Title: The Perils of Intimacy
Author: Rick R. Reed
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: February 3, 2020
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 63300
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, addiction, recovery, office worker, waiter, instalove, romance
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Synopsis
Mark believes he’s meeting Jimmy for the first time in the diner where he works, but he’s wrong. Mark has no recollection of their original encounter because the wholesome Jimmy of today couldn’t be more different than he was two years ago. Back then, Jimmy sported multiple piercings and facial hair. He was painfully skinny—and a meth addict. The drug transformed him into a lying, conniving thief.Mark doesn’t associate the memory of a hookup gone wrong with this fresh-faced twenty-something… but Jimmy knows. Can Mark see Jimmy for the man he is now and not the addict he was? The answers depend on whether true love holds enough light to shine through the darkness of past mistakes.
Excerpt
The Perils of Intimacy
Rick R. Reed © 2020
All Rights Reserved
JIMMY
In romance novels, they call it
meet-cute. If you’re not familiar with the term or even with romance novels for
that matter, let me explain. Meet-cute is how our two protagonists, our
star-crossed lovers, if you will, first encounter the other. It might involve an
embarrassing moment, or some great coincidence, or something like a setup, or a
blind date that goes horribly wrong and does not bode well for the future.
See…it’s like there’s that day where everything changes, often in a funny way,
and our two love interests begin their journey toward love.
You might look at how Marc Kelly and I
met as a meet-cute experience. It went something like this:
Even though I’m a smart guy, at least I
think so, I’ve never really had much in the way of education. High school diploma
was about it. I always hated school and never did very well in it, which is why
I currently wait tables at a little diner in the lower Queen Anne neighborhood
of Seattle. I’ve been at Becky’s Diner a few years now, since I managed to get
my life back in order. And I have to admit I like it. Becky’s is the kind of
place alcoholics end up at 5:00 a.m. for an eye-opener and, if their stomachs
can handle it, maybe a couple of greasy fried eggs and some bacon. It’s the
kind of joint that’s been in Queen Anne since the Depression and still looks
like it—scuffed black-and-white tile floors, dark walls, red leatherette
booths, and stools at the counter, many of them patched with duct tape. On the
other side of the joint is a bar that’s even darker—the drinks are strong, and
we get a lot of regulars. The pinball machine over there pretty much goes
untouched. Same with the TV, which is always tuned to some twenty-four-hours
news crap with the sound turned off. No one watches it. Everyone’s too busy
nursing their drinks. Anyway, I wait tables in the diner part.
And I find myself digressing away from
my meet-cute. Maybe that’s because it wasn’t really a meet-cute, but it makes
for a good story. And that’s what romances are all about, right? Good stories?
At least on paper…
Anyhoo, about two weeks ago, this one
guy comes in about seven, seven thirty. That day there hasn’t been much of a
breakfast rush—we’re busier on the weekends—and I’m chilling behind the
counter, checking Facebook on my phone. Marc, as I’d later find out his name,
walks in, observes the Seat Yourself sign, and does just that—in the last booth
at the rear. Right away, I see the guy is old school, as he spreads out an
edition—paper, no less!—of the Seattle Times. He looks around expectantly.
I wipe my hands on my apron and
approach, my order pad in hand.
I give him my trademark grin, the one I
hope will coax big tips out of even the stingiest customers. “Hey there…
mornin’! What are you in the mood for?”
He looks me up and down, a little smile
twitching. I pick up on the gaydar, the attraction, and pause a little mentally
because two things strike me almost simultaneously.
One: This guy is a good bit older than
my twenty-three, maybe even by as much as fifteen or twenty years, but he’s a
hottie. DILF! His salt-and-pepper hair is full, nicely cut, side part, with
more salt than pepper. He sports—rocks—a little goatee that’s all salt. It
perfectly frames cupid’s bow lips. How’s that for romance talk? But it’s his
eyes that floor me—so dark the pupils just about get lost in them. They grip
me. They hold me. They make me wanna quiver.
Two: There’s something about this dude
that rings a bell. Not so much in the lust department, although that’s
definitely there in spades, but in the area of “Have we met before?” Because,
yeah, he looks familiar. I just couldn’t place him—at least not then.
We hold the look for a couple of seconds
longer than the average waiter and customer would, and I can put my finger on
this dance—it’s called flirting. Gives me the warm and fuzzies inside, except
for that nagging feeling that I know him from somewhere.
And when you have a past like mine, you
want to be careful with shit like that. Because I’ve not always been the best
person, to say the least. Anyway, that’s something I’ve learned not to dwell
on.
Can’t undo the past!
All that stuff took, like, thirty seconds
to go down. The guy speaks, “I’ll have coffee and a cinnamon roll.”
I pull a pencil from behind my ear. Not
sure I’ll need it, but just in case. “We’re all out of cinnamon rolls,” I say.
He grins, flips a page in the Times.
Doesn’t look up at me as he says, “Okay, then. I’ll have tea.” He flips another
page. “And a cinnamon roll.”
I chuckle. “We’re all out of cinnamon
rolls.”
He nods and looks like he’s taking what
I just put down to heart. “Okay, uh, how about a glass of milk and…a cinnamon
roll.”
I shake my head. “Dude, I just told
you—we’re all out of cinnamon rolls. Sold out during the breakfast rush. But
I’ll tell you a little trade secret.” I lean close to his ear and notice a very
nice aroma coming off him—something tangy, piney, and manly. “The cinnamon
rolls come from the QFC off Mercer. You can buy a four-pack for what you pay
for one here.”
“Okay,” he says, looking into my eyes
with those killer dark eyes. Those lashes! Man! “Just bring me a cinnamon
roll.”
I shake my head and then tuck the pencil
back behind my ear. I start to head away, saying over my shoulder as I go, “You
let me know when you’re ready.”
I can’t decide if the guy is a cornball,
a total asshole, or incredibly charming. He’s probably a little of all three.
And I feel a little flutter in my heart that tells me our little meet-cute
encounter, which I’ve come to learn he lifted from some old public television
kid’s show, means he has his hooks in me.
Smitten.
And yet there’s that nagging feeling
I’ve met him somewhere before…and a darkness hides behind the notion that
contradicts the fluttery feeling I get when I look at this hunk. In fact, that
nagging recognition makes me a little sick.
It’ll come to me. Or it won’t. And
something inside, a self-protective part maybe, hopes for the latter. They say
ignorance is bliss, right?
He calls after me, “You do poached eggs?
Runny?”
I turn. “We do anything. Two?”
He holds up two fingers and nods. “With
coffee, no toast, no potatoes, fruit on the side if you got it.”
I jot down the order. “No cinnamon
roll?”
He just laughs and begins reading the
paper.
When is a meet-cute not a meet-cute?
When you’ve met before.
And my gut drops a couple of inches as I
remember where I met him before.
I don’t want to go there. That was a
different time. A different me. And there was nothing cute about it.
But I remember this guy because I felt
something for him then. And I feel something for him now.
And it could never work.
Could it?
I watch from the corner of my eye as
Cinnamon Roll, as I’ve dubbed him, downs his low-carb breakfast. How someone
can eat poached eggs without any toast is beyond me, but it takes all kinds.
“You got a thing for him or what?”
Matilda Blake, the other server on duty, whispers to me. She pauses just behind
me with three plates balanced on two arms. I smell pancakes, bacon, and the
sage aroma of sausage.
I turn a little to grin. “What?”
“Ah, don’t play innocent with me,
Mister. I could see the lust in your eyes from fifty paces.”
I shrug. “Guilty. Maybe. A little.”
She laughs, and it’s a sound like a bell
tinkling. Matilda doesn’t even reach five feet and probably doesn’t top ninety
pounds, but she’s a workhorse like you wouldn’t believe. She has short, spiked
blonde hair and numerous tattoos. On the weekends she plays in an all-girl
metal band called Two Spirit. And in my head, I call her Tinker Bell, because
that’s who she looks like to me. She takes off to serve her customers, but not
without prompting me to “Go over and talk to him.”
I busy myself filling ketchup bottles
and the salt and pepper shakers I’ve removed from empty tables, but I keep an
eye on Cinnamon Roll. His food is gone and the newspaper’s been abandoned and
he’s staring off into space. I shudder because I wonder if he’s recognized me
and is thinking about our last encounter, a little over two years ago, at his
place on Dexter Avenue.
But no, that couldn’t be possible, could
it? I’m a different person now, inside and out. Back then I was twenty,
twenty-five pounds lighter than my current one hundred and sixty-five. I had a
septum piercing like Ferdinand the Bull. My hair, which is now cut high and
tight and is reddish brown, was long back then, bleached blond, dirty, and
tangled up in dreadlocks that reached down almost to my waist. My skin had, I’m
sure, a pasty and unhealthy pallor.
That person doesn’t even exist anymore,
and even though it’s only been two years, I look completely different today.
He’s probably just thinking about his day or something.
Right?
I walk over to his table, a little
nervous that he’d come to and look at me with an accusing glare. There’d be a
scene. And maybe I’d end up getting fired or something. Thinking back to what I
did to him, I deserve it.
But when I approach his table, all he
does is smile. And that smile melts my heart. It did back then too. Just not
enough to keep me from my desperate and dark ways.
“You need anything else?”
He looks down at his paper and back up
at me. A blush rises to his cheeks, and I gotta say it—there’s nothing more
adorable than this face staring up at me right now. He looks like he wants to
say something, but all that comes out is “The check? I gotta get to work. If I
don’t get out of here and on the bus, I’m going to be late.”
“Oh?” I cock my head. “What do you do?”
“You don’t want to know. Government
contracts. Health care. Downtown. Websites, e-mail, so-called social media from
a health-care perspective. Writing boring newsletters.” He laughs. “Not the
astronaut I thought I’d be back in kindergarten.”
“Yeah. Well, I always dreamed I’d work
in a diner. And look at me. Dreams do come true!” I tap my chest. “Living
proof!” We stare at one another for a moment. My heart pounds for a variety of
reasons, both sublime and shameful. “I’ll get your check.”
I turn and go to total up his modest
bill. My hands are shaking just a tiny bit. There’s this dark shadow of shame
hanging over me that I try my best to banish. I remind myself that shadows are
made by light and that I should direct my thoughts toward the light, not the
darkness.
I look over at him once more. He’s
staring off into space again, and I take note of his clothes—the blue-and-white
checked button-down shirt, the navy cardigan, the jeans with the rip in the
knee of the left leg, the awesome wing tips, maroon and navy. He looks hipster
professional. In the two years since I’ve seen him, he’s hardly changed a bit.
A little grayer maybe, but essentially the same guy. I get a quick vision of a
big black leather headboard, framed in dark wood. A box on the dresser
containing valuables…
His name comes to me in full. Marc
Kelly. Simple. Solid. Like him. A good guy who never deserved what I gave him.
I should leave him alone. I know I
should. No good can come from this.
A little voice inside reminds me I’m a
changed person, one who loves himself, and I shouldn’t beat myself up anymore.
I should forgive myself and believe I’m deserving, especially now, of a man
like this.
Still, it’s with a lot of qualms that I
write, near the bottom of his eighteen dollars and sixty-five cents total,
Jimmy Kilpatrick (206) 555-9407. I pause for a moment, thinking I should tear
this ticket up and write a new one.
No. I put one foot in front of the
other, walk over to him, and set it in front of him. “You can pay up front.
Thanks for stopping by.”
I hurry away before he even has a chance
to look down at the check or up at me. I head right through the kitchen and out
the back door, where I stand outside by the dumpster in gray and drizzly
February air and light up a smoke with shaking hands.
I think I have to release my wishes, to
let them float away on the gray plume I exhale. I need to have faith—I remind
myself—that everything will unfold just the way it should.
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Meet the Author
Real Men. True Love.Rick R. Reed draws inspiration from the lives of gay men to craft stories that quicken the heartbeat, engage emotions, and keep the pages turning. Although he dabbles in horror, dark suspense, and comedy, his attention always returns to the power of love. He’s the award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and is forever at work on yet another book. Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” You can find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA, with his beloved husband, Bruce, and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix, Kodi.
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