CHAPTER 1
BILLY
Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, Tanner Strong struts through the diner doors with his entourage of jock buddies.
Tanner Strong. Let’s take a minute to appreciate the lean slab of meat that was the high school quarterback of my horny, teenage wet dreams. When Tanner Strong enters the room, everyone turns their heads—and it’s not just because he’s something of a town hero. Tanner’s body is built to order—straight from the sex fantasy factory, apparently—and his crushingly adorable face matches the goods, framed by short, dusty brown hair that pokes and jabs in all directions. He has this chiseled nose with a tiny scar across it that gives him this tough I-beat-people-up-for-a-living look. His full, plush lips half hang open as he turns in circles, ignoring the loud shouts of his comrades as he drinks in the sight of my family’s diner, likely noting how much it’s changed in the past three years.
He hasn’t changed much. I could watch that dang face for hours. Those muddy brown eyes can still pull all my focus, just like they used to in the middle of history class when I should’ve been learning what year prohibition was repealed. It was 1930-something, by the way.
And please, let’s not spend another hour discussing Tanner’s broad, muscled shoulders that have obviously rammed into countless firm, hard-bodied rivals during his time on the field. Or the thick, bulging arms that come from those shoulders, the muscles of which make a stretch rack of those poor, tortured sleeves of his too-tight shirt. Or the pecs underneath said shirt that show through in perfect, distracting detail.
This is the first time I’ve really seen Tanner since high school. He scored some football scholarship and took off to Oklahoma, which is a twelve hour drive north from our little country hometown of Spruce. Every time he’s come home since, the whole dang populace seems to throw a parade, even though he spends all his time out on his family’s big ranch. Hell, the first summer he came home, I think he was sent off on some luxurious trip to Europe, or so said half the gossips that run through our diner.
But the sight of him and his buddies crashing through our door does not inspire the same wave of joy in me that it does in all our sports-loving, cheer-happy patrons. All four years of my high school career, I had suffered when, after every football game, win or lose, the whole team would burst through the doors and make a mess of our diner. Sure, it was great for business. Sure, my pa’s a big fan of football and loved every second. But having to serve upwards of twenty-five to forty rowdy, cocky, Coke-guzzling, burger-chomping athletes and all their adoring fans after every game quickly became my Friday night hell. While they were here, it was a headache of nonstop noise, and after they left, it was hours of cleanup.
And it was always spearheaded by the great football hero and legend-in-the-making that is Tanner Strong.
Now, after three years of peace, he’s back. And he brought a few former teammates. And the sight of him is making my insides turn over with a mix of horniness and dread, even as I stare at him from the window of the kitchen, a wet bowl in one hand and a rag in the other. I’ve apparently forgotten whatever it is I’m doing.
“Well, Junior, if your mouth was hanging open any more, you’d be washing your jaw instead of that bowl.”
I flinch at the sound of my ma’s voice, giving her thin, weary figure and frizzy brown hair half a glance before returning my attention to the bowl—and not to the guys who just piled into the booth by the TV. “I thought we close our doors at eight.”
“It’s ten ‘til,” she says back, “and it’s Friday. You know dang well we stay open ‘til eleven Fridays and Saturdays. Now get your booty out there and take their orders.”
I lift my tired eyes to her. “Me? What about Mindy?”
“She’s on break.”
I gawk. “She just got here an hour ago!”
“And I just sent her on break. Skidoo!”
I give the bowl and rag a shake, lifting my eyebrows defiantly. “I’m in the middle of—”
She swipes them right out of my hands like they were never there, taking over the dishes. “Any other excuse you got not to hop on out there and take them sweet boys’ orders?”
I scowl at my unbearable ma, then glance through the kitchen window, watching as the patrons cheer and laugh and give Tanner high-fives and slaps on his back as he makes his way to the booth his buddies have swallowed up. “Ain’t nothin’ sweet about them.”
She smirks knowingly. “I know you all went to high school together. You might’ve—”
“What’s it matter about high school??” I cut her off. “That was three years ago!”
“Exactly my point, Junior! Three years! Might be you were on opposite sides of the track back then, but I heard college really changed that Tanner boy. He ain’t the same as he used to be. Maybe you got more in common now.”
Me? More in common with the town football star? “You hit your head or somethin’?” I ask her.
She nudges me with an elbow. “Don’t forget to tell them about the daily special. It’s your pa’s pride and joy.”
The Touchdown. Just the thought of having to sell a special burger my pa came up with called The Touchdown to a quartet of obnoxious football-playing jocks turns my face a color that rivals the cherry pie I’ll no doubt be gorging on later.
But I’m not built to whine. Hard work and sweat has kept my parents’ diner open all these years, and it’s put food on the table and a roof over our overworked, messy heads of hair.
“Maybe you can entice them later with your little dessert menu,” my ma keeps on. “That might be all the endorsement we’d need, if Tanner takes a liking to one of your culinary concoctions.”
I feel the corner of my mouth pulling up. She’s right, and she’s set my mind back on track. No matter the hell I might have to put up with this summer, come the fall, I’m kicking it out of here at long last to chase my dream of culinary school and someday opening my own place. My father’s heart attack might have hindered me leaving right out of high school, but now I have an associate’s degree in business under my belt before I head off to become a real dessert chef. Billy’s Confections. Billy Bakes. Billy’s Sweet Tooth Tastery. All the possible names of the business I’ll eventually open and operate race through my head like ice cream flavors.
My dreams are just a summer away. And I’m sure as hell not gonna let a hotshot college athlete scare me into the kitchen. I grab my apron, then puff up my chest as I tie it on. You can do this, Billy. I glance into the side of the fridge, which is basically the kitchen’s version of a body-length mirror, being polished so shiny that I can see my slender shape, my short, messy brown hair, and a smudge of dark grease on my forehead—which I wipe away. Under my black apron with the diner emblem across the chest, I’m wearing a fitted navy blue plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows. Worried I look a bit uptight, I let pop the top button, then give my disheveled brown hair a push of encouragement in the right direction before slipping past the swinging doors.
The noise of our rowdy guests reaches me long before I reach them. Despite my little pep talk a second ago, my feet don’t seem to move properly, as if they’re trying to drive me back to the kitchen. When I reach the table, they don’t notice me. I try to speak, but they all suddenly burst out laughing at some joke one of the guys was finishing. I only need to catch the punch line—“And that’s why you call it pussy!”—to know what sort of hell I’ve walked into.
Just get their orders. Quicker served, quicker gone.
“Welcome to Biggie’s Bites,” I state over their laughs. “I’m William. Can I start you guys off with—?”
“This, right here,” announces Kirk, the one across from Tanner, a beastly guy with a buzzed head wearing a sleeveless green jersey that shows off his thick shoulders. He jabs a pudgy finger at the menu. “That big ol’ juicy thing. Put it in my mouth.”
“Fag,” teases Joel, the blue-eyed blond at his side in a grey shirt, stained with grease from working at his pa’s auto shop two blocks over. He’s got an unfortunate pox of acne on his cheeks that’s festered there since his thirteenth birthday. I’ll call him Zits.
Oh, and a word about the word “fag”: Growing up gay in this small country town of Spruce that no one in the world’s heard of, even with as “friendly” as it is, you still hear the three-and-six-letter F-bombs thrown back and forth twenty times a day between boys at school who can’t be bothered to broaden their vocabulary. I guess I’ve either grown a thick skin or become so desensitized that I don’t even associate it with “gay” anymore.
Maybe that’s what inspires me to make light of it. “That would be me,” I interject with a smile, “though my nametag reads ‘William’.”
The four boys shut right up and stare at me. Zits tries to say something twice, sputters and fails both times, then finally manages to get out, “B-But you’re not a fag. You’re just gay. There’s a difference.”
Now it’s my turn to stare. “By all means, enlighten me of this difference.”
Tanner swallows a chuckle of amusement, his face going red. The fact that my words might have had anything to do with his reaction gives me such a rush of private joy, I can’t even begin to describe it.
“A fag’s, like … just a stupid person,” explains Zits.
“Oh. That explains it so much better,” I remark.
“Yeah, see? Totally different,” exclaims Zits, missing my sarcasm completely, and the third one at the table sitting next to Tanner—a thinner guy named Harrison with blunt black eyebrows, russet skin, and wearing a t-shirt with grass stains on the arms—grunts his agreement.
This is how I’ll say I spent my Friday night: getting a lesson in etiquette from a bunch of rowdy jocks who, just seconds ago, shared jokes about pussy and called each other fags. Jeez, who smacked me with the lucky branch?
I know these guys from high school when they used to play football alongside Tanner. Kirk, who still bags groceries down at the market and lives in a trailer by his grandma’s house. Joel/Zits, who gets greasy tinkering under cars at his pa’s shop. Harrison, who works as a farmhand for an aunt or uncle of Tanner’s, far as I know.
“Can I get you guys anything to drink?” I ask politely.
“Gimme a Coke. And this juicy thing,” says Kirk. “Cook it medium-rare. Double cheese. Toast the bun, too. Fuck, I’m hungry. This come with fries?”
If you read the menu … “Yes, or coleslaw, your choice.”
“Coleslaw’s gross,” Zits interjects, face wrinkled.
“Your face is gross,” returns Kirk.
Zits ignores him and lifts his menu. “I want this one. No pickles. Lather mine up in mayo … extra mayo.”
“He likes lots of white, creamy stuff in his mouth,” Kirk explains.
The others laugh, but Zits punches him so hard in the shoulder that Kirk jerks forward, kicking the leg of the table and causing the salt shaker to fall over.
“Burger of the day?”
The words come from the one person at the table I’ve been trying hard not to look at. The one who might or might not have already stolen enough of my attention in high school. The one I secretly pined over ever since I was thirteen and first discovered how my cock works. The one who’s always flocked by cheerleaders and flanked by buddies—and never once looked my way.
But now he’s looking my way. Tanner Strong is looking my way. The Tanner. Tan the Man. Quarterback of Spruce High School. The hero who’s returned home from college and flipped the whole dang town upside-down. The star.
And he’s asking me about my pa’s damned burger.
“Yes,” I state, staring at the fallen salt shaker instead of him. “Burger of the day is called The Touchdown, and it contains—”
“TOUCHDOWN!!” shouts Zits with enough volume to fill the whole diner, throwing his big hands in the air and waving them. “TOUCHDOWN!!” joins in Kirk, his voice roaring and booming. Harrison and his blunt black eyebrows jump in, too. To my surprise, other tables fall in line as well, throwing their hands up and shouting, “TOUCHDOWN!!”
“Okay, I want one of those,” decides Tanner.
“Scratch my last order,” blurts Kirk. “I want one too.” Zits shouts, “Me too! I don’t care what’s in it.” Harrison raises his hand. “Gimme one of them, too! Big and juicy! Double-everything! Score!!”
After recovering from laughing at his buddies, Tanner hands over his menu. When I take it from him, our fingers touch. I feel a surge of enjoyment thunder up my arm just by the little flirt of skin my fingers feel when they graze his. I keep my eyes on the menu knowing full well that his deep eyes are on me and are guaranteed to melt me to a puddle of nothing right here in front of him and all the rest of the world. Don’t look at him. Don’t you dare.
And then he has the audacity to say, “Thanks, Billy.”
Billy. He remembers my name, the one I actually go by, the one that’s not on my nametag.
I look up at his face.
Big mistake. His rich brown eyes smolder me. His eyebrows are pulled together with just the slightest pinch of concentration. His mouth is barely parted from the words he just spoke, which invite me into a whole library of fantasies I thought I’d locked up in my all-too-horny teenage brain when we graduated years ago—ridiculous and unlikely fantasies of under-the-bleachers make-out sessions, sweaty locker room jockstrap-clad meet-ups, and maybe a carefully orchestrated sleepover which always ended with him sleeping right by me, except in my fantasies, neither Tanner nor I were sleeping at all, each of us excitedly waiting for the other to make a move.
“Oh, and a Coke for me, too,” adds Tanner.
I swallow down my horny teenage sex fantasies, trying with all my might to shove them right back into that vault in my brain where they belong. With just a quick nod, I take the menus and head back to the kitchen while dodging a chorus of diners who are still chanting, “Touchdown! Touchdown!”
When I return to the back counter by the kitchen, I head straight to the POS and put in their orders. I have to do it three times because the machine’s been possessed since two Halloweens ago and keeps canceling the whole dang order when I try to add extra mayo to Zits’ ticket.
“Piece of shit,” I grumble at it.
“Hey now,” warns my frizzy-haired ma who appears by my side to see what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
“That’s what it’s called, ain’t it? POS?” I tease.
She chuckles as she continues on her way. Then, my pa, his salt-and-peppered brown hair smashed down by a cap and his mustache looking particularly out of control tonight, pokes his head out of the kitchen in a smoky cloud of grill steam. “Am I hearing a bunch of excitement out there?”
I lift a brow. “We gettin’ the ventilation checked any time this year? Or is it your plan to run outta breathable oxygen by ten o’clock?”
“Never mind the dang ventilation. Are the diners likin’ the special tonight? Is that what I’m hearin’?”
“Yeah, Pa. Over the moon.”
“They lovin’ the Touchdown?”
“It’s a total hit, Pa. Everyone wants one.”
“Score!” He disappears into the back again.
After taking out an extra plate of fries to the Kimbles and refilling glasses at the table of ladies who meet here every Friday to eat chicken fried steak and play dominos, I bring the boys at table 12 their Cokes. They hardly seem to notice me anyway, bellowing out with obnoxious laughter and shouting at the game on the TV. Kirk nearly elbows me in the nuts when he throws his hands up at something his buddy across the table says. When their order is ready and I bring them their burgers, the four of them shout, “TOUCHDOWN!” yet again, and then I get to enjoy another loud wave of the word coursing through the diner from every mouth big and small, young and old.
While I’m at the kitchen sink again washing cup after greasy cup and thinking about which delicious treat I’m going to serve up for Saturday’s Sweet—an item my pa lets me add to the dessert menu every Saturday to show off my pastry skills—I can’t help but stare at table 12 through the window, even though it’s across the length of the diner and Tanner’s backside is all I see. Here in Spruce, football is the beginning and the ending to everything. All it takes is for Tanner Strong to waltz into town from college and it’s like Reverend Arnold himself is calling a holiday in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy dang Spirit. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it on Sunday, when every business closes and half the town piles into the church at the end of Apricot Street.
And really, can I blame them? Tanner is a walking, talking wet dream. He’s got it all. He’s handsome. He’s built. He’s well-off and sitting pretty in that big ranch his family owns at the edge of town. The Strongs own a number of businesses around here and pretty much run the town, along with the Evans, Whitman, and McPherson families. They also throw the biggest most extravagant parties out there on the ranch that the whole town’s invited to, so of course everyone loves them.
Meanwhile, I’m still scrubbing cups in the kitchen so feverishly, I might rub the poor things out of existence. I’m usually the guy who does the books and waits on a table or two, but I’m having to pull double duty since Dane, our busboy, called in sick. To make matters worse, I can’t peel my eyes away from the back of Tanner’s head, wondering how much the last three years of college really have changed him. Apparently not much, despite what my ma heard. He’s still loud. He’s still the spotlight of the whole populace of Spruce. He’s still hot as fuck.
Not that it should matter. He’ll have every girl from here to the edge of Spruce all over his tight-jeans-wearing ass the second news spreads that he’s back. He’ll have all the attention he craves. Why should I add any more to it?
“My, my, can those boys put down some food,” Ma mumbles when she sees me later at the POS adding more to their total. While eating their Touchdown burgers, they order two big appetizers and three extra baskets of fries, which they finish every bite of. By the time we get to the dessert menu, I feel fifty pounds heavier.
Apparently to prove that their stomachs really are bottomless pits, the boys order a huge lava brownie apiece lathered in hot fudge. But just as I leave to put in their dessert orders, the twang of Tanner’s deep, gravelly voice stops me cold. “Hey, what’s that ‘Saturday’s Sweet’ thing on the back?”
I swear I could listen to Tanner read a dictionary on a hot sweaty porch pestered by flies. “Every Saturday, my pa lets me come up with a new dessert.”
“You?” Tanner lifts an eyebrow. “Like, you actually make them?”
“From scratch, pretty much.”
“Well, shit.” Tanner smirks at his buddies, then lifts his chin at me. “Gimme one of them Saturday Sweets, then. Whatever it is, don’t care. I wanna try it.”
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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Keep scrolling for a look into my new adult / college romance series, which begins with “Read My Lips”. Each book is a standalone romance, but centers around the same group of college friends. They are smart & steamy new adult romances with a pinch of angst and a lot of immersive characters.