“Mom! That’s Daddy.” Faith clung to Paula.
“It’s okay, Faithy. I need you to keep an eye on your brother for me. Daddy’s fine. I’m going to go talk to him.”
Quinn had started for the back door the second Faith dropped the beaters. By the time Eli found his way out—through the living room—Quinn was between the brothers, holding Dennis’s arm. At the end of it, Dennis’s fist had a grip on Peter’s dress shirt.
“Well that explains it.” Peter tore himself free, losing a few buttons in the process. He glared at his brother. “You actually believe this little fag—”
Quinn punched him in the mouth. Eli jumped forward to grab Quinn’s right arm.
Peter wiped his mouth and smiled with bloody teeth. “Damn. You finally grew a pair.”
“What the hell is going on?” Roger came through the back door.
“Don’t worry. He can’t hit hard,” Peter sneered.
“Don’t worry. My foot in your nuts will be hard enough,” Eli said, still holding on to Quinn.
“Tell them, Peter.” Dennis’s voice was low, lethal with threat.
“Tell them what? The kid’s jealous. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.” Peter glanced up as Claire came out. “Sorry, Mom.”
Dennis paced away from his brother then came back to face him. “Why isn’t your wife here, Peter? Tell me what I heard at the station isn’t true.”
“It isn’t. I’d expect this from him.” Peter jerked his head in Quinn’s direction. “But not my own brother.”
“Dennis,” Roger barked out. “Explain this.”
“I heard from the dispatcher at the station Chrissy took the baby and left him. Then Eli says—”
“Eli?” Roger turned with a dismissive look.
Eli let go of Quinn and started to step forward, but Quinn’s arm pulled him back.
“Yes, Eli,” Quinn said. “Who is, when I’m not asking him to lie for the rest of you, completely honest.”
“The rest of us? Heavens, Quinn, what do you mean?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know about Chrissy leaving, but I’m through covering for your son.” Quinn’s last word carried a boatload of disgust.
“Quinn.” Peter’s cry had an equal amount of desperation.
“I don’t know what his sexuality is—”
“Really, Quinn,” Claire interrupted.
“But he hasn’t been faithful to his wife, and if she had any sense, she did leave.”
Roger strode across the lawn and delivered a sharp backhand to his son. “What have you done?”
Peter looked down like a guilty child. “She found a receipt for condoms in my jeans. But she wouldn’t have thought— I could have convinced her if—he hadn’t been around.” He pointed at Eli. “He’s what made her think anything had happened in the first place.”
The silence was heavy. Eli felt the looks coming at him.
“Well, thank God for that.” Quinn put his arm around Eli.
“Amen,” Dennis added.
Quinn steered Eli to Claire, who was standing with her hand over her mouth as if she had to block whatever she wanted to say. “Thanks for dinner. Claire.” He nodded at the other people on the patio. “Roger, Paula, Happy Thanksgiving.” He brought them to a stop in front of Dennis. “Give me a call, and we’ll play a little pickup.”
“Sure.” Dennis slapped Quinn’s shoulder and offered a hand to Eli. “Thanks for being strai—uh, thanks, Eli. Sorry about…” He dipped his head in a way that could have referred to any of the family.
“It’s okay.” Eli stared a second before he shook the man’s hand. “You and your wife should come for dinner sometime.”
“Honest, you say?” Dennis grinned at Quinn. “What about the kids?” he asked Eli.
“Ummm.”
Dennis gave Eli the same shoulder slap he’d given Quinn.
When they were around the corner of the house on their way to the driveway, Quinn yanked Eli close and kissed him.
One ear cocked for the sound of someone coming to pull them apart for queering up this section of suburbia, Eli kissed him back, lifting up on his toes, loving every breath and taste of the man.
“Thanks,” Quinn said when he let Eli go.
“I know I’m awesome, but what for this time?”
Quinn dropped another kiss on Eli’s lips. “Just for being my boyfriend.” Quinn gave him that smile. The same one that Eli used to think meant Quinn was laughing at him. It didn’t mean that. It was Quinn’s dare you smile. His come on and have fun with me smile. His Eli smile. “C’mon. I’ll take you downtown for some pie.”
“How heteronormative.”
“I can’t have pie on Thanksgiving because straight people do?”
“Fine. Have pie. I want crepes.” Eli kissed the reddened tops of Quinn’s knuckles. “And you have to change out of that sweater.”
Quinn laughed and dragged Eli toward the car.
About the Author
K.A. Mitchell discovered the magic of writing at an early age when she learned that a carefully crayoned note of apology sent to the kitchen in a toy truck would earn her a reprieve from banishment to her room. Her career as a spin control artist was cut short when her family moved to a two-story house, and her trucks would not roll safely down the stairs. Around the same time, she decided that Chip and Ken made a much cuter couple than Ken and Barbie and was perplexed when invitations to play Barbie dropped off. An unnamed number of years later, she’s happy to find other readers and writers who like to play in her world.
To learn more about K.A. Mitchell, please visit www.kamitchell.com. Send an email to K.A. Mitchell at [email protected].
Look for these titles by K.A. Mitchell
Now Available:
Custom Ride
Hot Ticket
Diving in Deep
Regularly Scheduled Life
Collision Course
Chasing Smoke
An Improper Holiday
No Souvenirs
Life, Over Easy
Not Knowing Jack
Bad Company
Some things are sweeter than revenge.
Bad Company
© 2011 K.A. Mitchell
“I need a boyfriend.”
Hearing those words from the mouth of his very straight ex-friend is enough to make columnist and editor Nate Gray choke on his Corona. It’s been thirteen years since Kellan Brooks’s father crushed Nate’s family on his climb to wealth and power. Even longer since he entrusted Kellan with the confession that he might be gay—only to have his best friend out and humiliate him to their entire high school. The last thing Nate expects is Kellan begging for his help.
Breaking off his engagement to a senator’s daughter was the last straw for Kellan’s CEO father. Frustrated at being cut off, his father’s stinging words—that he wishes Kellan had never been born—still ringing in his ears, Kellan turns to Nate. In a move worthy of a corporate raider, Kellan plans the ultimate revenge. Come out as the boyfriend of the man his homophobic father betrayed.
Convincing Nate to play along isn’t easy. It’s even harder to figure out why the lie feels so close to the truth.
Warning: Contains old friends, old enemies, a dramatic cat rescue, soft drink references and a lot of teasing before the steamy sex. Readers are cautioned against drinking any beverage while reading to avoid accidental snorting or spraying of said beverages.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Bad Company:
Broad chest stretching out another of Nate’s T-shirts, Kellan lay sprawled across most of the bed when Nate finally made it through the door at two. Tomorrow Nate could sleep in, unless there was an emergency with the printing and distribution. After he got out of the bathroom, he surveyed the landscape by the light from the streetlight on the corner and executed an acrobatic arch around Yin to find a spot on the mattress.
As soon as Nate got the sheet over him and his pillow precisely the way he wanted it, Kellan flopp
ed an arm over Nate’s hips.
“Shove over, Kell.” The déjà vu from those three words made Nate smile until an equally strong frisson of agony had him bolt up, feet on the floor. Because this wasn’t one of those hundred times they’d been tucked together in Nate’s bed as kids, when a shove from a hand or a hip meant nothing more than friendship. Now he was surrounded by the smell of Kellan’s skin, the sound of his breath, drowning in the need to roll on top of Kellan and put way more into him than his tongue.
“What’s wrong? Drunk again?” Kellan’s voice sounded deeper than usual in the dark.
“I’m fine. Just thought of something about the paper.”
Nate heard Kellan drop hard onto his back.
“Yeah, the paper.” Kellan’s laugh was more breath than sound. “At least you haven’t cut yourself off from ever getting laid again. While every guy you were ever friends with is wondering if you take it up the ass.”
“Christ, Kellan, then why the fuck did you do this?” Nate spun around to face him, moving so abruptly Yin took off to find a quieter spot. She paused by the kitchen island to level an evil glowing glare in his direction.
Kellan sat up and dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I guess it seemed like a good idea. I mean, I still think it’s a good idea, but it feels weird.”
Nate turned back to face the window. “Yeah. Weird. I get that.” A Kellan a lot hotter than anything Nate remembered, who he got to sleep next to and kiss but not really touch, was about as weird as it got.
Kellan laughed, an audible chuckle this time. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so weird if I actually was doing what everyone’s going to think I’m doing.”
“What are you saying? You want to be doing it?” Nate turned on the bed so he could watch Kellan’s face in the light from the street. Was Kellan trying to ask Nate for it?
Kellan shrugged.
Nate launched himself on top of Kellan, pinning him on his back with hands on his shoulders, and leaned close to his ear. “You want me to fuck you, is that it? You want my dick in your ass, Kellan?”
Kellan’s lips curled in before he spoke. “I didn’t say that.” But Kellan didn’t try to shove Nate off. Broad shoulders flinched under Nate’s hands.
Nate wanted to scream in frustration. This was another one of Kellan’s games, to get Nate to go far enough so that Kellan could laugh it off as a joke and make Nate the aggressor who took things too seriously.
“I might be doing this for my own reasons, but I’m not that much of a whore.” Nate sat up, still straddling Kellan’s hips, and lunged across to the end-table drawer. Tossing the lube and the dildo on Kellan’s chest, Nate said, “Try it out and let me know what you think. Practice sucking it too. I’m not into virgins.”
He swung off Kellan and stood up.
Kellan rolled onto his side facing Nate, picked up the dildo and tossed it at his feet. “Now I know why you’ve got one of those. You’re such a self-righteous prick you’re the only one good enough to fuck you.”
Nate gaped at him, hands curling into fists. He’d never wanted to punch someone before in his life.
“That’s right,” Kellan went on. “You may not be whore enough to fuck me, but you’re whore enough to fake a big gay love for revenge. Get off your high horse, Nathan. This is so much more about my dad than saving the city from some evil corporation.”
“Do you know what it did to my dad? Did you hear what happened when old Geoffrey went public with the energy-drink formula he stole from my dad? KZ Cola threatened to put him in jail for industrial espionage and theft. We lost our house. Everything.”
Kellan’s face, pale against the shadows, grew dark as he flushed. “I didn’t know all that.”
“No. You were too busy at your new school, in your new mansion, to worry about that. Not that you even gave a shit about me then.”
“I could try to fucking apologize again, but I don’t know what the hell would be good enough for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t born perfect. I’m sorry your life sucked. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to be there, Kellan.” It was Nate’s turn to shove the scar on his forearm under Kellan’s nose. Nate kept his voice low and tight so it wouldn’t break with the still-raw memory of that betrayal. “I never let you down. What happened to you?”
Nate was learning to read this older Kellan. The lip biting Kellan had done when he was anxious had become a quick pull in between his teeth, pushing it out to make his bottom lip fuller.
This time though, Kellan bit his lower lip so hard Nate thought there’d be blood. “I turned into a dick. Does that make you happy?”
“No.”
Kellan glanced over at the clock on the table. “Shit. I’m supposed to be back at the café at six thirty.” He ran a hand over his face. “Unless you’re going to toss my ass on the street.”
“No. I promised you could stay.”
“Right. Noble Nate.” Kellan stood up.
“Where are you going?”
“Newsflash: we ordinary people have to take a piss every once in a while.”
If Nate climbed into bed now, maybe he could fall asleep before Kellan got out of the bathroom. One of the things about knowing someone for a long time was that you could always save the argument for later. That was, until you ran out of laters.
Sometimes the adventure chooses you.
Come Unto These Yellow Sands
© 2011 Josh Lanyon
Lover of fine poetry and lousy choose-your-own-adventure novels, Professor Sebastian Swift was once the bad-boy darling of the literati. The only lines he does these days are Browning, Frost and Cummings. Even his relationship with the hot, handsome Wolfe Neck Police Chief Max Prescott is healthy.
When one of his most talented students comes to him bruised and begging for help, Swift hands over the keys to his Orson Island cabin—only to find out that the boy’s father is dead and the police are suspicious. In an instant, the stable life Swift has built for himself hangs on finding the boy and convincing him to give himself up before Max figures out Swift’s involvement in the case.
Max enjoys splitting an infinitive or two with his favorite nutty professor, but he’s not much for sonnets or Shakespeare. He likes being lied to even less. Yet his instincts—and his heart—tell him his lover is being played. Max can forgive lies and deception, but a dangerous enemy may not stop until Swift is heading up his own dead poet’s society.
Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that Josh Lanyon’s smart, sexy, sophisticated stories may prove hazardous to your heart.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Come Unto These Yellow Sands:
Swift drove down the shady wide streets, past the little shops and art galleries and comfortable homes to the small brick police station surrounded by tidy green lawns and a forest of wet flagpoles.
Inside the station it was warm and surprisingly quiet. Hannah Maltz, the dispatcher, was working at her computer, clicking briskly away at the keyboard. She was a very pretty middle-aged woman—far too pretty to be an effective cop, in Max’s opinion. Max had a tendency to make those kinds of judgment calls. What Hannah thought about being regulated to desk duty was anyone’s guess, but she was a great dispatcher. She had a very nice voice in an emergency. Not that Swift had many emergencies these days.
“Why hello, Professor Swift,” Hannah greeted him. “Wet enough for you?”
Swift was unsure what official explanation of their friendship—if any—Max offered inquiring minds. Having grown up in the spotlight, Swift was basically blind to public curiosity. He took it for granted that people paid attention to what he did, and he’d stopped noticing his own celebrity a long time ago. After three much publicized stints in rehab you tended to develop a thick skin. But Max was the police chief of a small town, and it went without saying—or at least they had never got around to discussing it—that he required discretion.
He was not much good at jokey back-and-forth stuff, but Swift said gravely, “A
re you checking out my gills again?”
Hannah laughed. “Chief Prescott’s on the phone, but you can go on through.”
The door to Max’s office stood open. Swift could see a sliver of Max tilted back in his chair, phone to his ear. He heard snatches of Max’s deep tones between the click-clacks of Hannah’s keyboard.
Max glanced up as Swift pushed open the door. His brows rose in surprised inquiry, and he nodded to the chair in front of his desk.
“You can bitch about First Amendment rights all you want, Harry, but I’m telling you if you print that, we’re going to have words.”
Swift sat in one of the chairs before Max’s orderly desk and looked idly about the small office with its battered file cabinets, wooden coat rack, bulletin boards and bookcase with leather-bound volumes that were older than Max.
Whatever Harry said on the other end of the line amused Max. He gave that deep, growly laugh that always sent a pleasurable shiver down Swift’s spine. He wished Max would hurry up and get off the line. He hoped the phone call never ended.
The first time Swift had been to this office was six years ago, not long after he’d moved to Stone Coast. He’d woken one morning to find someone had plowed into his parked car during the night. He reported the hit and run and spent a couple of minutes talking to the then newly elected Chief of Police. The only thing he really recalled of that first meeting was that he’d immediately liked Max’s air of quiet, easy competency. It hadn’t occurred to him that Max was gay. Sex, let alone romance, had been the last thing on his mind in those early brittle days of his recovery.
“I’m just an overworked, underpaid public servant of the people.” Max’s eyes met Swift’s and he winked.
That was another thing Swift remembered from that very first meeting. Max’s unexpected charm. You didn’t look for charm from a cop. Swift didn’t, anyway. But Max had it in spades. It didn’t hide the tough competency, just made it a little more palatable, like the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down. As now. Harry—most likely Harry Wilson, editor of the Stone Coast Signal—was having the law laid down in the nicest possible way. And as pissed off as he undoubtedly was, he’d probably vote Max into office for a second term when Max came up for reelection in two years.
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