Stay Lucky: a Single Dads Gay Romance
Page 1
Stay Lucky
by
LETA BLAKE
An Original Publication from Leta Blake Books
Written and published by Leta Blake
Cover by Dar Albert
Formatted by BB eBooks
First Edition Copyright © 2018 by Lucky Honey Books
Second Edition Copyright © 2020 Leta Blake Books
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. They should not be construed as real or related to any individual. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written consent from the author.
First Digital Edition, 2018
Second Digital Edition, 2020
ISBN: 9781626226289
Other Books by Leta Blake
Any Given Lifetime
The River Leith
Smoky Mountain Dreams
The Difference Between
Heat for Sale
Stay Lucky
Stay Sexy
Omega Mine: Search for a Soulmate
Bring on Forever
Angel Undone
The Home for the Holidays Series
Mr. Frosty Pants
Mr. Naughty List
The Training Season Series
Training Season
Training Complex
Heat of Love Series
Slow Heat
Alpha Heat
Slow Birth
Bitter Heat
’90s Coming of Age Series
Pictures of You
You Are Not Me
Co-Authored with Indra Vaughn
Vespertine
Cowboy Seeks Husband
Co-Authored with Alice Griffiths
The Wake Up Married serial
Will & Patrick’s Endless Honeymoon
Gay Fairy Tales
Co-Authored with Keira Andrews
Flight
Levity
Rise
Audiobooks
Leta Blake at Audible
Free Read
Stalking Dreams
Discover more about the author online:
Leta Blake
Gay Romance Newsletter
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A second chance to build the family of their dreams…
Grant long ago gave up on a relationship with Leo. After all, even a successful doctor can’t compete with a movie star. He never stood a chance.
But now, Leo’s back with his adorable, genius daughter in tow. Did Leo come home looking for a fresh start?
Before the two of them can build a new family for themselves, they’ll have to face health scares, the return of Leo’s ex, and their own insecurities. Will the chemistry between them be enough to overcome the challenges?
Author Notes on the Second Edition: This book was originally drafted in early 2010 during a time when I was keen on working out particular themes in my writing: second chances, opposites attract, medical romance, and rudely honest heroes. I re-worked this novel for publication in 2018 under my pen name Halsey Harlow. In an effort to consolidate my books, I’m re-releasing all Halsey Harlow books as Leta Blake. Also, at the time of writing this book, my daughter was four years old. I modeled much of Lucky’s behavior after her, including her obsession with Greek Myths. Some betas found the character of Lucky unbelievable for a five-year-old. Well, gosh, I always knew my daughter was unbelievable in every way! It’s nice to have that confirmed.
For Luck
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Other Books by Leta Blake
Gay Romance Newsletter
Leta Blake on Patreon
About the Book
Author Notes on the Second Edition
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Letter from Leta
About Vespertine
About Any Given Lifetime
About Slow Heat
Gay Romance Newsletter
Leta Blake on Patreon
Other Books by Leta Blake
About the Author
Warning: if you’re employed in the medical field, some suspension of disbelief may be required.
Prologue
The cicadas rattled endlessly in the trees, filling the humid summer evening with sound. The chill of the soda bottle in his palm was the only relief from the sticky balm of the overheated summer as Grant relaxed back into the wooden lawn chair. He watched the blur of little Lucky’s pale legs darting beneath her pale-yellow dress. Her brown hair trailed out behind her, as she skirted the edge of the glassy pond.
Holding one fist aloft, Lucky called out, “I have vanquished the foul Medusa! I, Perseus, shall save you now, oh, my darling Andromeda!”
“Are you certain the birth certificate wasn’t forged?” Grant asked, sipping his beer and wiping the sweat from his upper lip. He ran a hand through his sweaty dark hair, and then over his equally dark chest hair, proudly shirtless and baking in the sun. His khaki shorts clung to his legs in the evening heat.
“Yes, I’m sure, jerk,” Leo answered, twirling a piece of mint in his hand and sniffing it occasionally. He wore a white T-shirt and cut-off jean shorts. His wheat-colored hair swooped back from his forehead in a loose fall.
“She doesn’t look or act like she’s five, and this thing for Greek Myths is—”
“Precocious, I know.” Gray eyes sparkling, Leo grinned at him.
Grant wrinkled his nose. “Ehhh, yeah, no, I was gonna go with weird.”
“Her life’s pretty out of control right now,” Leo said. “The myths are messy, too, but they have their own kind of justice. Medusa’s head turns the sea-monster to stone; Andromeda and Perseus are happy together.”
“Zeus can’t keep his pants on.”
Leo laughed. “True. But I think she needs the myths right now.”
“She needs Sesame Street.”
Leo rolled his eyes adorably. “Come on, you love it.”
Grant shrugged. He did. He loved taking Lucky around to the nurses’ stations and watching all their faces go from delighted to confused in ten seconds flat. He loved the feel of her little hand in his and the way she smiled whenever she saw him. And he loved the most the way her father looked just a little healthier when Lucky was around.
It’d been ten months since he’d seen Leo for the second first time, and six months since he’d been able to do this like it was a regular thing, like it
was part of his life that wasn’t going to disappear. Six whole months of Lucky doing dot-to-dots at the table, calling out biology questions as they struck her, while Grant and Leo chopped up salad in the kitchen. Six whole months of the best days of his life.
“What’s a brain eat, Dr. Grant?” Lucky had asked the prior Friday.
“Not junk food,” Leo had said. “I can tell you that much.”
Grant explained about glucose and Lucky had nodded along, saying, finally, “So, it does eat sugar. Jello has sugar.”
“It’s different,” Leo hastened to clarify. “Tell her Grant.”
Grant sighed. “My brain, which we all know is the greatest brain in the state, much less the room—”
“Why not say the whole country?” Leo smirked.
“I was attempting that modesty thing you’re always telling me about.”
“And failing.”
“Because it’s a lie! This proves my point! Modesty is just a lie designed to make others feel better about being losers.”
Leo laughed and shook his head at Grant.
Clearing his throat, Grant had gone on, “So, Lucky, as I was saying, the greatest brain in the whole country loves to eat the sugar from Jello.”
“Oh, Grant,” Leo chided.
“Red Jello, especially. Either flavor, strawberry, cherry, I don’t care, so long as it has those extra mind- and mood-altering substances in the dye. You know the dye made from smashed poisonous bugs and coal by-product? Yep, that’s what my brain likes.”
Leo had punched his arm, and it still made Grant happy to think of the smile that Leo had tried to hide under his mock anger.
That was three days ago, and now Lucky splashed in the edge of the water alongside the pond, slashing at the air, killing invisible monsters. Leo was probably right that it made her feel better to destroy something in her imagination when she couldn’t kill the thing that terrified her the most in her actual life.
“What are you thinking about?” Leo said, tossing the mint at him. “You look unhappy.”
“Tomorrow,” Grant said. “Muresan is an arrogant idiot who barely scraped by with an A minus in his high school chemistry class, so why they let him anywhere near people’s bodies with a scalpel, I don’t know, and why you’re going to let him touch you with it—”
“You looked up his high school records? Is that legal? How did you even manage that?”
“Your police chief Memaw shared my concerns,” Grant said.
“Is it a good idea to undermine the patient’s belief in his surgeon’s competence like this?”
Grant opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, “It’s not too late to fly in someone better.”
“Muresan’s plenty good at this, Grant. He’s done dozens of kidney transplants.” Leo leaned over and rested his head on Grant’s shoulder. “If we’re going to worry about anything, we should worry about whether my sister is going to bail again. Mom says she’s committed this time, but I don’t know. It’s a big thing, giving away a kidney. I’m sure she’s scared.”
“Oh, please. Last time I checked, you’re raising her—” Grant barely stopped himself from saying bastard, just in case Lucky could hear him. “You’re raising Lucky, and so I’d say she owes you. If her little feelings are in an uproar about having her side cut into and a pretty little scar left behind—”
“She’s still my kid sister.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not a kid.” Grant pointed at Lucky who was throwing sticks into the water. “That? That’s a kid. And she needs you because her bratty mother hasn’t done the right thing with her life even once since she was seventeen years old, so spare me your consideration for Hannah’s feelings.”
“Why, Dr. Anderson, who knew you were so opinionated?”
Grant said, “Everybody.”
“I probably should be offended.”
“Why?”
Leo rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I can’t be bothered to explain it to you tonight. I’d rather think about other things. Like how nice it will be to feel better. I’ve been meaning to show you a thing or two,” Leo said, wagging his brows suggestively.
“Yeah, right,” Grant said. “Try the other way around.”
“Like I said, it’ll be nice.”
“I don’t always play nice.”
“No joke.” Leo laughed. “You’re worse than a five-year-old when it comes to sharing, eating well, sleeping, and generally maintaining social decorum.”
“I have to beat the competition,” Grant said, nodding Lucky’s way. “I can’t let her win, can I? What kind of example would that set?”
“Somehow, I think you’ve got this all backward.” Leo rested his head back against his chair and scooted down. “As much as I want to stay out here forever, watching Lucky, and making the day last, I’m getting tired.”
Grant said nothing, the sweat on his body feeling suddenly cold. Tomorrow morning Dr. Ken Muresan would be cutting into Leo, taking the kidney they would harvest from Hannah in the adjoining operating room and putting it directly into Leo’s right side, just above his non-functioning right kidney. Then they’d sew him up, leaving a fresh new scar on Leo’s right side to match the one on his chest.
“I’m scared,” Leo said.
“You’ll be fine,” Grant said.
“If something happens to me, I want you to know that Curtis is still legally her other parent. He’s promised, though, to give up his rights and to allow my mother to adopt Lucky.”
“Leo,” Grant said, putting up a hand because he couldn’t hear this. He couldn’t think about this.
“Just listen, okay? And I’ve told my mom that I want you in her life. Okay? Promise me, if something happens to me, you’ll be there for Lucky. No matter what.”
Grant stared at Leo, and he felt like he could see Leo’s brain, see the twisted, riveting gray matter that housed the person that Grant loved. “I give you my word.”
Leo relaxed back into his seat again. “Thank you.”
Grant stared at the side of Leo’s face, the way his neck met with his jaw line, and the length of his lashes blinking slowly.
Lucky ran up to them, then, her hands covered in mud, and she held them out dramatically, saying, “Out, damn spot! Out, I say!”
Grant looked pointedly at Leo, who smiled and said, “Okay, so maybe weird.”
Chapter One
Ten Months Earlier
Grant was having a terrible day. It’d started with a patient dying on the table. Unexpected damage that blocked the way to the tumor had resulted in one defining moment when Grant made a cut and a surprise bleeder spurted across the room.
It’d gone downhill from there, and the DNR made it final, even when Grant wasn’t convinced it’d needed to be.
Then, inexplicably, his lunch had been stolen out of the freezer by some jackass. He wasn’t even sure why, given that it was just a disgusting microwavable thing. Then, when he’d decided he’d just have to endure the dubious offerings of the hospital’s cafeteria, he found it was closed for some kind of routine cleaning or maintenance. Grant didn’t know which, and Grant didn’t care.
He was hungry and angry as he stomped across the third floor’s main lobby. And that’s when he saw Leo Garner, the Leo Garner who’d dumped Grant in favor of his aspiring actor ex six years prior. He stood talking to a nurse, smiling, laughing, and gesticulating with his hands in a way that’d always made Grant’s heart stop to take notice.
Why? Why?
And why now? After a day like today? Leo wasn’t supposed to be here in Grant’s hospital. He was supposed to be across the country with his now super-famous and super-hot boyfriend, Curtis Banks. What the hell? It wasn’t even Christmas!
Without thinking twice, Grant turned on his heels and went to physician’s locker room. He stripped out of his lab coat and scrubs, threw on his jeans and button-up shirt, and grabbed his bag. He was done with the day. Just done. He didn’t care he that he had paperwork up to his ears, or that n
urses would be left making frantic phone calls in confusion. Because for the first time in as many years as he’d worked at Appalachian Medical, Dr. Grant Anderson had decided enough was enough. A dead patient, no food, and an ex-boyfriend showing up in his hospital, on top of three weeks of keeping to a relentless pace in order to prove himself worthy of the recent promotion he’d been denied, had caught up to him. So, after telling the charge nurse he was leaving, he simply walked out and didn’t look back.
Dramatic maybe, but he just knew if he didn’t get away from Appalachian Medical right now, he was going to injure someone.
Possibly himself.
Back in his apartment, Grant popped open a beer and tore into his fast food burger. It tasted like sawdust. He stared at the blank television screen. Given the kind of day he was having, it didn’t come as any surprise that there was nothing to watch. Even the cable company had apparently decided to pile on, presenting him with Pollyanna Lifetime Television bullshit or screaming politicians as his options, and the one soap opera he considered sinking into mind-numbing hell with currently featured a storyline with an idiot soap-opera-gay who couldn’t choose between two equally ugly losers.
Grant threw the remote to the opposite side of the sofa. “Whatever. It’s not like he’ll get to sleep with either of them anyway. The American Family Association would burn the studio down.”
He rubbed at his eyes and shook his head, trying to get a grip on the low, thrumming irritation that coursed through him.
His cell phone rang. Grant glanced at the caller ID and cursed. “Anderson,” he said, holding the phone to his ear.
“Hey, partner,” Dennis McGraw, his chief of staff, husband of his best friend, and his arch-nemesis extraordinaire, said cheerily. “Taking a mental health day?”
“My disappearance made the hospital message board so soon?” Grant asked, shaking his head in annoyance.