by Jerry Cole
“Hard Rock Mountain”
M/M Straight to Gay First Time Romance
Jerry Cole
© 2016
Jerry Cole
Disclaimer
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. If you have not purchased this book from Amazon or received it directly from the author you are reading a pirated copy. If you have downloaded an illegal copy of this book & enjoyed it, please consider purchasing a legal copy. Your respect & support encourages me to continue writing & producing high quality books for you.
This book is intended for adults (18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It contains graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. Please do not read this book if you are offended by such content or if you are under the age of 18. All sexually active characters are 18+.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either 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.
Cover images are licensed stock photos, images shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are models.
Edition v1.00 (2016.08.10)
http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com
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 One
The cold, clear light of autumn shone through the mosaic of leaves like stained glass, lighting up shards of red and gold that trembled in the chilly breeze. Aspen trees, stark white and black-scarred, shook their scarlet leaves like ecstatic hands at the piercingly blue sky as though in praise of the foggy mountain peaks in the distance. In their shade, the grass was still vibrant emerald and starry with scatterings of hardy white wild flowers which the frost had yet to kill, growing right up to the rocky shore of the Gunnison River. Sunlight glittered and danced on the water's rushing surface, flashing on the bellies of leaping fish and the wings of birds darting to catch them. It was an awe-inspiring sight. Or it would have been, had Daniel been seeing it from almost any other situation but in watery glimpses while gasping for air as the furious current swept him violently downstream.
Freezing water flooded his lungs and tumbled him over and over until he couldn't tell up from down. The graveled bank scraped his skin as the rapids pitched him back and forth between rocks like the hands of a cruel and aggressive giant. He clawed frantically for any purchase, any respite or chance of rescue. For a moment, his fingers hooked in the shirt of another man, tossed on the waves with him. For just a second, their heads cleared the water and Daniel stared into deep blue eyes, huge with fear. Then the current snatched them away from each other again. Daniel's head collided with rock and darkness consumed him.
Chapter Two
A month before, Daniel sat at his desk and wondered if he was happy with his life. He absolutely despised his work and loathed his empty, too small apartment. He hated being twenty-five and alone, looking into his future and seeing precisely nothing that excited him. Hate required a level of intensity Daniel just couldn't muster. Especially not right now when someone had dropped an entire quarter’s worth of paperwork on his desk at the last minute again. Right now, at one in the morning after scrambling all day to wrench this company's finances into some semblance of recognizable order, he barely had the energy for breathing.
The office at night was an eerie, liminal space, rendered strange by its removal from the context of the work day. The only light came from Daniel's lamp and the wide windows that filled the south wall, providing a beautiful view of downtown which glittered like scattered jewels in the night. The office, dark and still, seemed like another planet compared to that shimmering nightscape. Empty desks and abandoned paperwork recalled something apocalyptic. A roach skittered from the shadows across the gray office carpeting, summoned by the promise of snacks forgotten in desk drawers. One of Daniel's coworkers had left their monitor on, and a twisting rainbow vector danced across his screensaver like a plastic bag caught in the last breeze through a forgotten civilization. Daniel watched it, and thought that he wasn't unhappy, just apathetic. Not content, just tolerating his situation for now.
Daniel was a master of tolerating things. For example, his boss. He laid his head on the cheap press board desk and the high lacquer cover reflected the light of the lamp and his own bored, chestnut colored eyes. He stared, dead-eyed, at the glossy brochure sitting near his cold coffee. It was full of colorful high resolution photos of gleaming trout and scenic mountain vistas. His boss had handed the little pamphlets out to everyone earlier, at the same time he announced the trip they were going to be taking to its advertised destination.
"Not just a company retreat, but the adventure of a lifetime!" the man had declared, scattering the brochures like confetti, "Hiking! Rafting! Team building exercises! This is just what we all need!"
Mr. Donahue was an...unusual man. Young to be in charge of such a large firm, but then his appointment had been blatant nepotism. His family had founded this company and helmed it for generations. Daniel could only assume that previous members of the Donahue clan had been a little more grounded. Their Mr. Donahue was more inclined to racking up huge expenses taking company cars out for extravagant dinners with clients and then vanishing to Tahiti for months at a time while everyone else scrambled to clean up his mess. To be honest, the office operated much better with him gone and not running around the building interrupting things with his 'innovative' new ideas for 'synergy' and 'drilling down to create high level scalable content with optimum bandwidth.' Daniel sometimes suspected Donahue just googled lists of those buzzwords.
He reached, hand limp with exhausted ennui, across the desk to drag the brochure closer, opening it up again. He'd glanced through the photos already, just long enough to be certain this trip was going to be offensively expensive and way more than the company could afford. Especially with the state their finances were in. He glanced at the stack of financial documents on his desk again and shuddered.
"I really think you should hire a proper CPA for this," he'd told Mr. Donahue earlier that day, "I'm not a certified accountant and I can't make heads or tails of this."
"You worry too much, Carter!" Donahue was a thin, dark haired man with a fashionable beard and a penchant for garish suits. Today’s model was dark violet pinstripe. He had his feet, swaddled in Italian leather, propped up on his desk while an attractive secretary bent to light his cigarette. "Just sign off on it and send it down to records. They'll sort it out. That
's what Johnson used to do."
Johnson had retired last year and Daniel had taken his spot, something he was now regretting. Johnson had been Donahue's go-to man and now he seemed to have decided because Daniel was in Johnson's desk, he would be performing all the same functions.
"Then records must have a much better grasp of tax law than me," Daniel complained, "Because this doesn't make any sense. There's money going everywhere, hundreds of unlabeled expenditures, paper trails that double back on themselves or just vanish…This looks like monkeys threw it together, Mr. Donahue. If the company gets audited, you can't expect this to fly."
Donahue sighed dramatically and dropped his feet back to the floor, shooing away the secretary and putting out his cigarette. He grabbed one of the glossy brochures and shoved it at Daniel instead.
"Listen Carter. Daniel. Can I call you Daniel? You need a vacation. How long have you been working here? I don't think I've ever seen you take a day off! You're going to kill yourself, and stressing out about meaningless paperwork you were just supposed to stamp and mail out is not going to help you. What you need my friend, is white water rafting in the Colorado Rockies."
Daniel resisted the urge to roll his eyes, not taking the brochure. “Sir, with all due respect," he said, "I think I'll pass. I've got too much to do. And nature and I have never really gotten along."
"Daniel, I insist!" Donahue stood, shoving the brochure into Daniel's hands, "I need you at your best! And having a nervous breakdown over receipts is not your best! I expect you to go on this trip, have an amazing time, and come back refreshed and better than ever!"
"Mr. Donahue, really—"
"I said I insist Carter," Donahue repeated, leaning close enough that Daniel could smell his overpowering cologne. He spoke in a rapid fire monotone, "Seriously. You've racked up so many vacation days that it's starting to look bad. HR is getting on my case about it. If you don't take a week off, I will fire you. Is that clear?"
Daniel nodded rapidly and backed up, clutching the brochure.
"Good man," Donahue clapped Daniel on the shoulder cheerfully and returned to his desk, "Can't wait to see you there!"
Daniel, looking down now at the photographs of meadows erupting with vibrant wildflowers and beautiful rushing mountain streams so clear you could see the fish darting, flashing their rainbow scales, resigned himself to a week of misery. He'd never liked camping.
He packed up his things and made his way down the dark office hallway mostly blind, glad there was emergency lighting in the stairwells. He'd only ever been camping with his family, and his thoughts wandered back to those trips as he hurried down the stairs, trying to ignore the uneasy itch between his shoulder blades that the creepy stairwell and creepier parking garage gave him. His family had a talent for making what would be, for any other family, wonderful occasions for making happy memories, into Sisyphean trials worthy of the pits of Tartarus. Holidays, vacations, birthdays—there was nothing his family wouldn't or couldn't ruin. Sometimes it felt like they actively went out of their way to make things as awful as possible. Screaming at each other the entire time, refusing to plan so everything was rushed and half assed, complaining and dragging out old drama just to start fights... He felt exhausted just thinking about it. Or maybe he was just exhausted. Maybe camping as an adult would be different, but somehow he didn't think a bunch of coworkers he barely knew were going to be much better than his family.
He drove home, surrounded by the neon flicker of the city at night and glad he'd invested in the car. It was a pain having it in the city, but with as often as he stayed late at work and missed the last train, it was worth it. He climbed the stairs to his apartment alone and in silence, fumbled with the door keys, and watched the door swing open on his dark home. As he flipped on the lights, flickering fluorescents illuminating the bare little living/dining/kitchen area, he thought it was amazing how empty such a small place could feel. Everything was tidy. The furniture modern and soulless Ikea pieces that he'd bought more on price than because he actually liked them. It looked more like a sad budget showroom than a place anyone lived.
Maybe he should get a pet, Daniel thought, loosening his tie and hanging up his keys, bag, and coat on the hook by the door that was there for that purpose. He ran a hand through his black hair, mussed by the long work day from its neat, precise style, and noted that he needed to get a haircut soon. He wondered what kind of pet would he get, as he left the living area behind to enter the small bedroom where his bed invited him under its soft dove gray comforter. Dogs and cats were too noisy and messy. Same problem with birds. Fish maybe? Those always seemed more like decorations than pets. Possibly some kind of small rodent, fastidious and quiet, like a rabbit or a rat. But those needed a lot of socialization and he wasn't home that often. He could get a reptile, but he didn't want to be one of those guys living alone with a snake, and he didn't think he could handle feeding it anything alive...
He shed his clothes and folded them before he put them in the laundry basket, to keep them from getting wrinkled. He watched himself with impassive eyes as he brushed his teeth, thinking that he needed to work out more. He didn't look bad. He ate well, cooking on the weekends and bringing packed leftovers to work, and he swam at the community center a few times a week. But his body had always been inclined to be long and slender without much definition. Frustrating. He spat out his tooth paste and combed his hair. He'd never liked mirrors. They made him uneasy. When he was a kid, he'd had this fear that his reflection was alive and learning his expressions, and once it had learned them all, it would kill him and take his place. He always tried to keep a flat expression when he was in front of one, even today. Just out of habit. No one could have those kinds of childish fears at his age. He left the bathroom light on when he finished, its pale glow illuminating his dark bedroom.
He carefully removed the decorative pillows that had come with his comforter and sheet set and folded down the blankets before climbing in. It made it easier to make his bed in the morning. Having everything neat and organized and planned made life much easier. No less lonely though. He set his alarm and looked at the empty pillow next to his own. He didn't need a pet. But the other option was out of the question. He'd just have to get used to being alone.
Chapter Three
The next morning Daniel woke up on time, showered, dressed, ate his breakfast from the labeled Tupperware in the fridge, stuck a second labeled Tupperware into his bag for lunch, and left for work. It wasn’t that he didn’t want a relationship. He had tried before, many times. He wasn't bad looking and women liked that he had his life together. But it never worked out. He was too distant, they said, emotionally and physically. Never wanted to talk about himself. Always seemed disinterested in the bedroom. He might, more than one of them had suggested, be gay. That was ridiculous of course. Daniel would know if he was gay. Surely he would have noticed it by now. He wasn't into musicals or bodybuilding or anything else that his admittedly limited, mostly TV sitcom-based, knowledge told him gay people were in to. He was just a normal guy who prioritized his work over his social life like hundreds of other guys. He should try to at least make some friends, he thought. Maybe then he wouldn't want a relationship so badly.
The month leading up to the trip passed far too quickly for Daniel's liking as he endeavored to find any possible way to avoid going. He talked to HR, and it turned out Donahue hadn't been lying about him accumulating too many vacation days. They all insisted he take some time off rather than supplying any other option for how to get rid of them. He nosed around the office for some big, hard deadline project he could get involved in that would give him a reason to stay. But everyone on this floor was going on the trip as well and planning around it, and by the time Daniel got to asking people on other floors, rumors of his HR problem and the forced vacation had got around and they all adamantly refused him.
At this rate, he thought as he stood in line at the sporting goods store buying camping and hiking supplies, he was goi
ng to have to fake illness. He prepared for the trip anyway, of course. Daniel wouldn't risk going into it without everything he needed. He'd had that experience too many times. So he had researched, with exacting precision, everything he'd need considering the season and the climate in the Rockies and assembled a neat and affordable list, and then spent a frustrating night trying to figure out where to put all that junk away in his storage-challenged apartment. He'd donate it, once he got out of going on this trip, he told himself. Homeless people would love his unused, four-man tent and insulated sleeping bag.
The day of the trip approached like an execution date, grim and inevitable, it’s slow progress towards him a source of increasing anxiety as he planned what he would bring and got his work taken care of and cleared away so that he wouldn't fall behind. He was still scrambling for a way out, wishing he still had any contact with his family so that he might claim an emergency on their behalf. Half wishing he could just get hit by a car on the way into work. Not fatally, just a little. A little car accident. Just enough to not have to go on this awful trip with his awful boss who wouldn't stop talking about it like it was the damn second coming, certain to heal all wounds and solve all problems.
The day before the trip, Daniel finally resigned himself to lying as a last resort. He hated it. Lying was abominable behavior. And even beyond the moral ramifications, he was no good at it. He'd never got a handle on how it worked. Still, he had to try. He called in to work from his apartment and claimed he was horribly ill—the flu or something—and that he was sorry but the doctor said he'd still be contagious for the next week so he couldn't possibly go on the trip and could they please convey his sincere apologies to Mr. Donahue? They'd bought it. They had no reason not to. He'd never taken a day off before, so it wasn't like they could suspect him of anything.