Making a Splash

by Sean Michael

  “Sure. I can probably get a spot at the university gym. When’s your flight?”

  “Not until 9:40, so we’ve got some time. I’m really looking forward to seeing your form.”

  It would let him put together a game plan, get started on paper. Hell, it would tell him just how far Chris had come since the injury and how much further he had to go.

  He drained his drink and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Damn, there was nothing quite like greasy food. It had always been one of his downfalls.

  “Cool. I’ll make some phone calls, see what Coach Farris can do. Excuse me.” Chris slid out of the booth, pulling out a cell phone as he walked away. Brian just heard, “Steve? Hey, man, this is Chris, you got a minute?”

  Brian pulled out his wallet and looked around for the waitress, signaling that they wanted the bill, then he just kind of sat there, still not quite sure he believed it.

  He’d made his pitch, and Chris had gone for it. He’d pinned his hopes on this trip and it had worked out for him. He chuckled, the way he felt just too big to hold it all in.

  Chris wandered back, nodded a little, and dug out his wallet. “Steve says we can have the place in a half hour. We just need to meet him there.”

  “Oh, that’s excellent! I’m glad they could be so accommodating.” Brian nodded toward Chris’ empty plate. “You going to be okay so soon after the heavy meal?”

  “If not, we’ll find out.” Chris shrugged. “It isn’t like we have a ton of time.”

  He laughed, nodding. “There is that. I really don’t want to re-see that meal, though.”

  He gave the waitress his card. “Why don’t you leave the tip?” After all, he’d invited Chris out and he imagined that, with the injury and all his backers pulling out, things were tight.

  “Yeah? Okay. Thanks. I’ll buy us something to drink for the gym. I’m always thirsty as hell after.” Chris put a five on the table, face showing a bit of animation.

  Oh, the man was hooked on it; Brian could see it.

  In fact, Chris’ enthusiasm was contagious, and when Brian got his card back and they headed out, there was a definite bounce in his step.

  “If they aren’t letting you do much on the equipment, as you’re coachless, what have you been doing?”

  “Studying. Working. I sold all my furniture and bought a weight set, and my GPA jumped to a 3.9.”

  Chris led him out, straight toward a little old green Honda. The walk was a little stiff, but not bad. Not impossible.

  “What equipment was it you’ve been on again?”

  It was one of the things he liked about teaching, getting to show the girls stuff, being able to use the equipment now and then.

  Not that they had rings at his current job, but they did have a pommel horse. It wasn’t like he still had decent strength in his upper body anymore, anyway. It was amazing how quickly that faded. “And have you been working on your upper body, keeping your strength up?”

  “Rings. The bar. I haven’t hit a landing. No one wants me to try yet.” Chris opened the car door, slid in. “I do weight training five hours a day.”

  Brian put on his seatbelt. “Have your doctors prohibited you from landing?” If Chris couldn’t land, he couldn’t compete. It was as simple as that.

  The strong hands clenched around the steering wheel, the leather around it creaking. “I haven’t been cleared. I can’t land if I can’t train. I can’t train if I don’t get a coach. I can’t compete if I can’t land.”

  Brian nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much the way of it. But we’re about to break that vicious circle, yeah? We did shake on it, right?”

  “Yeah?” Those two-toned eyes looked over at him. “I…. Man, I thought you were about to tell me you’d changed your mind.”

  “Oh! No, no. I’m sorry, didn’t meant to stress you out. I mean, back surgery, I knew it was going to be a long haul. Hell, Chris, you’re probably taking a bigger chance on me—I’m totally untried in coaching men’s gymnastics.”

  He got a quick look as they backed out of the parking lot. “Well, then, I bet I can come up with a list of gymnast demands.”

  Well, well. Look there.

  A sense of humor.

  Brian laughed. “Hey, as long as it doesn’t cost money, you just might be able to talk me into that list.” There was a surprising amount of traffic as they drove out onto the highway—it’d been too long since he’d been in the big city. “It always busy like this?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Chris drove with confidence, changing lanes, zipping down the highway. “I’ll grab my box and then we can head to the school.”

  Chris drove them down to a little dragged-down section of town, the old houses made into dozens and dozens of student apartments. Dingy and tired, but solid. Comfortable. Lacking in terrible scariness.

  “You gonna mind sharing digs with me in Monterey? We don’t have to, but there’ll be more money for other stuff if we share.” He wasn’t too sure about the “didn’t have to,” either, but he didn’t want to force it on Chris.

  He got another quick look. “Look, man. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I know how to stay in my own bed and I haven’t ever been inappropriate with a team mate.”

  They pulled into a driveway, the engine coming to a stop.

  “Um… I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.” Though from what Chris had said, he could guess. “I was more thinking about you being uncomfortable living with a stranger, sharing digs. Or what you might have heard about me.”

  “Oh.” Chris looked at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish. “I’ll get that stuff for you.”

  He chuckled. “I think we both need our gaydar tweaked.” To be honest, he’d just been so focused on seeing Chris, convincing the man to accept his offer of coaching….

  “Yeah. You need to catch up with the latest gossip, too.” Those sharp cheekbones were painfully red, eyes on the steering wheel. “You want to wait here or come up?”

  “Well, that depends. Are you going to catch me up with the gossip?” He bumped their shoulders together. “I’ll stay here.” Give Chris a few minutes to compose himself.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.” Chris headed upstairs, disappeared behind a little red door.

  Lord, a guy with a reputation.

  He just wished he knew what that reputation was. He really was out of the loop at Mrs. Kernicke’s School for Girls. And now he was curious as hell.

  It had him chuckling at himself. He wasn’t even back in the scene for a half hour and already he was eager to hear the gossip.

  Back on the scene.

  Wow.

  Too cool.

  More from Sean Michael

  Firefighter Jason “Jase” Weller and EMT Scott Bronson are living the perfect life. They work together in jobs they love, they live together, and in their downtime, they still can’t get enough of each other. It’s been six amazing years. Then on Christmas Eve, Jase’s former lover Elsa shows up with a six-year-old girl in tow. The strung-out junkie claims Kerry is Jase’s daughter and it’s his turn to care for her, and then she walks out.

  Shocked at both the fact that Elsa is now a junkie and that he has a daughter he never knew about, Jase nonetheless steps up to the plate as her father and Scott offers his full support. Having an instant family comes with plenty of challenges, and the two men work to deal with sweeping changes in their lives and to make things right for Kerry.

  It’s not going to be easy, and their new circumstances test them and their relationship like nothing ever has. They’ll need all the love they have for each other—and the love they discover for their daughter—to keep from breaking apart.

  When easygoing Texas artist Dakin McBride makes his way to Ottawa, Canada, for a showing, he meets Jeff Tamrin, the fastidious manager of the Sussex Gallery. Despite coming from different worlds and being opposites in almost every way, the attraction is immediate, and soon Dakin and Jeff negotiate their own brand of diplomatic relations, f
orgetting all about art or seeing the sights the city has to offer. They get wrapped up in the moment, each of them intrigued by what he feels for the other.

  The more they get to know each other, the more they like what they see. Dakin has a life to go back to in Texas, though, and Jeff has his own in Canada. Is there any way for their budding romance to survive the thousands of miles separating them? The relationship seems doomed, but at the same time, it feels too right to give up without a fight.

  After winning Olympic gold four years ago, Justin retired from swimming, and he’s been floundering ever since. The Fourth of July finds him contemplating doing something stupid, so Justin calls up his former coach, Chris Jarvis. To his surprise, Coach answers.

  When Justin retired, Chris cut all ties with the swimmer he’d fallen in love with. He never wanted Justin to love him just because it was easy. But he’s been waiting for Justin to reach out, and he’ll gladly take Justin back into his life.

  When he finds out Justin is drowning in a pool of self-doubt and the belief that his happy years are behind him, Chris realizes he made a mistake letting go so suddenly, and that Justin needs structure and a firm, dominant hand to keep him on the right track. It’s time to remedy that error—as long as he can convince Justin that it’s really love.

  Cash McCord’s life is pretty much perfect. He owns the family ranch, loves his work, and invites the occasional cowboy into his bed. But everything is turned upside down when his brother Jack and Jack’s wife Val are killed in a car crash, leaving behind six kids.

  Cash is made guardian of the children, along with Val’s brother, Brad Rafferty—a man who couldn’t be more different from Cash if he tried. A Yankee, Brad is a video-game developer who works twelve-to-fourteen-hour days at his desk. They lock horns as soon as they set eyes on each other. Neither man is happy to have the other around, but neither is willing to give up custody of his nieces and nephews.

  It’s up to these two polar opposites to keep the kids together and give them a family again. But first they’ll have to keep from killing each other.

  Elliot is an up-and-coming architect who just opened his own firm—which is a lot more work and pressure than he expected. His partner, Graham, is a respected composer and conductor. They share their love and lives in a beautiful house designed by Elliot, and whenever things get too hard to handle, they retreat to their cabin getaway where Elliot becomes Dom to Graham’s needy little sub.

  When things at Elliot’s firm begin to crumble, Graham needs to be the tough one, the one to suggest the cabin and the games they play there, knowing Elliot’s role as Dom will give him strength and that their games will recharge his lover. Together, they keep working to find that precarious balance in their lives—until an accident threatens to change everything. Elliot and Graham’s love faces its greatest challenge yet, and only the resilience they draw from each other can see them through hardship and keep the music in their lives.

  Often referred to as “Space Cowboy” and “Gangsta of Love” while still striving for the moniker of “Maurice,” SEAN MICHAEL spends his days surfing, smutting, organizing his immense gourd collection and fantasizing about one day retiring on a small secluded island peopled entirely by horseshoe crabs. While collecting vast amounts of vintage gay pulp novels and mood rings, Sean whiles away the hours between dropping the f-bomb and pursuing the Kama Sutra by channeling the long-lost spirit of John Wayne and singing along with the soundtrack to Chicago.

  A longtime writer of complicated haiku, currently Sean is attempting to learn the advanced arts of plate spinning and soap carving sex toys.

  Barring any of that? He’ll stick with writing his stories, thanks, and rubbing pretty bodies together to see if they spark.

  Website: www.seanmichaelwrites.com

  Blog: seanmichaelwrites.blogspot.ca

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/SeanMichaelWrites

  Twitter: @seanmichael09

  By Sean Michael

  Add Love and Mix

  Amnesia

  Cupcakes

  First Steps

  From the Get Go

  Golden

  Guarding January

  Inheritance

  Just the Right Notes

  Making a Splash

  Of Love

  Out of the Past

  The Swag Man Delivers

  Unto Us the Time Has Come

  X-Factor

  IRON EAGLE GYM

  The New Boy

  The Perfect Sub

  The Luckiest Master

  The Closet Boy

  The Dom’s Way

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Published by

  DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Making a Splash

  © 2017 Sean Michael.

  Cover Art

  © 2017 Valerie Tibbs | Tibbs Design.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. 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, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-470-8

  Published July 2017

  v. 2.0

  First Edition published by Torquere Press, 2007.

  Printed in the United States of America