He was breathless, and he hated that.
“Look at the sign.”
What sign? There was no sign. Never had there been a . . . Oh.
Expecting Mothers and Family Parking Only.
Patrick took a step back to see that there was now a similar sign in front of every business, right next to the handicap parking spots.
“When did that happen?”
“About two years ago.”
A weird jolt of shame hit Patrick. He hadn’t been home in two years. Shame made him do funny things, though. Lik
e lash out, or lie, or make ridiculous assertions.
“There is no way for a police officer to know that I’m not an expecting mother,” Patrick said smugly.
“Gosh, you were not always this prickly.”
“You wouldn’t know,” Patrick said, viciously. They hadn’t been friends. Charlie had been friends with everyone, except him. “Watch out.”
Charlie stepped away from Blue as Patrick hustled her into a nearby empty spot. Then he walked right into Charlie’s space.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I am not some dumb kid. I’m just trying to get through this reunion bullshit intact.”
Charlie’s chest rose and fell, his breath choppy, and he lifted his hand slowly, as if in a daze. The tip of his finger twisted the end of a lock of hair that had fallen over Patrick’s shoulder.
“I like prickly.”
Chapter 2
The wind chimes attached to the diner’s door tinkled behind Charlie as he pushed his way out of the heat. He had to force himself not to turn around to see if Patrick was still standing on the sidewalk. Hell, he had to force himself not to simply ogle him.
Holy God, Charlie had been imagining that exact moment for years. For ten years, if he were honest. Sure, there’d been other men, other crushes, other relationships through the years, but it was hard to forget the person who helped you realize you were gay.
Charlie had avoided Patrick when they were teenagers, but had obsessed about him in private. Now they were grown men, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes twice.
He sat next to Suzy, and she slapped him on the shoulder, a big shit-eating grin on her face.
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