by Daryl Banner
I couldn’t help but immediately think about James and I while looking at her dads, thinking about the suspended sort of label-free state our relationship had lived in for the past few years while I commuted back and forth between the house and the campus. Despite the distance, James and I were closer than ever. There was nothing that became an obstacle we couldn’t somehow deal with.
Just then, I caught sight of him across the room. He was by the back glass windows watching me with a smile on his face, giving me the room to celebrate with my friends. He was always so sweet and considerate like that, thinking of me first. James was the kind of guy I was looking for all along, and I never even knew it.
After spending enough time giving each person their due thank-you and bracing for congratulatory hug after hug, I crossed the room to see the one, true person who mattered above all.
He smiled a handsome smile that crushed my soul at the very sight of it. “Enjoying spending time with your family?” he asked.
That was what we called our web of friends: our family. There was no irony meant in the statement at all. “I told you not to throw me a surprise party,” I murmured to him, my voice low.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Does that mean you get to punish me later tonight?”
A sly grin crept over my face. “You bet your ass.”
“You can spank my ass,” he whispered, leaning into me.
I reached around to grab a handful of my man’s firm booty, then eyed him daringly. “It isn’t punishment if you enjoy it.”
He put his lips to my ear, gave it a tiny kiss, then whispered, “You realize it’s been six days since you let me get off, right?”
I pulled away, grinned into his face, then replied, “Treat me nicely then, and maybe I’ll give you that huge orgasm you crave so badly tonight.” I swatted his butt. “Y’know, after your spanking.”
To that, he shut his eyes and moaned.
James was mine, and he loved it that way.
But if we are being perfectly honest here, I was just as much his. Over the three years in which he supported me and I went to school to develop my passion and all the necessary skills involved, James and I were fucking inseparable. He drove me just as crazy as I drove him. We had our sex-driven, dominant days when I was in charge, putting him at my feet and making him feel so low that he shivered whenever he dared to look up at me from the floor. We also had our tender, loving days when neither of us were playing a role and all we did was cuddle on the couch, wrap ourselves up in a blanket, and watch the TV with candlelight dancing around us.
James’s parents Grace and Lloyd were standing by the glass windows with Arty, James’s grandfather, who had come in for this celebration. The first time Arty visited a year and a half ago, he had a hand to his mouth the whole time he stared out at the backyard, overwhelmed at what I’d done to it. The entire yard was landscaped. It had a stone pathway cutting through a patchwork of flowers, vegetables, and an occasional fruit tree. A stone fountain rested in the middle, by which a delicate birdhouse hovered off a tree branch, always occupied by countless birds who stopped by for a bath and a bit of seed. The gazebo in the back of the yard was repainted and stood proud, hugged by flourishing flower bushes. It was a total wonderland after months of work.
“You move me,” Arty had told me the first time he saw my work out there. It was the first time he had returned to the house since his wife—James’s grandmother—passed away. “What you’ve done. The work. The detail. Oh, you so move me.”
The words were a bit dramatic, but they came from a deep, dark place in his soul, a place where he now had something else to store there instead of grief and sorrow. In fact, even right then as he mingled at my party by the window, Hale and Maggie showed up to join him, and in no time, they were cracking jokes like the good old days.
“First time I’ve seen Grandpa Arty laugh in years,” said James as he slipped his arms around me and pulled my back against his chest. “I … know there’s never really a good time, but—”
I already knew. “Another letter?” I asked quietly.
I felt James nod, his chin at my shoulder. “I can get rid of it if you’d prefer me to—”
“No, it’s alright.” I turned to face him. “I’ll read it.”
We went to the kitchen, weaving through the couples and groupings of people on our way. Sitting on the top of a pile of mail was a simple white letter. I picked it up without giving it a proper moment of dread, tore it open, then lifted its carefully written words to my blank face.
Lucas,
Congratulations on your degree, son. I love you.
Dad.
The words were simple, like him. The message was clear. And unlike a certain letter I got two years ago, this one had absolutely no words of animosity in it. Despite the usual misgivings I always had when it came to my father and any correspondence he tried to have with me, I felt oddly relieved.
“Are you alright?” murmured James at my side.
I put the letter in his hands so he could read it, then shrugged. “It’s a start,” I admitted.
James nodded after reading it, then gave me another hug. The hug felt more protective than anything, like his arms were a cage shielding me from the evils of the world—prodigal fathers and all.
That was what James was to me since the start: my guardian of sorts. He saved my life. There was no less dramatic way to put it. James had saved my life the day we crashed into each other.
I knew that two and a half years ago, quite soon after our run-in with him at the casino, my father actually tracked down where James worked. When he showed up, he assured James that he only wanted to talk. The two men had a short discussion, James offered his mailing address, and then they never saw each other since.
He knew how much it burned me inside. He knew, despite claiming I was fine without that fucker in my life, that I truly had wanted a different sort of closure—a closure that didn’t involve me burning the memory of my father away forever. Maybe a part of me still remembered the dad who loved me back when Mom was alive. Maybe a part of me still loved that father from my past. Maybe I never truly gave up on him, thinking the father who loved me was trapped somehow inside him, like a prisoner, and the vile prison guard Countess Cunt kept him in there, never allowed free.
Maybe those little letters were sent from that prisoner inside him, folded into paper airplanes, shot out through the bars of his window, and carried off by the wind.
Regardless of whether it meant my father and I might have a relationship in the future, I would always have the family that stood around me that day of my graduation party.
We must have played ten games of pool. Kelsey won two of them, roaring in victory with the unquenchable fires of her competitive spirit. Duncan kept losing to Quinton, which made him drunker and drunker as the afternoon went on, since a glass of whiskey seemed to be his only solace after a loss. Lewis and his wife were talking nonstop with Kelsey’s dads, one of whom was an ex-police officer from a town way up north called Spruce.
By the time the guests started leaving, it was well into the night. I gave Kelsey a kiss on the cheek and assured her I’d see her soon, then watched as she walked away with her two dads, who held hands. James’s sister Jules and her husband Connor, who I saw almost every weekend when we were invited over for family dinners, gave me another congrats and a farewell before leaving, as did James’s sweet mother Grace, cheery father Lloyd, and Arty, whose eyes were alight with happiness for the first time in a long time. “Bless you,” he said as he left.
The door shut after the last guest, and the calm, silent house was ours again.
I hugged James tightly in the middle of the living room. I did not let go of him and he never let go of me, the only sound in the room being our breaths as they slowly drew in and let out.
“Thank you,” I murmured into his ear, filled with so many emotions after tonight.
Whenever I did that, he always got modest with me, shining his innocent halo. “F
or what?”
“You know damned well what.” I smiled. “Everything.”
Then he pulled away enough to get his mouth on mine. That was where the trouble always began and ended between the two of us. Soon, we were out of breath. Then we lost our shirts. Then we weren’t looking where we were going, kicking into the wall, and the couch, and a door on our way to the bedroom. Then we had no more shoes or socks.
Or pants.
He was sprawled out on my bed before long, looking as sexy, as scared, as excited, as perfect as the day I first met him, his eyes flashing in colors from the glare of the casino lights. I was so crazy in love with that man.
And all night long while we made love, I knew in my heart that despite all he claimed over the years about being so lucky to have found me that fateful day, I knew the opposite to be true: I was the one who had him to thank for still being alive, for giving me all of his love, and for being the person I could give all of my love to.
It was me, in the end, who held the luckiest hand.
The end.
*** Did you enjoy “Getting Lucky”? ***
Keep scrolling for some steamy, fun excerpts from three of Daryl Banner’s other full-length M/M romances: “Hard For My Boss”, “Football Sundae”, and “Bromosexual”! Each book has been an Amazon #1 bestseller in gay romance. Check them out!
“Hard For My Boss” is a standalone M/M rom-com about an intern who’s in over his head when he starts working under Benjamin Gage – the hottest boss in town. Steam, awkwardness, and office hilarity ensues.
Keep scrolling for a fun and sexy sample of Hard For My Boss!
HARD FOR MY BOSS
(Sample Chapters)
Daryl Banner
HARD FOR MY BOSS
(The First 4 Chapters)
M/M New Adult Romance
This book is a hot & hilarious rom-com.
Copyright © 2017 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.
1
Trevor is determined.
First days on the job are never easy. But when you work for someone like Benjamin Gage, who happens to be CEO of his own built-from-the-ground-up multimillion-dollar PR company, every day is a deeply challenging endeavor to prove your mastery by overcoming the greatest of life’s obstacles.
Like fixing this jammed-up copier, for instance.
“Please be nice,” I beg the afflicted machine, then gently poke the button a twelfth time. The thing beeps at me in protest, then flashes that same dick-shaped icon on the screen. One of the other interns—some hot punk with a slim checkered tie who’s totally not my type—didn’t exactly explain how this evil thing works.
“You got a boner?”
I jump at the voice. It’s yet another intern with perfect hair who carries a stack of his own paper to feed the copier. What’s with all the hot guys at Gage Communications?
“E-Excuse me?” I sputter back.
“You got any toner?” he repeats with a nod at the machine. “It needs more toner.”
My cheeks flush red as I deliberately don’t acknowledge what I thought he said. Also, I refuse to note his distractingly tight dress shirt that encases his big pecs. The hiring department clearly had a certain type in mind when they interviewed applicants at my university. Are hot young college men Benjamin Gage’s type?
“More toner,” I murmur with a self-conscious nod, drumming a little nervous rhythm on my thighs. “Yeah, of course. I knew that.” I pop open the side of the machine and stare into its mechanical guts like I have a clue what I’m doing.
The intern sets down his stack of papers, pops open the front of the machine, slips out a long dildo thing, struts to a neighboring cabinet where he retrieves another, returns to pop the new one in, slaps shut the front, then taps a button. The copier hums to life and produces the copies I need.
I recall his name from the introductory meeting we had a few hours ago at the start of our day. “Thank you, B-Brandon.”
“It’s Brady. Brandon’s the one with the beard,” he informs me with a tiny roll of his eyes, then proceeds to take over the copier for his own task.
I give him a tightened smile, humiliated even further, before grabbing my papers and stumbling out of the room.
This place is filled with distractions, and they all take the form of striking faces, built bodies, and tight business clothes.
What in gay office hell is wrong with me today?
Really, this is so not me. I’m supposed to be the driven and studious one. I’m not the kind of guy who drools over hotties and mourns my abysmal lack of a sex life. I’ve never even noticed until today how insanely repressed I am sexually.
I can’t let it distract me. Besides, none of the others seem to like me anyway. Stop showing them so much damned attention.
I clutch my papers tighter to my chest as I walk past another hot guy. Naturally I notice his rosy cheeks, cute thick glasses, jaw that’s perfectly square, broad shoulders … then narrowly dodge a wall I almost crash into face-first.
I think I’m just nervous because I haven’t actually met the boss yet. Benjamin Gage, the self-made millionaire, is a powerful man whose reputation for success and perfection is known from one end of the country to the other. His multimillion-dollar PR company has represented countless celebrities. He “makes people look good”, as his unofficial slogan promises.
Of course, I’ve also heard Mr. Gage is intimidating as hell, a royal dick, and apologizes to no one.
And now he’s my boss.
“He’s not a man you want to cross,” Rebekah had warned us. She’s our direct supervisor—a woman in her thirties, despite her makeup doing everything in its power to convince you otherwise. Her auburn hair’s pulled back so tightly, it gives her half a facelift. “Mr. Gage does not conduct his business in … the conventional way. His methods skirt the lines of the law at times, but you didn’t hear it from me. Never question him. Just keep up. And if you get on his bad side, well … you might as well kiss your career goodbye.”
What a pair of sweethearts, this Rebekah and Mr. Gage. I’ll be sure never to cross either of them, I had promised myself, making my fifty-seventh mental note for the day.
One more mental note and I’ll need another brain.
When I’m sorting through the papers I just copied, stapling them to corresponding packets a different employee prepared, a hand swats my ass so hard, I shriek and lose hold of the unstapled packet in my hand, the papers flopping onto the floor.
I spin and face my assailant, scowling. “Damn it, Elijah,” I hiss.
My straight best friend and fellow intern grins his dumb grin as he leans on the table. “You’ll need a chiropractor after today.”
“Chiropractor??” I crouch to gather up my fallen papers.
“Yeah. With all the neck-bending you’re doing, bro. I see you checkin’ out the other interns.”
He knows me way too well. “I’m not checkin’ out anything.”
“Wait ‘til you get a load of Benjamin Gage in the flesh. I hear he’s the hottest shit in town.”
I hug all the papers to my chest and shush him, my face going red. “If someone overhears you calling our boss the ‘hottest shit in town’, I swear I’ll permanently disown you as my best friend, Elijah.”
“Trevor, bro, you are way too uptight. You need to loosen up. Besides, boss man isn’t even here ‘til next week.”
My heart sinks. “Really? Where’d you hear that?”
“Rebekah. So don’t worry about being on your game yet.”
An intern walks past our table—another Adonis with buzzed blond hair and a sharp green tie—and I have to peel my eyes back to the packet I’m trying to salvage. With so many hot guys around me all day long, how am I supposed to complete tasks, impress my superiors, and still manage to do a good job?
And if strapping muscular men are Mr. Gage’s type, then how the heck did I fit in here? I mean, I know I’m not exactly t
he ugly duckling, but I’m certainly nothing like the others. Except for maybe my best friend Elijah, who is sort of my straight twin with a few minor differences. I have short, dusty blond hair while Elijah’s is dark and messy. He has dark brown eyes that almost appear black and beady while I have grey-blue. My build is slender while Elijah has more meat on his bones, having gained (and kept) the freshman fifteen—and the sophomore and junior fifteen as well. He calls it his “all the more to love” weight. I told him once that I think he looks more attractive now than he did in high school, but all he did was make some joke about his nuts being off-limits … while secretly Googling diets. He thinks I don’t notice him ordering a salad whenever we eat out.
But I notice everything.
“Chiropractor,” mumbles Elijah with a teasing smirk after the blond disappears around the corner.
I shove him lightly (he doesn’t budge) then retrain my eyes to the task at hand. “I do my work even when the boss isn’t here, and that means I have more integrity than you, slacker.” To that, Elijah just snorts, but then he joins me in stapling packets together. “How do you even know Mr. Gage is … hot? He keeps himself out of the press so well, I’ve noticed. The only images I found online were suited up and … strangely sterile. He looks forty-something.”
“Try thirty-three. And I heard he’s hot by word of mouth. I’m already picking up on the office gossip. This is good for us.”
“Sometimes, Elijah, you’re gayer than I am.”
“Yeah? Oh, and Pauline at the front desk is having a potluck on Saturday, and the interns are invited,” he adds jokingly, using his sassiest Southern twang. I just shake my head, chuckling.
I wonder sometimes if I was crazy to agree to all of this. I’m not a spontaneous person, yet I suddenly uprooted my safe and quiet life on campus and chose to move in with my straight, beer-guzzling buddy Elijah for the summer in the heart of big, scary, lit-up downtown. I didn’t hit up a tropical beach with sunlight and seagulls like a normal person, nor did I run off to a sweet, peaceful lakeside cabin for weekly barbecues.