by Daryl Banner
I swallow hard. Today’s not Saturday. But instead of protesting, I tell him, “I-It’ll take twenty minutes, about.”
Tanner gives me his soft brown eyes. “I got the time.”
Lord, what those eyes do to me.
“Dude, c’mon,” blurts out Kirk. “You really wanna wait twenty dang minutes for some fruity-lookin’ dessert? I thought we were gonna hit up the bar after this!”
“The bar can wait. And besides, it’s open ‘til three. I got all the time in the world to try out this …” Tanner lifts his gaze to me yet again. “… Saturday Sweet.”
I swallow hard, give him a curt nod, then whisk my way back to the kitchen. Every footstep seems to chant the words in my ear: It’s not Saturday. It’s not Saturday.
“Whatcha doin’?” asks my ma over my shoulder as I’m hacking away at a pair of defenseless apples.
“Saturday Sweet on a Friday, that’s what.”
“Mmm.” She gives me a nudge. “Tryin’ to impress the boys, are ya?”
I snort. “Like hell.”
“What’d you decide to make?”
“An apple pastry vanilla thing.”
“An apple say-what?”
“I haven’t had time to name it yet.”
I already have my puff pastry dough sitting pretty in the cooler, so I pull it out. After mixing up my apple filling spritzed with a pinch or five of my secret spices, I put it all together and toss one into the oven, then go check on my homemade vanilla bean ice cream in the deep freeze. It’s still a bit soft, as I’d intended for it to thicken for tomorrow, but I guess it’ll have to do. It’s pairing with molten hot apple anyway.
After all the prep for my Saturday Sweet, it’s almost comical tossing the three bricks of frozen brownie into the microwave and watching them get nuked through the glass. My parents insist on buying them because they’re quick to make and cheap, even though I could whip up something better in five minutes. No one appreciates fine culinary art anymore. They just want nuclear chocolate and calorie-packed filler.
Ding.
I plate the lava brownies and start nuking the fudge topping while the scent of apple cinnamon heaven fills the kitchen. I catch my ma through the window chatting it up with the domino ladies. She meets my eyes and gives me a wink, then is pulled back into conversation.
My gaze drifts to table 12. I find myself thinking of all the times my pa dragged me to the football games. Really, in a town like this, there are only so many options you have for entertainment, but this particular one had a few unintended perks in this gay boy’s longing, gear-and-spandex-addicted eyes. As my pa kept trying to point out the intricacies of football, my eyes were glued to Tanner’s tight end as he crouched low behind his teammate and reached between his legs, ready for the ball. I’d never admit any of this out loud, but I hardly ever had any idea who was winning or losing. It didn’t matter to me. As long as I kept my eyes on Tanner, I was winning. And right now, staring through the window at table 12, I’m winning.
Ding.
I bring out their lava brownies and set them on the table, making sure to save Tanner’s Saturday Sweet for last. His eyebrows lift at the sight of it before him.
“It’s a …” I freeze. What in jock hell was I going to call it? “A flaky … apple thing,” I say, “with m-my homemade cream on top. Er, vanilla bean cream on top. Ice cream.”
Kirk and Zits turn to each other and stifle laughs while Harrison sucks in his lips and looks away.
“Well,” says Tanner, observing my creation, “that’s … quite a dessert.”
His buddies burst into laughter, unable to contain themselves anymore. Tanner elbows Harrison, joining in the laughter and giving him a shove, telling them to shut the hell up. “It’s got his cream on it,” Kirk spits out, laughing so hard he looks like he’s choking. “And it’s homemade!” wheezes Zits, unable to even draw breath he’s in such hysterics. “I make homemade cream too! With my right hand! Every night!”
Doesn’t matter much, because the second I feel my face flushing red, I decide I’ve had just about enough of high school fantasies and humiliation for one damn night. Bidding them good riddance without uttering a word, I leave them to their desserts—with or without my dang cream—and head back to the kitchen.
Sometime later, Joel/Zits makes a pass at Mindy, who’s back from break, and so when she’s in the kitchen to refill his Coke, I give her the bill and tell her she can finish them. “He’s not really my type,” says Mindy with a loose, careless shrug, but takes the bill anyway and heads to their table, leaving me finishing up with the dishes.
After paying, the boys stay awhile longer to finish out whatever game’s on TV while cracking jokes, hitting on girls that pass by, and talking to folk who stop by their table to see how Tanner’s been. I’m stewing in my own fury at the sink, waiting to clear off their wreck of a table provided they don’t suddenly decide to order four large pizzas to top off their brownie-and-burger-filled bellies.
I stare despondently at the crumbs of pastry shell that still remain on the back counter, waiting patiently to be wiped away, which is really what I’d like to do to this whole damn night. I just can’t stomach going to the front of the house to finish my closing duties, worried that Tanner or his buddies might say something. I don’t even want to think about the conversation that probably ensued at the table after I presented Tanner’s dessert. Who the hell am I kidding? Is this some fancy French bistro? After listening to his buddies’ laughter all night, I know exactly how it’ll sound when they’re in Tanner’s pickup driving back to his big ol’ ranch, having a laugh at my expense. Their hearty guffawing rings in my ears, even if it’s partly imaginary. If I’m lucky, I’ll be the talk of the town by morning: Tanner Strong gets a polite welcoming back to Spruce by the town homo, who bakes him an apple-something with his homemade “cream” on top.
After I peek through the window to find them gone, I finally allow myself out of the back and make my way to the boys’ table to bus it. Piling all the dishes into my grey tub, it’s under Tanner’s drink that I find my tip, neatly folded and crisp. I open the single bill up.
It’s a fifty.
I stare at the bill, unable to close my mouth. But that’s not all. When I flip the fifty over, a message is written at the bottom: Thanks for putting up with me and my buddies. The apple thing was seriously delish. Even the cream. I’ll be back for more—Tanner.
Well, I’ll be damned.
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Have you read “BROMOSEXUAL”? It’s about everything that goes wrong – and totally right – when two lost boys find each other, lose each other, and then find each other again through the storming turmoil of adolescence. It’s funny, and unexpected, and sexy – and maybe a pinch “what-the-fuck” as well.
“BROMOSEXUAL” quickly became an Amazon #1 bestseller in gay romance and gay literary fiction as well as a top 100 bestseller in the entire Kindle Store.
Keep scrolling for a hot and angsty sample of “BROMOSEXUAL”!
BROMOSEXUAL
(Sample Chapters)
Daryl Banner
BROMOSEXUAL
(The “Bro”logue and First Chapter)
M/M New Adult Romance
This book is an angsty & steamy standalone.
Copyright © 2017 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.
BROLOGUE
RYAN
This whole mess began with two boys, a smelly old catcher’s mitt, and a boner.
Isn’t that how it always starts?
Enter boy number one: Stefan. He was the cockiest, loudest, and fittest kid on our Little League baseball team. He wore his baseball cap backward with a flip of his short, light brown hair poking out of the front. He was lean as a cat and fast as a pistol to its bullseye on the field. All the other kids knew it, too; Stefan
was the golden boy in every way—a born-and-bred athlete.
And I couldn’t stand it.
I’m boy number two, by the way. Ryan Caulfield. The skinny thirteen-year-old with acne and a mop of black hair that covered my ears. Every game, I had to endure the look of pride on that pompous kid’s face—the kid who all the other boys admired. “Whoa!” they’d shout as his bat cracked into every ball pitched his way. The balls never seemed to touch the ground again.
I would just sit there and glare. For nine games, the whole spring and into the summer, I hated him more and more. He didn’t even have to try, not like I did. He just strutted up to bat, swung, and miracles sang across the field as he soared over the bases like lightning.
We won every damned game, and still my stubborn animosity flourished like a fever. Why didn’t I like the kid? What was my problem? I had no real reason to hate him.
Not until after the tenth game—the first one we lost—when the smelly old catcher’s mitt hit my face in the boy’s bathroom of the baseball field we were at. “The hell is up with you, Caulfield?”
It was Stefan who threw the mitt at me. I caught it halfway to my lap and turned my startled eyes to him. Seven other boys in the bathroom were busy cleaning up or changing back into their clothes like I was, dejectedly griping about how awful the game was. No one seemed to be paying attention.
Until I marched across the bathroom—in just my boxers and blue-and-white baseball socks—and shoved the mitt into Stefan’s chest. He was still fully geared. “You’re a cocky shit, that’s what’s up with me!”
The bathroom fell silent. Stefan was so taken aback by my words, it was like he’d never been insulted in all his life. I was the first one to ever not praise his godlike athletic ability.
Despite the force with which I came at him, I felt my resolve shrinking inside. Maybe it was the attention of half the team watching us now. Maybe it was my fast beating heart.
Maybe it was the intense way Stefan was staring at me.
Then: “What did you just call me?”
His words were icy and sharp, piercing my chest and causing my breath to stop. I tried to say something back, but found my mouth filled with invisible pretzels. Extra salty pretzels.
Extra salty for the extra salty little shit I’d become.
Stefan wasn’t finished. “You’re the reason we lost, Caulfield. You swing the bat like a girl.”
If my sister had heard that, she would have shown him just how strong a girl can swing—hard enough to knock those words right out of his mouth.
I couldn’t just stand there in front of the world in my boxers. I had to say something back.
And naturally, I picked the worst possible insult that a proper thirteen-year-old could muster: “Shut up, faggot!”
Stefan’s eyes flashed at once. He was rendered speechless as a murmur of shock chased its way through the bathroom.
Sweat gathered in my pits. My legs shook. I was queasy.
I couldn’t believe I’d said it. My words kept ringing over and over in my muffled ears—muffled by the scandal that still echoed off the bathroom tiles from my teammates’ gaping mouths.
Stefan tackled me so fast, I didn’t see it coming. I made one worthless effort to grip a nearby sink, then felt all of his weight as he crashed against me and took my body to the cold, hard floor. The back of my head hit the tile so hard, the world shattered into multicolored stars and circles for an instant.
The team was hollering all around us. I couldn’t tell if it was cheers of excitement or screams of fear.
Fear is all I knew. I was terrified of what I’d said, and I was even more terrified of what Stefan was going to do about it. My life was over. This was when I would die.
My eyes met Stefan’s. His teeth were grinding in his sharp, angular jaw, and his eyes were seething and fierce. The only thing I could see in Stefan’s eyes was my imminent end. He was going to beat me until there was nothing left but sweat and cleats.
Yet he didn’t. He only held me there in a schoolboy pin, his face hovering over me and his furious eyes burrowing into mine.
He still didn’t move. The world stopped and it was just us—me wondering what he was about to do, and him breathing heavily over me, every breath of his crashing over my fearful face.
Then it happened. The mortifying thing. The worst possible result from a boy crouching over me, pinning me to the ground as I was. The most humiliating humiliation a thirteen-year-old could experience in a bathroom full of other boys.
He felt it before I did. The anger in his eyes seemed to deplete at once, and then it was a sort of confusion that took him over instead.
He was sitting on it—but he felt it. It was there as certain as his hands were holding down my wrists, as certain as our gazes were locked on each other, as certain as breath still circulated between our heaving bodies.
Yes, it was as hard as a big steel bat.
And now, I would like to present a boner soliloquy:
Thank you, boner. I will never, ever forget this terrible time you chose to make your stately entrance—a particularly far more terrible time than any other known to teenkind in the history of ill-timed erections. The Eiffel Tower doesn’t know steel this hard. A million knights fought and died with swords hardened by the fires of forges that hold no match to yours. Couldn’t you have, perhaps, waited until tonight when I’m alone in my bedroom to visit me instead of arriving right here in the middle of a fight with the world’s cockiest shit pinning my wrists to the ground by my head while straddling me in front of half of the baseball team? Maybe next time, you might think to supply me a little warning before springing into action while I’m trying to spring into a different sort of action. Ring a bell, perhaps. Or write me a memo on penis-pink parchment paper and mail it via carrier pigeon to my overworked secretary. I would be most appreciative.
Sincerely, the mortified thirteen-year-old you’re attached to.
The coach was upon us in the next instant. He pulled Stefan off of me so fast, I nearly came off the ground with him. The good news was that we were now separated, and Stefan wasn’t going to plant knuckles into my cheek.
The bad news was what Stefan’s departure now revealed.
“Holy crap!” shouted one of my teammates, Parker, as he pointed at it. “Caulfield’s got a stiffy!”
I kicked off of the ground as fast as I could, squeezed my legs together, then bolted from the bathroom amidst an eruption of laughter and jeering and mockery. My face was so red, I could feel the blood boiling on my cheeks.
It was the worst day of my life.
Which was followed by the second worst day of my life: the very next morning when my dad sat me down on the couch for a little talk. “Ryan, the coach told me everything.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” I was already in tears. “P-P-Please. I don’t want to play ball anymore. It’s stupid. I suck. I never want to see any of those boys ever again.”
“I don’t raise quitters,” my dad spat back. “Oh, and you will be seeing them again. All of them. And you’re starting with Stefan.”
“NO!” I cried out. “I can’t see him! I won’t!”
“You don’t have a choice, Ryan. I’m taking you to his house right now, and you will apologize to him.”
I gaped, my dad’s face made blurry by the sheen of tears that still filled my eyes. “But he’s the one who tackled me!”
“After you called him a name.”
“He threw a catcher’s mitt at my face!”
“Ryan, I won’t hear any more.” He rose from the couch, then nodded down at me. “Get your shoes on. We leave in five.”
The car ride that followed was emotional agony. I shook in my shoes the whole time. Just the thought of facing Stefan for the first time since our “incident” had me pissing my pants with ghost pee. I had sweated straight through the pits of my t-shirt before we even left my neighborhood.
How could I possibly face Stefan after what happened? He had me in a schoolboy pi
n, straddling my waist with my wrists held to the ground on either side of my head. I was completely at his mercy, underneath the star of the team … and then my own little “star” decided to show up.
The whole scene had to have replayed in my head fifty times on the way over to Stefan’s house. I had no way to explain what happened. I didn’t even know what happened. I wasn’t a homo. It was just the friction in my boxers, or the pressure of him sitting on it, or the adrenaline. I was definitely, totally, not at all turned on by him. Just the thought had me angry all over again.
Before I knew it, I stood in front of his door with my dad at my side. My dad tapped the doorbell.
I waited for three eternities, sweaty, breathing jaggedly, and tapping my shoe on the ground.
When the door swung open, Stefan’s mom appeared, her long tangles of light brown hair cascading to her shoulders. She had a sharp, movie star jawline and bright blue eyes, just like Stefan.
The parents exchanged some annoyingly polite and sweetly apologetic words. Then we were invited inside. Stefan’s house was big—much bigger than mine—and it was blindingly white and clean. I don’t know what I expected, but it surely wasn’t this.
I noticed a toddler on the living room floor looking like he’s trying to suck the red off of a jumbo Lego. He glanced over at me.
“Upstairs,” his mother prompted me. “Third door down.”
My dad lifted an eyebrow. “You go and make this right, Ryan.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded, my face already throbbing red with humiliation. “Yes, sir.”
The stairs went on forever. Then the hallway went on forever. And then I was standing in front of a half-opened door, knowing that Stefan waited for me on the other side. My hands kept balling up into fists, then releasing, over and over again.
I realized I was angry. I hated that I had to apologize to him. Why wasn’t he coming to my house to make the apology? Instead, I would have to humiliate myself again, face the pompous kid, and watch his face as he decided whether or not to accept my apology.