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Vote for Gordo

Super excited to announce that Boyfriend With Benefits has been nominated in the “Best Humorous” category for the 2020 Goodreads M/M Romance Members’ Choice Awards. There are some seriously heavy hitters in there, so if you’ve read my fun, fast and flirty Vegas novella and want to hop over and vote* I would be eternally grateful.

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* you have to be a group member to vote, but joining is easy. Don’t make me send the emus after you.

Another Free Day in Seacroft

Happy birthday to the second story in the Seacroft series! Oliver and Nicks friends-with-benefits romance is one year old and to celebrate, I’m giving away copies on Amazon. Just clicky click below to claim your copy today!

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Teaser - Boyfriend With Benefits

Boyfriend With Benefits is a roommates-to-fake-boyfriends-to-real-boyfriends novella coming to Amazon and Kindle Unlimited on July 27. Preorder now or read the first chapter below!

Chapter 1.

The word nemesis gets thrown around a lot.

And yet, on Tuesday morning, when the company-wide email with the merger announcement gets sent out and then we’re all shuffled into the conference room so we can meet the “new” Senior Vice President of North American Sales, sometimes nemesis is the only word that fits.

Because standing there in a pearly grey suit, pink shirt, and a smirk that would curdle milk, is Jake Kenyon.

Better known as Jake the Jerk.

Except no one knows that but me. Because no one else had ten years of their life made a waking nightmare by the new SVP NAS except for me. He’s introduced by Lachlan, our Regional VP, who seems awed to be in Jake’s presence.

“I know it’s been a different kind of morning,” Lachlan says. “But I promise you your jobs are all safe and the company is heading in a very exciting direction.”

I tune out. He’s basically reciting what was in the email word for word. Strategic growth. New opportunity. Blah, blah, blah. When I read the memo—okay, I skimmed most of it—the only thing I checked closely was the revised org chart. I interviewed two and a half weeks ago for the VP of New Account Acquisition position, and I was terrified that the merger meant the job was gone.

It was. My name drew a straight line to Lachlan’s, and then right above him was Jake the Jerk’s.

Except, at the time, all I thought was “Huh. I used to know a Jake Kenyon. Isn’t that weird?” Because what were the odds that the bully who lived down the street from me as a kid and spent every hour he could trying to steal my bike, throw rocks at me through the fence, run me down with his car once he got his learner’s permit, and basically torment me in any way imaginable, would now be my boss’s boss? He’d moved away while we were still in high school. Somewhere across the country, and I never heard from him again.

Speaking of hearing, the boardroom has gone quiet. I blink back to reality and everyone is staring at me.

“Excuse me, what?” I say, because clearly I’ve been asked a question or something. Several guys around the table are shifting nervously, and Jake’s eyeing me, so I sit up straighter in my chair. I’ve got my phone in my lap, and a message pops up on the screen.

Stand up, say who you are, what your position is, and stop making me look like an asshole.

It’s from Lachlan, who is glaring daggers at his laptop.

I push up to my feet. The twenty faces in the room are all watching me. I’m watching Jake the Jerk as I very clearly say, “Bailey Baldwin, Regional Associate VP of Sales.”

And so I see—also very clearly—the moment recognition hits. The smirk turns predatory. Women and children flee in front of it . . . if there were any women or children present today, but no, the sales department at the Toronto office of Blaumann, Glick, Schuler & Maxwell International is a sausage fest.

“Nice to meet you,” Jake says.

“I’m also Salesperson of the Year for the last three years running, and I designed our Smart Challenge sales process, which saw our closure rate increase by fifteen percent last year.”

Jake’s eyes narrow, and that little addition was a mistake. He knows he’s caught me off guard and I’m trying to build up fortifications when the army’s already at the gate.

The rest of the meeting is . . . I don’t know. I’m sure they talk about KPIs and compensation packages. Lachlan says something about an upcoming retreat for everyone at the Ass VP (that’s what I like to call myself) level and up to discuss future planning. A few people are even smiling as we file out again.

All I can think is that I’m so relieved that it doesn’t sound as if Jake is going be around much. BGS&M has offices all over the country and North America. He’s responsible for sales and marketing for all of them, but it sounds like he’s working out of what is now the head office.

As I go back to my cubicle, I pull out my phone and bring up Gordo’s number. He’s at home today—he’s at home most days—and he needs to know I’ll be coming in hot after work.

Big shake up at the office. Get snacks. And tequila.

Two cupcake emojis come back in reply. I don’t know if that means he’s going to bake cupcakes. I was thinking more like cannabis brownies, but whatever floats his boat. Gordo is a born and bred mother hen. He bakes his own sourdough, mills his own soap, and fosters reptiles that people get as pets and then realize aren’t nearly as fun as a golden retriever. Last summer we had a fourteen-foot python at our condo, but surprisingly, the demand for pythons is high, and Piña Colada was only with us for a week before she went to her forever home.

“Bailey.” My name on the air has all the warmth of a snake’s hiss in January. I glance over my shoulder and Jake the Jerk is there.

“Oh. Hey,” I say, like I’ve just run into him in the aisles at Wal-Mart. Although, judging from the way his suit fits him as he pulls off his jacket, he hasn’t been inside a Wal-Mart in the last decade.

I’m also pleased his growth spurt never fully kicked in after he left town. I’m on the small side of five nine, but Jake probably tells people he’s five eight when we both know he’s five six and a half tops.

His eyes narrow. “It’s good to see you.”

Piña Colada could give him some tips on putting out friendly vibes.

I say, “Yeah, you too.”

He says, “It’s so funny. When I saw your name on the org chart, I thought it couldn’t possibly be you, but here you are.”

I laugh. “And here you are!”

He moves into my space, which forces me to take a step back, retreating into my cubicle. I set my laptop down on its stand so it looks like that’s what I meant to do all along.

“I hope there won’t be any . . .” He bites the inside of his cheek.

“Any what?” I say sweetly.

“Hard feelings. You know. From when we were kids.”

“You mean when you outed me to my entire family?”

He shrugs. “I thought they knew. You spent all your time hanging around with me.”

Two clarifications here:

1. I did not spend all my time “hanging around” with him. I spent all my time trying to get away from him as he tormented me and harassed me, but my parents took a “boys will be boys” view of it and assumed we were friends.

2. Jake’s as gay as I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, either about him or me. I know the obvious assumption here is that he was even more closeted than I was in his teenage years and that he worked out his internalized homophobia on me, because those are the bully stories we hear, but no. Jake was out by the time he grew his first chin hair. By age sixteen, he was taking guys like Ethan Whittier to the homecoming dance. And somewhere along the way, he took a picture of me kissing Billy Marsh in the back alley behind our house and left it in our mailbox for my parents to find, then sashayed on home to draw hearts around JK & EW 4Ever. Not every bully has a tragic Lifetime movie back story. Sometimes a bully is simply a bully.

But . . . boys will be boys, right?

My lip curls. I can’t help it. The shocked look on my dad’s face when he pulled the picture out of the mail—seriously, how could he not have seen me coming? I knew all the words to every musical number on Glee, and I was in the process of mastering the choreography when Jake dropped off his love note—was the beginning of years of awkwardness between us that we are only getting over lately, and it’s all Jake’s fault. I would have come out to them eventually, but in my own time and my own way.

“What a weird little alien you are.” I give him the kind of smile people use when they’ve insulted someone but want anyone out of earshot to think we’re having a good laugh together.

His sneer is similar as he steps farther into my cubicle. “Takes one to know one.”

“Ooo,” I hiss. “Burn. Are you going to tell me you’re rubber and I’m glue next?”

Jake’s smile turns evil. He fixes the button at the cuff of his pink shirt. He says, “Bailey, don’t be a bitch because you didn’t get the promotion. It was never going to happen. We all have to tighten our belts.”

How? How does he know about that? How did this become my life in the turn of an email? There are millions of people in this city, millions more in this country, and I now work for Jake the Jerk.

I say, “I didn’t want it anyway. Lachlan convinced me to try. But look at you. Big man on campus. Hope you enjoy travelling forty-six weeks a year.”

We both know I’m lying. Lachlan’s told me about his benefits package before, and I can only assume Jake’s is the same or better. He gets at least four weeks of vacation, and all the travel to visit the teams who now report to him means he’ll have enough frequent flyer points to spend a whole month in Bora Bora if he wants to, every single year.

I would love to go to Bora Bora.

I glance at my screensaver. Gordo and I are smiling back at me, with the badlands in the distance. Not the real badlands. We didn’t go to South Dakota. We went to Caledon, an hour north of here. And you aren’t allowed to go into the park anymore because people are assholes and ignore signs that say, Please stay off the ancient geological formations, and now we can’t have nice things. We didn’t know that, though, when we picked up the Zipcar and drove out of the city. We thought we were going on an adventure. The badlands. Where men are men and rattlesnakes are . . . well . . . okay, they’re pretty manly too. Gordo was especially excited about the snakes. And then we got there and it was closed, and I made Gordo take the selfie anyway, so we could pretend the whole thing wasn’t a waste of time.

“That your boyfriend?” Jake asks. I rip my gaze away from the screen to catch his smirk, like he thinks there’s no way I could be with someone.

Thank you, Gordo, for always being there when I need you.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, he is. We live together, actually.”

“What’s he do?” Jake asks, because of course he does. He would never start with something so practical as “What’s his name?” or “Where did you meet?” All he wants to know is if I was able to snag someone worthy of his attention.

“He’s a rocket scientist,” I say quickly. “Literally. He builds rocket engines for Rolls-Royce. He was headhunted by Elon Musk last year for SpaceX, but he’s got standards, so he turned them down.”

Jake purses his lips. He’s probably trying to extrapolate, based on all the other people he’s judged in his lifetime, what a Rolls-Royce rocket scientist makes and whether it’s so much he can’t make fun of me.

You may be wondering how I know Rolls-Royce makes rocket engines. Gordo has a thing for those “how it’s made” YouTube videos. We watch a lot of them.

Also, everything I said above is a lie. He is not a rocket scientist. Gordo is . . . well, he pays his rent on time, but don’t ask me how, because he definitely doesn’t work a nine to five. Sometimes he’s at home and sometimes he’s not, but I have no idea where he goes or what he does all day when I’m at work. When I ask, he says things like “Stuff” and “Slept” and “I started a petition to end the illegal wildlife trade in Oklahoma, we already have three thousand signatures, do you know anyone else who might sign it?” But none of that sounds like it makes any money.

And he’s not my boyfriend. Loyal, committed roommate, that’s all. I maybe thought about it once or twice, but I knew it was never going to happen the first time we watched a Marvel movie and he sympathetically told me how terrible he felt about the raw deal Scarlett Johansson’s character gets throughout the series.

“She deserves so much better,” he said with sparkling tears in his eyes.

Any guy who worships at the altar of ScarJo is too straight for me.

“Are you with anyone?” I ask, trying to draw Jake’s attention off the picture of Gordo and surprising myself with my own boldness. When we were kids, I’d have never asked him a direct question like that.

“Elias,” he says with a smile. “He farms emus.”

I have no idea how much an emu farmer makes. Or what exactly he would farm them for.

“Sounds cozy,” I say.

“You’ll meet him at the retreat,” Jake says, and my blood goes cold. I didn’t give the retreat any thought when Lachlan mentioned it. I’d been invited to a few in the past, but they were always very “employees only,” and that suited me fine. Too hard to get hammered at the bar in the evenings if you’re with someone.

But if Jake’s bringing Emu Elias, that may have to change.

“Well, he and Gord—” I stutter over his name. I can’t tell him my supposed boyfriend’s name is Gordo. He’ll never let me live that down. “Gordon will have a chance to hang out.” I gently punch Jake’s shoulder, like we’ve been bonding this whole time. Inside, I hope I wrinkle his perfect shirt, but of course it’s made from some space-age material that doesn’t even show the impression of my knuckles. Whoever designed it probably does know Elon Musk.

He laughs. It’s a short percussive sound that he perfected in grade school. I’ve had nightmares about it, but I can’t let him smell my fear.

He says, “I look forward to working with you, Bailey.”

He might as well say, “Lockers. Three thirty. If you don’t show up, remember I know where you live.”

Once he leaves, I sag down into my seat, letting it roll gently to a stop as it takes my weight.

I am so fucked. I have spent the last nine years climbing the ladder at BGS&M, and even if they swear my job is safe after this merger, there’s no way in hell I can survive working with Jake the Jerk.

I pick up my phone and text Gordo.

Those cupcakes better be fucking magical.

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Which Allison Temple Book Should You Read Next?

How we doing? It’s been a tough few months. I tried to call my husband today and couldn’t find him in my recent calls where he usually is. Then I remembered that I haven’t needed to call him for over two months because we’re basically living in each other’s pockets.

Let’s just say it’s been a lot.

But some good stuff has come out of it. I released two books. Wrote something new. Found time to read some books I’ve been meaning to get to. Had some great conversations with readers who said “This is the first book of yours that I’ve read, but it won’t be the last.”

I’ve published 6 books in just over two years. When I signed my first contract in 2017, that seemed like a pretty lofty goal. And while I have lived vividly in each book’s world, I know a lot of you are still catching up.

So I thought I’d help you make some decisions. Single dad? I gotchu. Small towns. On it. Let’s talk about what we can add to your TBR.

The Pick Up

An opposites attract small town romance. My first book baby. Single dad Kyle is back in his small hometown with his six-year-old daughter. He doesn’t want to be there, but he’s lost his partner and his way. The last thing he wants is to get attached to his daughter’s grumpy teacher, but it’s hard to keep away from each other when everyone knows everyone.

You’ll like it if: You like goofy heroes, slow burn, pop culture references, and a lot of cute.

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: A lot of reviews mention how they don’t usually like kids in their romances, but this one work for them. Caroline is a princess and an astronaut and a whole lot of trouble.

My favourite line: Kyle turned out to be a cuddly drunk. Getting him into Adam’s car turned out to be like getting an angry octopus into a shoebox: Arms and legs materialized out of nowhere.

Top Shelf

I like to say this is my “chewiest” romance. A slow burn strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, Martin is a professor with anxiety who finds himself unemployed and living with his brother after a breakdown. He gets a job at a used bookstore where he meets the residents of Seacroft, and develops a shy crush on Seb, the temperamental artist who lives upstairs. Seb’s basically a cat in human form (that’s a metaphor, this isn’t a shifter romance). He loves his people dearly, but if you piss him off, he’ll scratch your face and pee in your shoes (also a metaphor). Together, they hunt for art and beauty amid lost things in the bookstore.

You’ll like it if: You’re into hurt/comfort, family drama, a little bit of angst, and exploring new things

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: If you like old bookstores, small towns, and the feeling of coming home—warts and all—this book has all that.

My favourite line: “Seb can’t even spell subtlety. It’s the silent b. Gets him every time.”

Cold Pressed

Oliver first appeared in Top Shelf, and now he gets his HEA. Trying to get a new business venture off the ground following a bad break up, he gets talked into a blind date, only to find himself face to face with the fire department dispatcher whose car Oliver had towed last week. Nick’s a divorced single dad with a boatload of parenting problems. Romance is not on the table, but a little friends-with-benefits is a fool-proof plan, right? What could possibly go wrong.

Everything, Allison. Everything could go wrong.

You’ll like this if: You like older heroes (Oliver and Nick are 36 and 39, respectively), farmers markets, and man buns (seriously, the man bun energy is hard to resist here)

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: As a friends-with-benefits book, this is a steamier read, while still holding onto a sense of reality. Nick and Oliver have real problems, but that doesn’t stop them from getting their hands on each other every chance they get.

My favourite line: “You don’t want to rush this.” “Hell yes I do!”

Hot Potato

For a long time, Kyle from The Pick Up was my most adorkable hero. And then came Avery. Avery is every awkward thing that has ever happened to me, from the time I set a sweet potato on fire in the microwave, to the time I found out I can’t take NyQuil because I lose the ability to distinguish between English and Hindi (seriously, it’s a thing). Avery and Linc’s friends-to-lovers romance is sweet and steamy and has so much heart.

You’ll like this if: You like adorkable heroes. Seriously, that’s the selling feature. Also firefighters.

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: I mean, if Avery doesn’t do it for you, I’m not sure what will. He deserves all the love, even yours. Also this book has my favourite supporting cast. Veronica Vasquez is a queen.

My favourite line: “Please don’t rip his arms off. He’s a blogger and a freelance writer. I don’t think he has health care.”

Work-Love Balance

The third single dad book on this list, Nash is the recently-divorced workaholic Executive Director of the Out & About Film Festival. Brady is his much younger smart-mouthed IT consultant. Neither of them have time for…well…anything, but shit happens, and sometimes watching your crush sweat through his shirt at hot yoga before he tells you off for something that was his fault is just the beginning of the road to true love.

You’ll like this if: You live for age gaps, office romances, snarky heroes, snarkier banter

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: This is definitely my steamiest book. A few reviewers have mentioned that Nash and Brady might have sorted themselves out faster if they’d screwed around less and talked more, but where would the fun in that be?

My favourite line: “I don’t know. I might be too full to fuck.” Reader, I was not.

Honeymoon Sweet

Doug’s been left at the altar. Tripp’s just realized his latest relationship is as doomed as his last twenty. But what are you doing to do when you’re stuck on a cruise ship for a week with nowhere to go? Pretending to be husbands so old ladies stop trying to set you up with their granddaughters seems like a good plan, right?

You’ll like this if: You’re a fan of fake relationships, forced proximity, trivia nerds, ridiculous pet names and real big heart-eyes romance

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: What are you, an ogre? I said heart-eyes romance. There’s a pandemic going on, who doesn’t need something fast and fluffy to get them to tomorrow?

My favourite line: I hate my dog so much right now. If Doug’s going to be buried in anyone, it should be me.

What do you think? Which have you read. Which are you going to try next? Did I miss your favourite line? I hope you’ll give one of my guys a try, and let me know what you think!

Which Allison Temple Book Should You Read Next?

How we doing? It’s been a tough few months. I tried to call my husband today and couldn’t find him in my recent calls where he usually is. Then I remembered that I haven’t needed to call him for over two months because we’re basically living in each other’s pockets.

Let’s just say it’s been a lot.

But some good stuff has come out of it. I released two books. Wrote something new. Found time to read some books I’ve been meaning to get to. Had some great conversations with readers who said “This is the first book of yours that I’ve read, but it won’t be the last.”

I’ve published 6 books in just over two years. When I signed my first contract in 2017, that seemed like a pretty lofty goal. And while I have lived vividly in each book’s world, I know a lot of you are still catching up.

So I thought I’d help you make some decisions. Single dad? I gotchu. Small towns. On it. Let’s talk about what we can add to your TBR.

The Pick Up

An opposites attract small town romance. My first book baby. Single dad Kyle is back in his small hometown with his six-year-old daughter. He doesn’t want to be there, but he’s lost his partner and his way. The last thing he wants is to get attached to his daughter’s grumpy teacher, but it’s hard to keep away from each other when everyone knows everyone.

You’ll like it if: You like goofy heroes, slow burn, pop culture references, and a lot of cute.

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: A lot of reviews mention how they don’t usually like kids in their romances, but this one work for them. Caroline is a princess and an astronaut and a whole lot of trouble.

My favourite line: Kyle turned out to be a cuddly drunk. Getting him into Adam’s car turned out to be like getting an angry octopus into a shoebox: Arms and legs materialized out of nowhere.

Top Shelf

I like to say this is my “chewiest” romance. A slow burn strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, Martin is a professor with anxiety who finds himself unemployed and living with his brother after a breakdown. He gets a job at a used bookstore where he meets the residents of Seacroft, and develops a shy crush on Seb, the temperamental artist who lives upstairs. Seb’s basically a cat in human form (that’s a metaphor, this isn’t a shifter romance). He loves his people dearly, but if you piss him off, he’ll scratch your face and pee in your shoes (also a metaphor). Together, they hunt for art and beauty amid lost things in the bookstore.

You’ll like it if: You’re into hurt/comfort, family drama, a little bit of angst, and exploring new things

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: If you like old bookstores, small towns, and the feeling of coming home—warts and all—this book has all that.

My favourite line: “Seb can’t even spell subtlety. It’s the silent b. Gets him every time.”

Cold Pressed

Oliver first appeared in Top Shelf, and now he gets his HEA. Trying to get a new business venture off the ground following a bad break up, he gets talked into a blind date, only to find himself face to face with the fire department dispatcher whose car Oliver had towed last week. Nick’s a divorced single dad with a boatload of parenting problems. Romance is not on the table, but a little friends-with-benefits is a fool-proof plan, right? What could possibly go wrong.

Everything, Allison. Everything could go wrong.

You’ll like this if: You like older heroes (Oliver and Nick are 36 and 39, respectively), farmers markets, and man buns (seriously, the man bun energy is hard to resist here)

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: As a friends-with-benefits book, this is a steamier read, while still holding onto a sense of reality. Nick and Oliver have real problems, but that doesn’t stop them from getting their hands on each other every chance they get.

My favourite line: “You don’t want to rush this.” “Hell yes I do!”

Hot Potato

For a long time, Kyle from The Pick Up was my most adorkable hero. And then came Avery. Avery is every awkward thing that has ever happened to me, from the time I set a sweet potato on fire in the microwave, to the time I found out I can’t take NyQuil because I lose the ability to distinguish between English and Hindi (seriously, it’s a thing). Avery and Linc’s friends-to-lovers romance is sweet and steamy and has so much heart.

You’ll like this if: You like adorkable heroes. Seriously, that’s the selling feature. Also firefighters.

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: I mean, if Avery doesn’t do it for you, I’m not sure what will. He deserves all the love, even yours. Also this book has my favourite supporting cast. Veronica Vasquez is a queen.

My favourite line: “Please don’t rip his arms off. He’s a blogger and a freelance writer. I don’t think he has health care.”

Work-Love Balance

The third single dad book on this list, Nash is the recently-divorced workaholic Executive Director of the Out & About Film Festival. Brady is his much younger smart-mouthed IT consultant. Neither of them have time for…well…anything, but shit happens, and sometimes watching your crush sweat through his shirt at hot yoga before he tells you off for something that was his fault is just the beginning of the road to true love.

You’ll like this if: You live for age gaps, office romances, snarky heroes, snarkier banter

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: This is definitely my steamiest book. A few reviewers have mentioned that Nash and Brady might have sorted themselves out faster if they’d screwed around less and talked more, but where would the fun in that be?

My favourite line: “I don’t know. I might be too full to fuck.” Reader, I was not.

Honeymoon Sweet

Doug’s been left at the altar. Tripp’s just realized his latest relationship is as doomed as his last twenty. But what are you doing to do when you’re stuck on a cruise ship for a week with nowhere to go? Pretending to be husbands so old ladies stop trying to set you up with their granddaughters seems like a good plan, right?

You’ll like this if: You’re a fan of fake relationships, forced proximity, trivia nerds, ridiculous pet names and real big heart-eyes romance

Not your usual read? Why you could give it a try anyway: What are you, an ogre? I said heart-eyes romance. There’s a pandemic going on, who doesn’t need something fast and fluffy to get them to tomorrow?

My favourite line: I hate my dog so much right now. If Doug’s going to be buried in anyone, it should be me.

What do you think? Which have you read? Which are you going to try next? Did I miss your favourite line? I hope you’ll give one of my guys a try, and let me know what you think!

Teaser: Honeymoon Sweet

The naked man in the hall is icing on the surreal cake that has been the past forty-eight hours of my life. Calvin would probably say it’s because my libido has basically shrivelled to nothing, but it’s mostly because I’m completely lost and so busy trying to remember my suite number that the glowing gleam of the stranger’s ass, practically pink against long tanned legs and a gently muscled spine, is literally a foot in front of me before I notice it.

“Oh my God!” I clap a hand over my eyes and gasp like a homecoming dance chaperone. Except I leave a space open between my fingers, for whatever reason, so I get an eyeful when he turns towards me with a shocked expression that melts to horror.

Along with his tight body, he’s rocking a decent-sized package.

Not that I look.

Except I do, mostly to prove to Calvin that I am not a monk after all.

“Oh fuck!” His voice is deeper than I expected, and it hits my chest in a nice way. Better than the twisting anxiety that’s basically been gnawing there like a rabid squirrel since yesterday. When I spread my fingers open again, he’s got one hand over his crotch, and he’s sort of half twisted away from me, like he can’t decide if it’s worse to show me his ass or his palm barely covering his dick.

“Uh. Sorry. Sorry.” I try to step around him. Cruise ship halls are narrow, and we get closer than is probably strictly appropriate in this suddenly clothing-optional environment. He smells like coconut and sunscreen.

“Yeah,” he says. It’s like we’re on magnets. As I pass, he keeps rotating, so I never lose the quarter view of his ass and the growing pink that’s spreading up his neck. It must be contagious, because my ears are pulsing like a furnace.

I’m ten steps up the hall when I hear his heavy sigh. The sound sends a shiver up my neck. I’ve made it a lot myself lately.

He’s facing away from me, hands on his hips, ass clenched tight. Whoever comes around that corner next is going to get quite the show. But then his shoulders slump, and I know that disappointed defeat intimately.

“Can I—” What am I supposed to say? “Can I help you? With something?”

His head turns slightly, chin dipping over his shoulder. His hair is dark blond and a little spiked at the tips, just like his nose and jaw are sharp like an angry bird’s. Not an Angry Bird. An actual unhappy bird. Like how a crow stares at you like you’ve interrupted its lunch.

“Sorry,” I say when the silence goes on too long. “Never mind.”

“I’m locked out of my room,” that too-deep voice says. His eyes flick to mine, and he gives this smile that says he knows I’m staring at his ass, and he knows it’s a nice ass. I try to speak so fast I bite my tongue and hiss, putting a hand to my mouth while my eyes fill with tears.

It’s nice to cry about physical pain for a change.

He’s still watching me, so I swallow and say, “Have you checked your pockets?”

The whir of the air conditioning is not nearly loud enough to hide my humiliation. Nothing is these days.

He snorts out a soft laugh. “Funny guy. I don’t suppose you can get me a towel or something?”

I look around me, momentarily confused. Unlike him, I do have pockets, but surely he can see all I have to offer is a polo shirt and cargos.

He bumps his forehead against what I assume is the door to his room. “Never mind.”

His room . . .

“Oh! Yeah. Come down to my suite. I can get you something to, um—” My eyes will not stay off his body. “Cover up with.”

He scrubs his fingers through the back of his hair where it’s cut short along his nape. What’s the appropriate thing to do? Should he walk back to my room with me—assuming I remember where it is—and risk meeting other people as we go, or should he stay here?

“It’s this way,” I say, because it feels wrong to leave him—er—hanging here himself.

He bobs up and down on his toes a couple times, but then voices echo from the direction I’ve come, and that seems to decide for him, because he spins towards me.

“Lead the way, Magellan.”

I head down the hall like I know where I’m going. His bare feet are very close behind me, probably so I can shield him from any unfortunate on-comers. People behind us will still get a view, but he’s clearly chosen the lesser of two evils on this.

Finally—and without meeting anyone else, thank goodness—I spot the door with the St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun taped to it. Our—my suite is the one opposite, but I’d heard this was a thing people do on cruises, to help them find their way. I’d suggested doing something similar to Calvin, but he’d reminded me we were adults who should be able to remember a simple number sequence.

Except it turns out that when your fiancé leaves you at the altar, your mental state is so scattered that even a four-digit number is hard to keep track of. Thank fuck for Kelly green paper leprechauns with sparkly bowties.

My room is opposite the pot of gold, and I let myself have a single sigh of relief when I wave the key card over the sensor and the lock whirs.

I realize my mistake the second I push open the door.

“Wow,” he says. “It’s huge.”

Big enough for two, I almost say. Instead I keep my eyes down as I rush to the bathroom and fumble for a towel, even though cruise ship towels are not made for public consumption. If he even manages to get it wrapped around his waist, it’ll be like a skirt with a slit that would make a Hollywood starlet blush. And Mr. In-the-Buff needs more than that to go downstairs and ask for a new room key, if he wants the thirty-six hundred passengers on the Tropical Vista to remain unscandalized.

“I think I saw a couple robes in the closet.” I definitely saw them, but the sight of a couple anything is enough to make my throat hurt, so I’d closed it without giving it a second thought.

He’s not standing by the door, which at least makes it easy to wrestle one of the robes off its hanger, but the fact remains, a strange naked man is now somewhere in my room, which is far more stressful and far less exciting than it should be.

He’s on the balcony.

“Way to make yourself at home,” I grumble, and the quiet indignation is a kind of relief after the endless barrage of misery since the chapel doors opened and no one was there.

His back is to me, with one foot crossed behind the other, and he’s got his hands spread out on the rail. A shaft of sunlight is playing over his hair and shoulders, showing off his tan. He looks way more comfortable than I felt when I went to inspect the view earlier. We are a long way up, and I am afraid of heights.

“Here,” I say as I push the sliding door open. He smiles as he reaches for it. His modesty seems to be gone, like he doesn’t care that I can see him. Kind of the way Calvin treated me like I was invisible for those last months of wedding planning, when he said it would all be easier if I let him make the decisions.

Better to be invisible, though, than to have 120 sets of eyes trained on you as everyone simultaneously reaches the same horrifying conclusion. The jazz guitarist kept playing the processional Calvin painstakingly chose. It should have been the song etched into my head the first time I saw my husband on our wedding day, but we all knew the truth.

Calvin wasn’t coming.

“Thanks.” The naked man is no longer naked. He’s got the robe tied snuggly around his waist, although it’s still open enough that I can see the sprinkling of gold-brown hair on his chest.

“You’re welcome.” My smile feels weird on my face, like I haven’t smiled in weeks.

“I’m Tripp,” he says, holding out his hand. When I shake it, his grip is firm, and I want to lean into it while the breeze on the balcony ripples through my clothes and makes me feel more exposed than he was until very recently.

“Tripp.” Wasn’t there a character in The Philadelphia Story named Tripp? Surely Carey Grant played a Tripp at some point. “I’m Doug. Er . . . Douglas . . . Dougie. Just—” I clear my throat. “Doug. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thanks for the robe, Dougie Douglas. I’ll bring one back for you.” He glances at my hand. “Tell your wife this was sacrificed for a good cause.”

I go cold as words fall out of my mouth like vomit. “Oh, no. I’m not—I don’t have a wife—I’m gay. My husband is—I mean my fiancé—” Every syllable is like another nail in my coffin.

He gives me a flirty up-and-down look. I want to put my hands over my body to try to cover myself, like he did, even though I’m fully dressed.

“Good for you, Dougie. Tell your man I’ll send a replacement robe as soon as I get back into my room.”

I don’t say anything else, because the truth is, I only need one robe. Everything in this room is arranged in pairs. Two robes, two sets of towels, two champagne glasses placed next to the bucket now filled with water, because I let the ice melt hours ago. No point in keeping the champagne chilled; I have nothing to celebrate.

Tripp’s watching me, and there’s a now-familiar sting in the corners of my eyes, so I say, “No problem. He won’t be needing it.”

He smiles, and his eyebrows arch as he nods. “Yeah, honeymoon, eh?” He bites his lower lip. “I get it. Who needs clothes, right?”

My self-esteem dies a little more, which is saying something, to know there’s still any left to lose after everything. “Right.”

The wind teases the tie of his robe, and I have to look away, out over the glistening water. The sun’s going down. I keep my eyes on the horizon, ignoring the thought of how high up we are.

Maybe I’ll drink the whole bottle of champagne myself. It’s not like I’m rushing off to a cozy candlelit dinner.

Tripp has a hand on the sliding door. “I’ll let myself out.”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.” My manners say I should walk him to the door, but why? This isn’t my house. He’s not some friend I’ve invited over. I’ll probably never see him again. My plan for the next eight days is to get thoroughly lost in the crowd so I don’t have to dwell on the fact that I’m alone.

The click of the latch says he’s gone, and I didn’t even say goodbye.

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Teaser: Work-Love Balance

The number on my desk phone’s call display makes my heart skip. If he’s calling first thing in the morning, nothing good can come from this conversation, but I’m such a slut for punishment that I’ll talk to him no matter how pissed he is.

I settle the headset over my ear, waiting for the call to connect. “Good morning, Brady speaking.”

“Brady!” His voice cracks over the speaker, and I can’t help the way I sit up a little straighter.

“Oh. Good morning, Nash. Everything okay?”

“No. It’s not fucking okay.” It’s never fucking okay when he calls before ten in the morning. After that, he’s calling because they have someone new starting, or the printer isn’t working, or someone left the projector on again and burned out the bulb. Before, though . . .

“Something I can help you with?”

“What the hell did you do to my phone?”

I take a very long, slow breath and let it out on the count of nine. I’ve learned if I start talking too quickly, he thinks I’m trying to cover something up and jumps all over me. If I pause, he thinks I’m trying to find a solution.

Not that I’d mind if he jumped me.

“Your phone?” I set up his new cell phone yesterday. He can’t possibly have broken it since then, can he? Nash is hard on his hardware. Two laptops this year, and he’s never managed to outlast his phone contract, but twenty-four hours would be a new record.

“Yes.” His voice drops low in a way that should be a warning but lately has been doing strange things in the general area of my crotch. “My phone. The phone you set up yesterday.”

I lean back in my chair, wrapping my hands behind my head. “What seems to be the problem?”

“My contacts are gone.”

I almost make a joke about whether he has a spare pair of glasses in his desk, but that way lies a verbal flaying I am not ready for on a Friday morning, so instead I say, “Did I send you the email about importing them?”

“I don’t check email.”

He doesn’t. He says it wastes time. But wasting my time is perfectly reasonable.

I close my eyes. “Did you plug your phone in last night?” As far as I can tell, he works a lot and has no social life at all. When I first got the queer film festival contract, I expected an office full of beards and torn T-shirts. Women in plaid and with long hair pulled up in messy buns. I was not expecting the festival director to come to work every day in pressed pants and a button-down. He’s even been in a tie on more than one occasion when I had to stop in. And he’s uptight and abrupt, but it’s hard for me to ignore the spark in his eye, the jaw that could cut glass, and the flecks of silver that pepper his dark hair.

Plus, he pays his invoices on time, and that is basically the only criterion for being my BFF these days.

“No,” he says. “I didn’t need to plug it in. It was fully charged when I left work last night.”

Right. Except plugging in a phone does more than charge it. But he’ll get his back up if I tell him so.

Ramona comes through the office door and grins at the exasperated look on my face. She mouths, “Nash?” with wide eyes and waggling brows. I flip her off.

“Okay. Do you have the charger?”

“Of course I do.”

“And your computer is on?” I am leading the mountain to Mohammed, but it’s what keeps my lights on.

“Brady, get over here and fix my goddamn phone,” he growls. I have to bite back a shudder at the sound.

“Okay, so plug your phone into the computer.”

The line goes quiet. He fumbles with something and curses softly. I wait.

“Nothing’s happening,” he snaps.

“Nothing?” When I finished my degree, I never envisioned this was how I’d be putting it to use.

“Nothing. The damn wheel is spinning and spinning.”

Thank God for that. Sometimes technology can be unpredictable, and I’d have to hop on the streetcar and go down there to walk him through something that should have happened automatically overnight.

“Still spinning?” I say.

“No.” His voice has lost some of its earlier fury. “Now there’s a menu.”

I do a quiet fist pump, and Ramona giggles. “What does the menu say?” I ask, trying to keep the glee out of my voice.

“Do you want to import contacts?”

Which is exactly what we talked about last night. When I showed up to help him finish getting his phone set up, he’d been on a call. I wound up waiting for almost forty-five minutes. Finally turning his attention to me, he said, “You have me for five minutes, and then I have to go.”

I would take him for any time he would give me, but not in his office, and not like he meant. So instead, I’d scrambled to get his email pushed over, synced up his calendar, and given him the very simple instruction of “plug your phone into your computer tonight so your contacts will download automatically.”

Which he had obviously completely forgotten.

“And do you want to import your contacts?” I say, unable to stop the grin that slides over my face.

“Don’t get smart with me, Brady,” he snarls, but his words only make me smile more.

“No, no, sir. Not smart.” Never mind that I run my own company. I am the lowly IT consultant, and he’s the big, bad, big-city executive.

And also, never mind that he’s in charge of a queer film festival, not a bank or a real estate conglomerate. We all have our roles to play.

“Is it syncing?” I say.

His pause before his sheepish yes tells me everything I need to know. I have fought the dragon and lived to fight another day.

“Is there anything else you need this morning?”

He grumbles for a minute. “The new marketing intern is starting on Monday.”

“Harpreet has his laptop.”

“But he doesn’t get a phone,” Nash says.

“No, sir,” I drawl. “The minimum wage intern does not get any perks.” Frankly, I’m glad Nash is paying him. He’s probably nineteen and has an unlimited data plan on his own phone. No sense giving him company collateral on top of that.

“It’s done,” Nash says.

“And are your contacts there?”

In the silence, I can picture him, the frown he gets where his whole forehead wrinkles and his lower lip pushes out.

“I think so.” He harrumphs, and for a second I expect him to call me a whippersnapper. He’s older than I am, for sure, but he’s not my grandfather. “Okay. This looks better. If it’s not, I’ll be in touch.”

“Of course. I’m a phone call away.” I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt because Nash O’Hara would be lost without me, and Ramona’s making kissy noises.

He never says goodbye when our calls are over. The line goes quiet, and I’m supposed to take that as a job well done. I groan as I stretch, and Ramona laughs.

“Nash again?”

“Who else?” I scrub my eyes with my hands. “Oh my God. That guy. He’s so old-school about tech, it’s adorable. Sometimes I can’t decide if I want to call him daddy or if I want to call him daddy.”

She gasps theatrically. We’ve been making variations of this joke for months.

“What was it this time?” she asks.

“Hello?”

My heart does a record scratch in my chest.

“Hello?”

My face must look like death, because Ramona freezes, mid-giggle.

“Brady?” The voice is decidedly male and decidedly coming from the headset over my ear, not from somewhere else in the office.

Like a slo-mo horror movie, I slowly glance down at the phone, where the red light for line one is still solid.

Motherfucking Oedipal Christ. He’s still on the line.

Work-Love Balance will be here on March 9, but you can pre-order now on Amazon!

Wrap Up

Well, the tree is up, the family is on its way. We’re off to be heathens and watch the Raptors play on Christmas Day. If you’re not a basketball fan, but maybe you’re a book fan, then here’s yet another one of those ubiquitous end-of-year posts that will undoubtedly clog up your TBR.

Step 1: Gratuitous Self-Promotion

I published three books this year. I know everyone is proud of their book babies, but I am super proud of these boys. I’ve been living in various versions of Seacroft for close to five years and to see these books out in the world and to hear from people who loved them is just about the best thing over.

If you haven’t read about Seb and Martin, Nick and Oliver, or Avery (oh Avery) and Linc, you can find them all on Amazon, or read for free from KU!

Go to Seacroft Step 2: Notes from the HBR

If you get the A-List (and why wouldn’t you? It’s just about the best author newsletter out there) then you’ve seen my now pretty regular feature, Notes from the TBR. I’m a very slow reader, and I read a lot on audiobooks, which slows me down even more. So I’m not usually up to date and hip with the kids and all their new releases, but I’m always happy to recommend older titles that you may have missed.

Here are some from my HBR (Have Been Read) pile that I loved this year. In no particular order, they are:

For Real, Alexis Hall - The first in my year of Alexis Hall. This book won a RITA a few years ago and even if kink isn’t your thing, it’s pretty easy to see why this book is so acclaimed. The writing is compelling from page 1, and Toby and Laurie have to fight so hard for their happy ending. Read and enjoy.

Rule Breaker, Lily Morton - The first in my year of Joel Leslie. Seriously. This would be a fabulously funny book to read all on its own, with snarky Dylan and terminally grumpy Gabe butting heads and other bits from beginning to end. But Joel Leslie’s narration takes it from funny to heartache and back again in that “hurts so good” way I love.

How to Bang a Billionaire, Alexis Hall - The culmination of my Alexis and Joel obsession this year is Arden St. Ives - a very small queer in a purple unicorn onesie - who you can’t help but root for, even when you know Caspian is only going to break his heart. It’s 50 Shades if it were super queer and super amazing, and definitely one of my favourites of 2019.

Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston - This one’s on nearly everyone’s ‘best of’ list, and with good reason. An MM romance that hit the mainstream. The voice is so fresh and millennial, and it builds an optimistic world where a divorced woman of color is president and the First Son can have a princely bisexual crisis and no one really cares but him and the prince in question.

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir - A completely different kind of fish. Gideon is a servant to the necromantic house of the Ninth. Yes, this book is lesbian space necromancers, but it’s also a futuristic Agatha Christie novel where strangers meet in a creepy house and someone slowly starts killing them one by one. Throw in a sword-wielding cavalier with a thing for aviator sunglasses, and I promise you’ve never read anything quite like Gideon.

So what did we learn? Basically my jam is voicey sarcastic contemporary romance…and necromancers.

Step 3: How About a Free Book?

If you had a hopeless crush on your downstairs neighbour and accidentally received a discretely marked package addressed to him that was full of sex toys, what would you do?

Clearly the answer is to download this story and see what shenanigans Gray and Tyler can get up to in just one short weekend. Toy Story is free and ready for you to download.

Get It Now Step 4. Make Resolutions

I have to admit, this year was hella fun. From the rush of release day to meeting so many amazing readers and writer friends at GRL in Albuquerque, this was the first year I felt like a real author. I can’t wait to do more of that in 2020.

While I was at GRL, a few of you asked what I had coming next. I don’t have dates yet, but I can tell you that I’m working on a new series that will be ready to go in a few months. The Out & About series is centered around the team who runs the fictional Out & About queer film festival in my hometown of Toronto! The series got everything you love. Grumpy silver foxes, smart mouthed IT consultants, fake husbands, seduction at a trivia tournament and so much more!

Details on pre-orders, release dates, cover reveals and ARC giveaways will be coming in the new year. To hear it first, join the A-List and get all the news that’s fit to print straight to your inbox!

Wrap Up

Well, the tree is up, the family is on its way. We’re off to be heathens and watch the Raptors play on Christmas Day. If you’re not a basketball fan, but maybe you’re a book fan, then here’s yet another one of those ubiquitous end-of-year posts that will undoubtedly clog up your TBR.

Step 1: Gratuitous Self-Promotion

I published three books this year. I know everyone is proud of their book babies, but I am super proud of these boys. I’ve been living in various versions of Seacroft for close to five years and to see these books out in the world and to hear from people who loved them is just about the best thing over.

If you haven’t read about Seb and Martin, Nick and Oliver, or Avery (oh Avery) and Linc, you can find them all on Amazon, or read for free from KU!

Go to Seacroft

Step 2: Notes from the HBR

If you get the A-List (and why wouldn’t you? It’s just about the best author newsletter out there) then you’ve seen my now pretty regular feature, Notes from the TBR. I’m a very slow reader, and I read a lot on audiobooks, which slows me down even more. So I’m not usually up to date and hip with the kids and all their new releases, but I’m always happy to recommend older titles that you may have missed.

Here are some from my HBR (Have Been Read) pile that I loved this year. In no particular order, they are:

For Real, Alexis Hall - The first in my year of Alexis Hall. This book won a RITA a few years ago and even if kink isn’t your thing, it’s pretty easy to see why this book is so acclaimed. The writing is compelling from page 1, and Toby and Laurie have to fight so hard for their happy ending. Read and enjoy.

Rule Breaker, Lily Morton - The first in my year of Joel Leslie. Seriously. This would be a fabulously funny book to read all on its own, with snarky Dylan and terminally grumpy Gabe butting heads and other bits from beginning to end. But Joel Leslie’s narration takes it from funny to heartache and back again in that “hurts so good” way I love.

How to Bang a Billionaire, Alexis Hall - The culmination of my Alexis and Joel obsession this year is Arden St. Ives - a very small queer in a purple unicorn onesie - who you can’t help but root for, even when you know Caspian is only going to break his heart. It’s 50 Shades if it were super queer and super amazing, and definitely one of my favourites of 2019.

Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston - This one’s on nearly everyone’s ‘best of’ list, and with good reason. An MM romance that hit the mainstream. The voice is so fresh and millennial, and it builds an optimistic world where a divorced woman of color is president and the First Son can have a princely bisexual crisis and no one really cares but him and the prince in question.

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir - A completely different kind of fish. Gideon is a servant to the necromantic house of the Ninth. Yes, this book is lesbian space necromancers, but it’s also a futuristic Agatha Christie novel where strangers meet in a creepy house and someone slowly starts killing them one by one. Throw in a sword-wielding cavalier with a thing for aviator sunglasses, and I promise you’ve never read anything quite like Gideon.

So what did we learn? Basically my jam is voicey sarcastic contemporary romance…and necromancers.

Step 3: How About a Free Book?

If you had a hopeless crush on your downstairs neighbour and accidentally received a discretely marked package addressed to him that was full of sex toys, what would you do?

Clearly the answer is to download this story and see what shenanigans Gray and Tyler can get up to in just one short weekend. Toy Story is free and ready for you to download.

Get it Now
Step 4. Make Resolutions

I have to admit, this year was hella fun. From the rush of release day to meeting so many amazing readers and writer friends at GRL in Albuquerque, this was the first year I felt like a real author. I can’t wait to do more of that in 2020.

While I was at GRL, a few of you asked what I had coming next. I don’t have dates yet, but I can tell you that I’m working on a new series that will be ready to go in a few months. The Out & About series is centered around the team who runs the fictional Out & About queer film festival in my hometown of Toronto! The series got everything you love. Grumpy silver foxes, smart mouthed IT consultants, fake husbands, seduction at a trivia tournament and so much more!

Details on pre-orders, release dates, cover reveals and ARC giveaways will be coming in the new year. To hear it first, join the A-List and get all the news that’s fit to print straight to your inbox!

A Little More Seacroft

I’m not gonna lie. There are days when I miss the guys in Seacroft. I worked on that series in different forms for close to five years, so it’s weird to not be there anymore.

To help make it easier, I’ve written a couple bonus scenes. They’re available to A-List newsletter subscribers. If you’re interested in seeing what Seb and Martin or Linc and Avery are up to, I hope you’ll check them out.

Train Tracks (Top Shelf Bonus Scene) - Sign Up Here to Read

Hot and Cold Potato (Hot Potato Bonus Scene) - Sign Up Here to Read