by Max Hudson
“Sugar and Spice”
M/M Gay Romance
Max Hudson
© 2018
Max Hudson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.
Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/ (courtesy of Jerry Cole).
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.
Edition v1.00 (2018.06.13)
http://www.maxhudsonauthor.com
Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Elryc Caledon, Penny T., Chris F., Bob, Jammie Bebout, William G. Wallick, Aida Gutierrez, Jeanne M., Jon Niehus, Cassie, Scotty Z. and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
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
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Chapter One
Oscar’s eyes drifted open of their own accord and he gazed at his blurry bedroom. He blinked until everything came into focus, then sat up on top of the sheets, cracked his knuckles and winced against the bright daylight streaming in through his thin blue curtains.
The light wouldn’t have been so bad if he kept normal hours, but alas, it was already 2:30 in the afternoon and his AC was working overtime to combat the harsh summer sun. He’d definitely slept a bit longer than he’d have liked to, but he wasn’t overly concerned. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be.
He stood on creaky legs and made his way to the kitchen to make his afternoon coffee. The kitchen was a disaster, like always, with all his plates and utensils scattered haphazardly throughout, a byproduct of living alone for so many years. Oscar grabbed the nearest mug off the counter and went to rinse it out in the sink while the coffee was brewing. As he was drying the cup on the bottom of his T-shirt he glanced down and happened to catch a glimpse of his thirteen-year-old face peeking out from beneath the hem. In this image, he was dressed as his iconic character, Garrett Simpson from Garrett's Guide to Life and giving his signature two-fingered salute. The show’s logo was floating underneath him in peeling black vinyl.
Oscar ran his thumb over the print of his face, worn and nearly cracking from age and over use. At one point he’d possessed hundreds of these mugs. So many, that he could have never fathomed running out. Now, this was probably one of the only ones he had left that hadn’t been destroyed in a momentary fit of rage. He set it down gently, poured his coffee into it and then held the hot liquid close to his chest as he allowed himself a brief moment to reminisce.
Garrett’s Guide had been the teen sitcom to end all sitcoms. It was smart and quirky and original. Not to mention, it was one of the first shows of its kind to treat its—mostly young—audience with the respect and maturity they deserved.
It revolved around Garrett, who had grown up sheltered in a strict religious household—more like a thinly-veiled cult—moving in with his single aunt in the city and going to public school for the very first time.
The charm of the show relied heavily on Garrett’s character. He was scared, ignorant, and often clueless about social issues and the complicated lives of the people around him, but he was always willing to adapt and learn. He was a different person at the end of every episode than he had been at the start, and the writers never pressed the reset button on the lessons that he’d learned in previous episodes. Garrett wasn’t a perfect character, but he was trying his best to be good and to form his own opinions aside from the rhetoric he’d been raised with. He was coming into his own and constantly evolving, just like the show’s target demographic. Oscar, as a wide-eyed ten-year-old from El Paso who was now suddenly learning all about the magic—and horrors—of Hollywood, had sold this character perfectly, and it was because of his talent that the show was able to run for an unprecedented seven years.
To many people, Oscar Hernandez was not a man, but a legend. They had grown up with him, adored and even idolized him. There were pictures of him on every teenager’s wall; some who thought he was cool or empathized with his character, and others who just thought he was hot.
The finale of Garrett’s Guide had, at the time, broken the record for the most views of any televised program other than the Super Bowl. It marked the end of an era, and the end of childhood for a whole generation of people. Oscar was even Wind Magazine’s youngest ever person to be named Man of the Year at the tender age of seventeen. And then he’d just...disappeared.
There were all kinds of rumors. People weren’t sure if he died, was addicted to drugs, or changed his name and left the country entirely. Some even thought that he’d never been a real human to begin with and that his old network kept his lifeless shell of a body frozen in a pod underneath their studio headquarters in Calabasas. There were thousands of variations on the story, each one weirder than the next.
His disappearance was not the kind that slowly faded into the back of people’s consciousness over time, but rather, a real-life meme that only grew bigger—and more ridiculous—with each passing day.
Who’s this hot young starlet’s new boyfriend? I bet it’s Oscar Hernandez. A familiar-looking brown guy dining alone out in Hollywood? Oscar Hernandez, confirmed. Where did Amelia Earhart go? Why, she’s with Oscar Hernandez of course!
In actuality, he had been here the entire time; holed up in his penthouse apartment in Beverly Hills, hiding right underneath everyone’s noses. He had not left this building in over twelve years. He had his groceries delivered and paid his landlord and handyman handsome fees to keep their mouths shut. Aside from them and the IRS, no other living person knew of his whereabouts, and Oscar wante
d to keep it that way.
The thing was, he hadn’t really intended to isolate himself for so long. It just sort of happened, and he couldn’t say that he minded it. He had everything he could possibly need, and he never had to worry about interacting with people or explaining the toxic thunderstorm of thoughts that sometimes swirled around in his brain, consuming everything. It was just easier this way, living alone and whittling his savings down to nothing.
Oscar glanced down at his coffee and saw that there was no longer steam. He took a sip of the lukewarm beverage and sighed. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to combat his lingering sleepiness anymore. He suddenly felt like a wrung-out dishrag of a man, and all he wanted to do was crawl back into bed until the feeling passed. He was contemplating doing just that when he heard a knock on his front door.
The sound startled him and caused him to slosh coffee all over his hand and the floor. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, waiting for his heart rate to slow. It was probably just something he’d ordered online and then forgotten about. The building security wouldn’t have let someone up on this level otherwise. There was nothing to be afraid of. The delivery man would be gone in a couple of seconds and then he could go retrieve his package.
But then there was a second knock, this one steadier and more insistent. Whoever it was, they weren’t going away. Oscar frowned and then headed for the door. This happened sometimes when whatever company he’d ordered his luxury items from refused to leave them without a signature. All he had to do was keep his head held down and sign using his mother’s maiden name of Vega, which he used for all bills and banking purposes. It was one of the advantages of having two traditional Mexican parents. He had two last names, and most American banking institutions didn’t care if he shortened it down to just the second one; the one that was on his birth certificate and not in the tabloids.
Oscar held his coffee mug in his right hand and reached out to turn the doorknob with his left. The wood gave an ungodly creak just like it did every time he opened the door. It was like the apartment was self-aware enough to realize it was his makeshift tomb and was trying to act the part. He kept his head tilted toward the floor and carefully looked up through his eyelashes to take in the delivery man.
There was no delivery man though, just a devastatingly handsome blond guy with eyes so open and blue that they looked painted on. He had an expensive-looking pair of sunglasses tucked into the collar of his white T-shirt and a black messenger bag slung over one shoulder. His jeans were ripped in that fashionable way that was supposed to look rustic instead of edgy and his shoes probably cost more than Oscar’s entire wardrobe combined.
The man had such a strong presence, that it took Oscar a moment to notice the three gentlemen accompanying him. One of them was a dark-skinned man holding up a boom microphone, his lips turned down in a skeptical frown. To the right of him was a large white man holding a professional video camera on a mount, and finally, standing directly behind them all, was an obscured figure holding up a portable soft box for lighting. Oscar’s eyes landed on each of them individually before settling back on the camera. The red recording light was blinking slowly.
Visions of sitting in front of a camera much bigger than this one and delivering his lines flooded Oscar’s brain. He wasn’t in his apartment any longer. He was on a set. A bedroom. Garrett Simpson’s bedroom. There was the scratchy fabric of his galaxy bed sheets against his bare calves and clenched in his fists. He was delivering his lines automatically, without even thinking about them. His young mind was elsewhere. An overpass. A car. A hospital bed. His cold newly-empty estate. A thick request for emancipation splayed over his dad’s old desk. He couldn’t breathe. His head was swimming. The walls were closing in on him. It was all too much.
Oscar pitched forward, and his coffee mug fell from his fingers and shattered against the linoleum. The men in his doorway jumped back in alarm, but he was only dimly aware of it, of them. His vision was too fuzzy and there was a pervasive numbness creeping into his face. He knew, realistically, that he was just having a panic attack, but knowing the cause didn’t comfort him at all. He still felt certain he was going to die. He fell to his knees among the shards of his mug and buried his face in the palms of his hands. He was making these sick little gasping sounds that were halfway between a choke and a sob. He hadn’t felt helpless like this in so many years.
This. This was why he didn’t go out in public. The world was full of triggers and memories. Things best left in the past.
Oscar hoped, somewhere in the back of his wrecked mind that he had scared this disgusting excuse for a film crew as much as they’d scared him. Maybe then they’d leave him alone and never speak of this again to anyone, telling tall tales of the crazy guy in unit 719.
Alas, after only a few moments of contemplation, the beautiful blond boy crossed the threshold and crouched down next to Oscar. He held out his hand as an invitation but was careful not to touch him without permission.
“Hey,” the man said calmly. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’re here. You’re safe. Just keep on breathing. Slowly. One breath at a time.”
His breathing momentarily eased up, but then he heard the sound of the cameraman creeping closer to get a better shot of his suffering. Oscar looked up from his hunched form and hissed at him to stay back. The man stopped in his tracks and held up the hand that wasn’t holding the camera. The other two members of the crew were peering over his shoulder with matching looks of concern, but they made no effort to move from their positions. Oscar crumpled back in on himself, arms shaking with the effort of supporting his torso.
“Hey hey,” said the blond man again. “Remember what I said. All you have to worry about is breathing. Everything else can wait.” Oscar held this stranger’s words in his head and clung onto them like a lifeline. He took a few ragged gasping breaths in quick succession.
“Good,” said the man. “Now keep going. In and out. One breath at a time. Try and remember that whatever it is you’re feeling right now is only temporary. It will pass.”
It took a long time, but Oscar’s breathing finally settled into a manageable pattern. That didn’t stop his tingles or intrusive thoughts, but it was a start.
The blond man was still right next to him, lending Oscar some of his quiet strength. Oscar reached out and took the other man’s hand, squeezing it tightly in his own. It was a simple gesture, but it had been so long since he’d held someone’s hand… since he’d felt someone else’s touch at all, really. Initially, he thought the sensation would be too overwhelming, but it was actually quite grounding. He let his eyes fall closed and counted backwards from one hundred.
“My name’s Jesse,” the stranger whispered somewhere around the mid-sixties. “What’s yours?”
“Oscar,” he whispered back.
He liked the sound of Jesse’s voice, he decided. It was light and singsong, but also achingly genuine; like he too, was a fragile broken thing that could fall back apart at any given moment. It, along with his kindness and sweet smile, was annoyingly disarming. Oscar felt like he could trust him.
At that revelation, Oscar’s lungs seemed to double in size and his vision cleared. He sat back and glared in the direction of the still-rolling camera.
“What are you doing here?” he managed.
Jesse let go of Oscar’s hand and got up to stand between him and the cameraman.
“We were supposed to be surprising my kindergarten teacher with a check, but clearly someone gave us the wrong address.” Jesse smiled apologetically. “How are you feeling now?”
Oscar sighed heavily and forced himself to stand.
“Better,” he answered honestly. “Thanks for helping me through it.”
Jesse’s smile broadened. He looked like a model. The literal embodiment of California sunshine.
“No problem man. I’m sorry again. Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Oscar peered over Jesse’s shoulder at the frustrated camera guy and
company. They’d been recording him, sure, but there was no sign that they recognized who he was. There had to be hundreds of Oscars in this city. Besides, even if they did want to broadcast his panic attack on their show or web series or whatever, they’d been filming him in his home, without his permission. He hadn’t worked in television in years, but he didn’t have to be an expert to figure that out. Maybe this would be okay after all.
“What did you say you were filming again?” Oscar asked.
Jesse’s smile wavered, and he suddenly looked slightly embarrassed. It was an incredibly endearing look on him. Five minutes ago, Oscar wouldn’t have thought anything could shake this man’s unflappable confidence, but he was happy to have been proven wrong.
“It’s... it’s a reality show. My reality show.” He blushed. “I mean, it’s about my life.”
Oscar looked him over once and quirked a brow.
“A life where you track down your kindergarten teacher and give them money?”
Jesse stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged.
“I’m a generous guy.”
“Okaaaaay,” Oscar said. “Well good luck with your reality show generous guy. Please don’t trigger anymore panic attacks.”
His heart was beating quickly again, but not because of the attack. Despite all logic and against his better judgment, part of him wanted Jesse to stay.
Jesse blushed and nudged his cameraman back out into the hall. Oscar followed them, careful to avoid the shards of his very last Garrett’s Guide mug. At least he hadn’t smashed it on purpose this time. He rested his fingers on the metal doorknob and stood face to face with Jesse. He noticed now that the blond was shorter than him, probably younger too. He smelled sweet like cupcakes or vanilla. Oscar hadn’t smelled a guy in years and he wasn’t sure if baked goods was a popular scent category for straight guys in LA, or if it was just something unique to Jesse. Either way, it was nice.