Title: Speedbump
Author: Charli Coty
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: February 5, 2018
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 68200
Genre: Contemporary, LGBT, contemporary, bisexual, trans, genderqueer, non-binary, #ownvoices, musician, disability, drinking/some drug use, multicultural, small town, Oregon, some violence, illness/disease, Alzheimer’s
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Synopsis
Ezra Cook is sole caregiver to older
brother Tray, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in his forties.
They live outside the small town of Drop, Oregon, on property Tray bought with
his Microsoft settlement money. For years, Ezra has been going on and off low
doses of testosterone to maintain a comfortable level of androgyny. Ezra spends
most days juggling Tray’s needs and the work required to survive in rural
Oregon on a small income, ignoring their own needs, especially companionship
and sleep.
Ellred “Red” Long escaped Drop at
seventeen but returns to his hometown in disgrace after his band dumped him on
the streets of LA. Coming back doesn't seem like such a dead end, though, after
he sees a guy walking along the side of the road in the rain and gives him a
lift.
Ezra and Red’s chance meeting begins an
uncomfortable friendship neither had expected, and both allow fear to keep it
from escalating into a hookup, or worse, a romance. Red never meant to return
to Drop and doesn’t want to get stuck there again, while Ezra’s protective
walls may be too strong to breach, from either side.
Excerpt
Speedbump
Charli Coty © 2018
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
It had been a while since the last time
a moving vehicle hit me, but I wasn’t in the mood to take chances. The night
was dark—no moon and only a smattering of stars peeking between the clouds. At
least the rain had finally stopped. The county road I was walking along was
flat, but I’d just passed a turn when headlights flashed behind me, coming up
fast. A blind turn the locals had been known to straighten now and then,
especially when the weekend and low visibility coincided.
I ran toward the neighbor’s patched
fence, toward safety in the form of a boulder guarding the apex of the turn,
hoping whoever sat behind the wheel didn’t mean to run me down. The way my luck
was going that night, with the unexpected rain and Granddad’s truck quitting,
it surprised me when the car stopped and I was still standing upright.
The GTO—the 1964 stock GTO that I knew
to be deep purple but looked black right then—rocked gently and then settled.
It rocked again when he leaned across the seat to roll the window down. Even if
he’d seen my truck, he wouldn’t know who I was. He’d left town before we moved
here, and only one thing about me is at all noteworthy anyway. Everyone knew
the day he’d come back to town. Red Richardson—also known as Ellred Long, the
name he got the day he was born. Back from Los Angeles where he’d never really
made it, but he’d come close enough to be a Big Man in this little backwash
town of five hundred (give or take). What he was doing so far off the highway
or any of the main roads, I had no clue.
“Hey,” he shouted. Even only hearing him
shout, you couldn’t help but know the man could sing. “Let me give you a lift.
It’s starting to rain again.”
Slowly, to give myself time to figure
out what was going on, I approached the passenger side of the car. I didn’t
want to get in—that was trouble waiting to happen if I’d ever seen it—but I
wasn’t looking forward to walking for another two hours either. I bent and
looked in the window, a safe four feet between me and the car. A blast of warm
air hit my face, and I tried not to look too hard at him. He always wore nice
button-down shirts, in videos or going to the Mini Mart in Drop—jewel-tone red,
purple, black—that looked like silk.
“Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere. Just out driving.”
Even in the dark, I could see his
brilliant smile. He probably paid good money for that whiteness. I couldn’t see
his long black hair or whether he was clean-shaven or had that short patch of
beard he sometimes wore on his chin, but the smile did me in on its own.
“Where are you headed out here on foot in
the middle of the night?” Red asked.
“Home.” A few steps closer won’t hurt.
Maybe. “My truck quit a mile back.”
“The white International? That’s a
shame. Cool old truck.”
We stared at each other another minute,
sizing up the situation, and then he reached across and opened the door. He saw
a dirty guy, obviously the one who’d filled the bed of said truck with
firewood. A filthy, wet, and tired guy who only wanted to get home.
He has no idea.
I brushed off my pants as best I could
and slid onto the seat. “Thanks. I’m up the road a couple of miles.”
Red Richardson extended a hand and
introduced himself. As though he needed to tell anyone who lived within a
fifty-mile radius who he was. I gripped his hand for as short a time as I could
get away with and nodded.
“Ezra. Ezra Cook.”
“Good to meet you, Ezra Cook.” Red
looked me over, and I could’ve sworn he was wondering how much trouble he could
whip up for the both of us. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he wanted
me to pay for the ride with a blow job. Or maybe he was only trying to figure
out who I was related to.
That would take a very long time and end
the same way as his music career: in disappointment.
I adjusted myself on the seat, pulling
my filthy jeans lower across my hips and turning said hips away from him. He
shouldn’t be flirting with men, and if he kept it up, I wasn’t above pointing
that out. He could get himself killed doing that out here.
Red cleared his throat and gunned the
engine. It sounded amazing. His father and brothers had kept the car on the
road, probably figured he’d never be back to claim it. Probably prayed he’d
never come back to claim it. That GTO was the nicest ride in three towns. Or
maybe I liked the whole package—the sexy washed-up musician driving a
fifty-year-old muscle car.
He pulled back onto the road, his
headlights illuminating a whole lot of nothing in front and to both sides. The
silence stretched out too long, something that wouldn’t have bothered me any
other time or place.
“You’ll see a big red mailbox on the
right.”
Red chuckled. A quiet rumbling, tuned to
perfection like the car. “Your folks live out here long?”
That got my hackles up, but no sense in
going down that road. “No. We moved to Drop in the early aughts.”
He darted a look in my direction—at
least that’s what it probably started out as. Red couldn’t tear his eyes off
me, which should’ve felt more like trouble than it did. Denial. It’ll get you
every time.
“Aughts? What’s that?”
“You know. The first decade of the
twenty-first century. Aught one, aught two…” When I realized I’d actually been
speaking to him like he was anyone else—like we were two regular guys in a car,
nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary to see here—I caught my tongue
between my teeth and bit down. Not hard, I’m no masochist, just hard enough to
remember why I should shut the hell up.
“How old are you?” He chuckled again.
Damn him. “My father says that, but I didn’t think anyone under sixty used that
term.”
“We’re all old out here.”
“Interesting. Because I’ve always heard
the opposite. About me, anyway.”
“Opposite?”
“That I’m immature. A hopeless
man-child.” He laughed and took one hand off the wheel. My attention fixed on
that hand as he rubbed his thigh and then gripped it. His laugh sounded
embarrassed and like he was bragging at the same time. I needed to get out of
that car before I got myself in trouble.
“You can drop me anywhere. I don’t want
to put you out.”
“I’ll take you home. It’s no trouble.”
Red rubbed the thigh of his jeans again,
maybe to dry a sweaty palm, and then returned his hand to the wheel. His
concentration seemed to focus on driving and the road outside the windshield
instead of on me. Disappointing, but for the best. Even if he did keep
flirting—if that was really what he’d been doing—it wasn’t like it would have
gone anywhere. Rock stars didn’t get involved with…people like me.
I’d just raised my hand to point out the
mailbox when he slowed to take the turn. His cocky grin made me want to adjust
my pants again, but I was afraid we’d end up in the ditch if I did. Red roared
down the half-mile stretch of dirt and gravel that passed for our road but
stopped the car without making any ruts. He might be cocky, but he was no asshole.
Great. I’d sort of hoped he was.
He stopped in the turnaround near the
front porch, and before I could even say thanks, the front door burst open. My
brother stormed out and didn’t stop, yelling at the top of his lungs about
something. All he wore were battered and ripped jeans—the hair on his head and
chest looked white in Red’s headlights and wild like he’d been asleep on the
couch. His enormous feet were bare. I jumped out before the car had stopped
rocking.
“It’s me—Ezra,” I shouted over him.
“Tray, the truck broke down, and Red here gave me a lift home.”
Tracy stopped and glared at the car,
both hands locked in fists. He didn’t move or say another word, which was
probably for the best considering he’d been woken up by headlights to find out
I hadn’t made it home.
I closed the car door and looked at Red
through the open window. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You going to be okay?” He looked
between Tracy and me a couple of times. Clearly, he thought the answer was no.
“Yeah. It’s my brother. The car must’ve
woke him up. We don’t get a lot of traffic back here, that’s all. Thanks
again.” I stepped back and gave him a little wave. When he didn’t head out
right away, I took Tray’s arm and started up the porch steps. Tracy didn’t make
it any easier—he twisted at the waist to look back, no doubt trying to figure
out who was crazy enough to drive down his road. Even FedEx and UPS had Tracy
Cook’s place listed as a no-fly zone, so we had to drive over an hour into
Portland to pick up any packages. When we got any packages, which didn’t happen
much.
Nobody would’ve sent any presents to the
Cooks’ two black sheep, even if they had found us again.
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Meet the Author
Charli Coty misspent a large chunk of her youth on the back of a Harley, meeting people and having adventures that sometimes pop up in their fiction. Mx Coty writes everything from contemporary to paranormal, always with a happy ending. Charli has survived earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods, but couldn’t make it through one day without stories.Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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