by Roan Parrish
Riptide Publishing
PO Box 1537
Burnsville, NC 28714
www.riptidepublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.
The Remaking of Corbin Wale
Copyright © 2017 by Roan Parrish
Cover art: Natasha Snow, natashasnowdesigns.com
Editor: Sarah Lyons
Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-62649-692-7
First edition
November, 2017
Also available in paperback:
ISBN: 978-1-62649-693-4
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Twenty percent of the proceeds of this title will be donated to the Russian LGBT Network.
A Statement from the Russian LGBT Network
The Russian LGBT Network is an interregional social movement that unites various LGBTQI(+) initiatives across Russia. In the headquarters in St. Petersburg a team of 15 activists work every day to promote human rights, to fight inequality in Russia, and to build a strong and powerful community of LGBTQI(+) activists and their allies.
The Network provides various services to the community: we offer psychological and legal assistance to the people in need. Our Hotline services – land line and on-line chat – function 24 hours a day and provide assistance to
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In April, the world became aware of the fact that LGBT people in the Chechen Republic are being persecuted, unlawfully detained, tortured and killed. We, the team of the Russian LGBT Network, have been working hard to help these people to flee the republic, to restore their feeling of safety and security, and to find sanctuary outside of Russia. It has been especially hard since both Russian and Chechen authorities have continued to deny that this crime against humanity is happening in the North Caucasus. They need to hear our voices. They have to.
We are immensely honored that Riptide Publishing selected us as their Holiday Charity. Our philosophy is that human right defenders and the civil society are capable of ending LGBTQI(+) inequality all over the world. We, the team of the Russian LGBT Network thank you for showing you solidarity with the cause. Right now, we need you, because when we unite our efforts, we can create a better tomorrow.
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Russian LGBT Network.
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Last month, Alex Barrow’s whole life imploded—partner, home, job, all gone in forty-eight hours. But sometimes when everything falls apart, better things appear almost like magic. Now, he’s back in his Michigan hometown, finally opening the bakery he’s always dreamed of. But the pleasure of opening day is nothing compared to the lonely and beautiful man who bewitches Alex before he even orders.
Corbin Wale is a weirdo. At least, that’s what he’s heard his whole life. He knows he’s often in a fantasy world, but the things he feels are very real. And so is the reason why he can never, ever be with Alex Barrow. Even if Alex is everything he’s always fantasized about. Even if maybe, just maybe, Corbin is Alex’s fantasy too.
When Corbin begins working at the bakery, he and Alex can’t deny their connection any longer. As the holiday season works its magic, Alex yearns for the man who seems out of reach. But to be with Alex, Corbin will have to challenge every truth he’s ever known. If his holiday risk pays off, two men from different worlds will get the love they’ve always longed for.
For my sister. May we die on the same day.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
About Our Charity
About The Remaking of Corbin Wale
Part I - Earth: Alex
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II - Water: Corbin
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part III - Air: Alex
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part IV - Fire: Corbin
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Dear Reader
Acknowledgments
Also by Roan Parrish
About the Author
More like this
Alex Barrow liked bringing things to life.
A month ago, he’d had friends, a lover, and a prestigious job in New York. A week after that, he’d found himself back in his Michigan hometown, where he hadn’t spent more than a week since leaving a dozen years before. He had nothing to his name except—now—the bakery where he stood. And yet, alone in the predawn dark of opening day, Alex felt lighter than he had in years. He took a deep breath of leaf-scented air and felt himself grin. Yes, Alex liked bringing things to life, and he’d dragged this bakery into being from the wreckage of his life in New York.
It had begun with the one-two punch of Timo breaking up with him, and Rustica, the restaurant in the West Village where Alex had worked as pastry chef for four years, being bought by a corporate conglomerate. Down a boyfriend and a job in forty-eight hours, Alex hadn’t been sure which had been the bigger blow. And that, his best friend Gareth had pointed out with a knowing wink, should tell him something important about both.
Timo was a radiologist who owned the apartment they’d lived in. He was mature, sensible, handsome,
and intelligent. He’d had a three-year plan, a five-year plan, and a ten-year plan, all of which, he’d explained patiently during the conversation that turned into a highly civilized breakup, had included Alex. That Alex hadn’t known he was included in these plans had been a problem. That he’d had very little interest in them, once he’d been told, had been a more telling problem.
As Alex had lain on the couch that night—because Timo was far too mature and measured to suggest he leave suddenly, but Alex had found it too strange to share a bed with the man who had been his partner and suddenly wasn’t—he’d realized he felt . . . not nearly as much as he’d expected. Certainly less than he’d imagined he should feel after being with someone for three years, living with them for two, meeting their family, sharing their bed, and knowing how they tasted and what made them cry.
And he’d thought maybe Timo felt less than he’d expected too.
Losing Timo had certainly been an inconvenience, in that it had left Alex without a place to live. Walking into Rustica the next night to the announcement of its sale, on the other hand, had been gutting. Finding out the following afternoon that he could keep his job if he simply produced the menu the corporate team designed, but would no longer have the freedom to develop his own recipes, had been devastating. With no apartment, he certainly needed the salary. But he didn’t want to be a machine, turning out the same pastries week after week, year after year. That was why he’d left his first two jobs at traditional bakeries. With no creative control and no power over the menu, he’d been bored as paste.
He’d left Rustica and walked through Lower Manhattan for hours, making pro and con lists in his head. When his phone had buzzed with an incoming call from his mother, Alex had almost ignored it, not wanting to admit failure on two fronts to the woman who only ever wanted to see him happy. But he’d answered anyway, and listened to her chat about the weather, the latest football game that had backed up traffic all the way to her house, a new store that had opened across the street from Helen & Jerry’s Java. As he listened, he’d calmed thinking about the Ann Arbor autumn.
About the way the days were warm but the nights turned cold as soon as the sun’s heat had burned away. The way downtown smelled like coffee and waffle cones and turning leaves and moss. The way the U of M fight song blasted from car horns and house windows and cell phone ringtones during football season and got stuck in your head even if you weren’t a football fan.
When his mom had told him that, lately, the arthritis in her hands had gotten so bad she could no longer even make the coffee drinks at Helen & Jerry’s Java—the café she and his father had opened his senior year in high school, and which his mother had run alone since his father died ten years ago—and that she wished she could take a vacation, drive up north with her new beau (her term), Alex’s head had gotten fuzzy. And then it had gotten very, very clear.
“Mom,” he’d said softly. “I think I’m coming home.”
And now here he was. He’d shipped his belongings, surprised but not upset to find that he didn’t own much he cared enough to hold onto. He’d given Rustica his notice, and he’d booked a flight. When he’d touched down in Detroit, it hadn’t felt like moving, it had felt like visiting, as he’d done dozens of times before.
He’d had one small duffel bag and his laptop, as if he were coming in for a long weekend like he always did. The taxi had dropped him off in his mother’s driveway, just like it always did, and his mother had come out to meet him, just like she always did. She’d told him he looked so handsome, just like she always did, and he’d seen the moment her eyes moistened, thinking about how she wished his father were here, just like he always did.
It was just the same, only everything was different.
Because this time, when his mother settled him at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a cup of decaf for herself, she didn’t say, “So, tell me everything,” like she always did. This time she said, “So, here’s the plan.”
Now, after weeks of work, the bakery that had existed in his head for years, in gradually shifting menu concepts, color combinations, and layouts, was finally a reality. Helen & Jerry’s Java was now And Son. Gareth had thought it was a ridiculous name; Alex’s mother had cried.
Alex could say now—armed with knowledge of the restaurant industry and professional baking training—that Helen & Jerry’s Java had not been a good coffee shop. The layout had been bad, the coffee mediocre, and the pastries . . . well, the less said about them the better. Alex had completely transformed it. His mother’s employees had jumped at the chance to log extra hours painting, cleaning, rearranging, and running endless errands. It had been pure luck that Mira, one of the baristas who’d worked there for a few years, had announced that she’d worked construction for her father all throughout high school. Alex had paid her to build out the counter and add a bench along the perimeter of the café.
While they’d worked behind paper-taped windows, Alex had spent his time sourcing ingredients, setting up deliveries, and designing his menu.
The best bakeries had a cohesive vision. You didn’t want a counter selling bran muffins next to key lime tarts next to baklava next to polvorones. The menu needed to have range, but not feel chaotic—provide surprises, but not overwhelm. For each recipe he added to the mental menu in his mind, Alex had shifted another one off. When he’d realized he needed a lemon glaze on this one or cayenne in that one, it sparked to life another avenue of flavors.
He’d felt like a kid, sitting cross-legged on the heavy steel prep table, scribbling his dream recipes on sticky notes that he rearranged over and over on the cool metal. He had so many things he wanted to try, so many ideas that he eventually stuck all the notes back into a stack, put them on the shelf, and said to himself, Ten and five. Ten basics and five specials. Start there and you can add more later.
Alex had always had a bit of a problem reining it in.
And Son was reopening on a crisp, cool Monday that smelled of rain that didn’t fall. Alex had been there since 3:30 that morning, baking, and when his employees showed up at 6:30, he smiled at the sounds of surprise they made as they looked around the finished bakery.
“It’s amazing!” Mira called as Alex came out from the kitchen. Sean, the other barista who’d worked for his mom, agreed.
“Thanks to you,” he said, and smiled at Mira. But he was really pleased with how it had turned out.
The walls of the seating area were sage green and behind the counter a warm terra-cotta. Pen and ink drawings hung in untreated wood frames. Gone was the clutter of small tables and too many chairs. In their place were several four- and six-top tables, and a long padded bench with tables ran around the perimeter of the café under the windows.
There were plants in the corners, potted succulents on small wooden shelves on the walls, and air plants hanging from the pressed tin ceiling. The whole effect was calm and warm and peaceful.
The earthy bite of coffee, the comforting smell of fresh-baked bread, and the snap of sugar made Alex’s stomach rumble, and he took a cinnamon streusel muffin back into the kitchen with him. He snapped a picture of himself taking a huge bite and sent it to Gareth.
Alex had met Gareth their first day of culinary school, and they had quickly become friends and then roommates. For ten years, Gareth had been the one constant in an otherwise hectic and chaotic life. Alex felt the ache of distance that he hadn’t felt since the first year after his father died, when he’d wake up some mornings and remember all over again that he was gone. It had been Gareth he’d called from Ann Arbor when his mother sat him down a month before and told him she’d signed over the café to him. Gareth who’d told him he’d be an idiot if he didn’t turn the café into a bakery of his own.
Happy opening day! Gareth wrote back in response to the muffin pic. Try not to eat ALL the stock. Then, a second later, I’m proud of you.
The warm feeling in Alex’s stomach persisted as he slid a tray of croissants out of the oven and added notes to
his recipe binder.
When they unlocked the door at seven, Alex’s mother was the first to walk through. He hadn’t let his mom see the bakery at all, and her mouth fell open as she looked around. She shook her head at him, and he saw the moisture in her eyes as she pulled him down for a fierce hug.
“I still think it should’ve been ‘& Son,’ with an ampersand,” she said, sniffing.
“Mom, I told you, it’s harder to search for, and hard to put in a website URL. People don’t know what it’s called, so they’ll say, ‘It’s called & Son, but with that and-sign thingy.’ Besides, And is good for alphabetical listings, or—”
“Okay, okay, you know what you’re doing and I should butt out, I hear you,” she conceded, walking to the counter to greet Mira and Sean.
A man had trailed in after her and was standing politely off to the side. Alex turned to him and held out his hand. “You must be Lou Wright. I’m Alex. It’s nice to meet you.”
Lou grinned at him as they shook. He had mischievous brown eyes, dark brown skin, a bald spot, a warm smile, and an easy manner. Alex could see immediately why his mother liked him.
Alex got his mother and Lou coffee and croissants to go, and was about to retreat to the kitchen when someone approached the counter. Someone Alex couldn’t look away from.
The man was a few inches shorter than Alex’s six feet, and slim—almost willowy. He had a tangle of dark hair that fell around his face, and eyes almost as dark. His skin was light gold and there was a spray of freckles across his delicate nose. He looked up at Alex, eyes half hidden behind that veil of hair, with his head cocked like a bird.
“Coffee, please.”
He was the most beautiful man Alex had ever seen. Strange looking, a bit awkward, and half-wild, the way animals were that lived side by side with people but never went inside as pets. His face and the set of his shoulders made Alex want to tramp through the woods as the leaves fell, run through fields to tumble him down on sun-warmed grass, press flowers to his lips to see which were softer. Beautiful.