Carry the Ocean: The Roosevelt, Book 1 (25 page)

Everyone’s got secrets. Some are just harder to hide.

Off Campus

© 2014 Amy Jo Cousins

Bend or Break, Book 1

With his father’s ponzi scheme assets frozen, Tom Worthington believes finishing college is impossible unless he can pay his own way. After months sleeping in his car and gypsy-cabbing for cash, he’s ready to do just that.

But his new, older-student housing comes with an unapologetically gay roommate. Tom doesn’t ask why Reese Anders has been separated from the rest of the student population. He’s just happy to be sleeping in a bed.

Reese isn’t about to share his brutal story with his gruff new roommate. You’ve seen one homophobic jock, you’ve seen ’em all. He plans to drag every twink on campus into his bed until Tom moves out. But soon it becomes clear Tom isn’t budging.

Tom isn’t going to let some late-night sex noise scare him off, especially when it’s turning him on. But he doesn’t want any drama either. He’ll keep his hands, if not his eyes, to himself. Boundaries have a way of blurring when you start sharing truths, though. And if Tom and Reese cross too many lines, they may need to find out just how far they can bend…before they break.

Warning:
This book contains cranky roommates who vacillate between lashing out and licking, some male/male voyeurism, emotional baggage that neither guy wants to unpack, and the definitive proof that sound carries in college housing.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Off Campus:

“So what’s the deal? Why don’t they want you in the dorms?”

“Listen, kid.” He grimaced. “Sorry. Just drop it, okay?”

“Why?”

“Seriously? Because I don’t want to fucking talk about it, okay?” But he could already see where this was going. He only wondered if Reese would wait until he left the room to do it.

His roommate stared at him speculatively for a moment, tapping his bottom lip with one index finger before shrugging and grabbing his phone off the desk.

Nope. Guess not.

Reese looked up after a second.

“What’s your last name again?”

It figured. The kid didn’t even know his last name. Shit. Who knew how long he could have flown under the radar here, with this guy having no idea who his last-minute roommate was.

Tell the kid or not? If he didn’t, it wouldn’t get him more than ten hours of grace, since all Reese had to do was dial up Res Life in the a.m. and ask “Who the hell is this guy in my room again?”

For a minute, those ten hours seemed as if they might be worth it. The last little bit of peace he could hold on to. One more night. Who knew what would happen then. Worst case scenario had the kid taking naked pictures of him and selling them to some gossip mag. He could see the made-up headlines now.
Price-Fixing Jailbird’s Son Does Porn.
He remembered the days, and then weeks, months, of having flashes blow up in his face every time he tried to set foot out the door of their Beacon Hill home. Of trying to sneak out in the middle of the night, only to realize that the paparazzi never left. That there was always someone watching them, watching him. He started referring to the pack of them as the Evil Nemesis. He remembered the first time he’d tried to argue with a reporter who shouted out lies about his father as Tom pushed his way through the crowd blocking the gate to their front walk, wanting to get inside and hide.

“Did you know your father was embezzling money too, Tom?”

He’d been told later that it was a trick question, designed to draw him out. The PR company that had been working on his father’s press, until the corporate board decided that working to repair the image of a man who was absolutely, positively going to jail was a waste of money, sent an agent around to coach him after that disaster.

Losing his cool sure had made for good television. Tom had watched himself on television that night and even
he
didn’t believe himself. All of his sputtering furious protests about his father’s innocence looked like a fucking cover-up. With their enormous red brick Georgian townhouse visible behind the eight-foot-high wrought iron fence that surrounded their property, he looked like a spoiled little rich kid who was throwing a temper tantrum because someone wanted to take his toys away.

A pretty accurate picture at the time.

The PR guy had shown him how anything he said could be twisted around to mean the opposite by the time reporters were done with it. The guy had advised him to keep his fucking mouth shut and tattoo the words
No Comment
across his forehead.

“Also, don’t fuck any under eighteens and please God, don’t let someone take a picture with their fucking cell phone of you with your lips wrapped around a bong. Or some guy’s dick, all right?”

He’d thought that was a funny one right there, hadn’t he? Had elbowed Tom and rolled his eyes. A little dick-sucking joke between two straight dudes, right, buddy? Ha, ha. Tom had never been sure if there’d been a kernel of true warning in the kidding around, though. Something about that guy screamed that he’d seen it all and wouldn’t be surprised to see it again.

Reese was waiting across the room, perched on the edge of the desk like a dark little bird with claws, thumbs ready to go on his phone. If he was tempted to smile because he knew he had Tom, in the end, even if not right this moment, he kept it to himself. But his eyes and the press of his lips together said he wasn’t going anywhere until Tom coughed up his name. If he’d said anything, one word, made one crack about cyberstalking or celebrity disguises, Tom would have told him to fuck off and gone to bed. But the kid just sat there and waited.

Like he wasn’t going anywhere, ever. Which should have felt stalkerish and creepy but instead felt…inevitable.

Tom looked Reese in the eye, letting him see that this was the last thing he wanted. The kid would learn why in about point eight seconds.

“Worthington. Need me to spell it?”

He waited for the light to spark in Reese’s eyes, the way it always did when someone found out who he was. Everyone wanted something, even if it was just to gossip about how awful he must feel and how terrible it must be for his family to lose everything. But even those pain vultures, who got off on asking “Aren’t you too embarrassed to show your face anywhere? You must be so miserable,” didn’t really believe it. Everyone assumed there were hidden assets. Extended family to fall back on. Foreign bank accounts. What the fuck ever. And he’d let them go on believing it, shrugging off all concern, real or fake, because after a while he couldn’t tell the difference. He nodded or shook his head and stopped saying anything at all because he never knew what someone would turn his words into. And now he waited for Reese.

The kid laughed at first, actually looked up after a split second of staring at the screen and laughed. Tom almost shot up off the bed and put him on the floor, hard.

“The Third? Thomas Worthington the Third?” He actually snorted with laughter for a second and the grin he flashed at Tom was so full of play and lightheartedness that Tom leaned back for a moment, forgetting that he was in danger and smiled back at the kid ruefully. “You know that’s pretentious as shit, right? Please tell me you know that.”

“I told my dad that nobody does that anymore, but he said it was a little late to go making changes to my birth certificate when I was about to graduate high school.”

“Man, that sucks. Sorry, dude.” His eyes glanced down again, scanning the first lines of what was probably a page of Google links. Sure enough, Tom could’ve clocked it with an egg timer.

Point eight seconds.

“Whoa.” The word slipped out under Reese’s breath, his lips pursed a little on the soft exhale.

There it was.

Reese’s eyes flicked from his phone to Tom and back again. Tom pretended to read but waited for it.

“Oookay.” Reese sounded as if he were feeling his way through a dark room with a hand out to keep from walking into something hard. “That…wasn’t what I expected.”

“No?”

“Not really.”

“Rings a bell now? The name, I mean.”

“Not really.” He flushed and looked around the room, anywhere but at Tom. “I was, um, sort of a club kid in high school. I partied. A lot. The news wasn’t really my thing.”

“Guess you would’ve been a senior when all that went down, huh? If you’re a sophomore now.”

“Yeah.” Reese’s laugh was short and sharp. “There’s a lot of things that are hazy from senior year. And after.”

“Well, if you didn’t have a 401k invested in a mutual fund anchored by my dad’s company, then you probably weren’t too worried about it.” He tried to joke, feeling grateful. Grateful that Reese wasn’t battering him with questions or looking at him as if he was a two-headed whoremonster who ate babies for breakfast.

He heard another gasp, this one barely audible as the kid swallowed it before letting it halfway out of his mouth. No need to ask what sparked that sudden air suck.

Everyone always gasped when they hit the suicide story.

“I don’t want to talk about that part.”

“Do you hear me asking?”

No. He didn’t. He glanced up out of the corner of his eye, carefully keeping his head down while he snuck a peek. If anything, the kid looked even paler than he normally did and his hands were shaking as he carefully laid his phone down in the center of the desk and didn’t look at it again.

“You travel light for a rich guy.”

Which was far enough for Tom right fucking there. There was no way around admitting he was the son of a convicted felon whose trial had kept courtroom reporters in shits and giggles for three months. But what had happened to him after that was his own fucking personal business and since he’d managed to drop off the paparazzi radar, there was nothing to read on the subject, even for the morbidly curious.

“That’s how I roll. Spent a lot of time ducking the press. Learned to travel light.”

“Well, when you find a place to settle in, you oughta invest in some more stuff. Maybe an actual laundry basket.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought Reese was teasing him. Which was definitely a change from outright hostility.

But he wasn’t about to get into a discussion of what he was or was not going to be buying. If the kid hadn’t noticed yet that Tom wore the hell out of an extremely limited wardrobe and had exactly one pair of running shoes, which were way past the five-hundred-mile marker that would normally mean it was time to replace them, then he wasn’t about to point it out.

That was his own personal stuff. He’d planted a giant
Keep Out
sign in front of his life that even a kid could read.

Stress at the idea that Reese might start trying to figure out where Tom went on the weekends, or why he had hardly any personal belongings, built suddenly. The gruff, angry words that burst out of his mouth were way over the top for the bantam-weight teasing the kid had been doing.

“Yeah, well, you want to tell me how you got in here?” He saw the kid flinch at the slap of his angry tone. “Or is this just a
let’s rummage around in Tom’s bag o’ shame
party trick?”

Reese turned his back on him and sat at his desk, dragging a textbook to the center and flipping it open. He didn’t answer, didn’t even look at Tom again.

Tom knew he was being an asshole but couldn’t stop. He’d had his dirty dark knot of shame dragged into the open after months of being anonymous and sharing nothing more than a word or two with strangers, and his skin crawled with the exposure. The words kept coming out of his mouth, though he knew that the kid didn’t deserve it. That he had something bad, something worse maybe even than Tom did, wrapped deep and tight inside, and Tom picking at his layers, digging his dirty fingers into old scabs was about the shittiest thing he could do to this kid who he actually liked.

“What is it? Do I have to Google you too?”

He saw Reese’s shoulders pull up and lock, high and protective, as if he were braced for a blow.

Tom held his breath, waiting. He’d had to give it up at the threat of a search engine. Would Reese tell him what had happened to get him a spot in the highly limited space of Perkins House? Or would he leave Tom to find out on his own? Because there wasn’t much that could be kept secret with a data plan and a smart phone.

The screech of Reese’s chair being shoved violently away from the desk as he pushed back and stood up, all in one motion, was shockingly loud in the silence between them.

Reese slammed his textbook in his backpack, zipped up and headed for the door.

He stopped for one second in front of the open door with his hand on the knob and looked back over his shoulder, all color drained from his face and the dark shadows under his eyes starker than ever against his white pale skin.

“Go ahead. Dig all you want, asshole. You won’t find a goddamn thing.”

His voice was flat, his eyes vacant, before he turned and left the room, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.

When a man is consumed by hatred, is there anything left to love?

Mark of Cain

© 2014 Kate Sherwood

After a tough day of counseling sessions, Anglican priest Mark Webber is looking forward to a relaxing dinner at a local restaurant. When he sees who’s bellied up to the bar, though, he reaches for his cell phone to call the police.

It’s Lucas Cain, the man who killed Mark’s brother three years ago. Apparently he’s out of jail and hanging out with his old crowd, which has to be a breach of parole, right?

Pulled over upon leaving the bar, Lucas blows a clean breathalyzer and hopes this isn’t a harbinger of things to come. He’s ready to build a sober, peaceful life. His friends aren’t ready to let him move on, though, and he ends up taking refuge in an Anglican half-way house.

Thrown together, Mark and Lucas find common ground in the struggle to help a young gay man come to terms with his sexuality—and the fight against homophobic townsfolk. As attraction grows, the past is the last stumbling block between them and a future filled with hope.

Warning: Bad boys being good, good boys being bad.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Mark of Cain:

“You know God loves you, Alex.” Mark Webber waited patiently for a response, and was finally rewarded with a tentative nod. “Maybe you aren’t all that sure,” Mark said. “But I’m sure. And God is sure.” He wanted to reach out his hand to the boy in front of him, but he kept himself still. He knew his intentions were pure, but that didn’t matter—not to the world around him and not, even more importantly, to this confused teenager. So he couldn’t offer physical comfort and would have to do what he could with words.

“You feel alone. And I can tell you as many times as I want to that you’re never truly alone, but that doesn’t change the way you feel, does it?”

“No,” the boy said in a small voice that was cracking with the always volatile mix of emotions and puberty.

“You know there are other kids going through a similar struggle. I know that you don’t want to meet with them, but I don’t quite understand why. Can you explain it to me?” And now it was time for more patience. Mark wanted to throw this boy over his shoulder and carry him down the street to the youth center, but he sat still and waited instead.

And waited. Just when Mark was about to break and ask another question, the kid finally said, “I don’t want people to know.”

Mark nodded. “Not anyone? Like, if I could get you to a meeting without anyone seeing, would that be okay? Or do you not want the kids in the club to know, either?”

“Some of them are out. I’ve seen them at school, and they don’t care who knows. What if one of them said something?”

“Yeah. They’re not supposed to—and I think they’re pretty good about it—but you’re right, I can’t guarantee that it might not get out somehow. So you tell me: what if one of them said something? What would happen?”

“Everyone would know! It’d get all over school. And my dad would find out.” Alex looked ready to bolt out of the room, and Mark raised his hands in a quick gesture of surrender. He had a point he’d like to make eventually, but this clearly wasn’t the time.

“Okay. You’re right, that might happen. It might not be as bad as you think, but it should be your choice when you tell people. But I’m worried about you feeling so alone when we know you aren’t. How about meeting with some kids online? You could use a screen name for chats, and see how it goes. If you think you’d like to go a little further, you could use the cameras for a video chat or something.”

“What if someone found out?”

“I could work really hard to make sure they didn’t. I could contact someone in, I don’t know, British Columbia, maybe? Or another country, if you want. And you wouldn’t have to give your name, or tell the person where you’re from. So I guess it’s not absolutely sure that no one would find out, but it would be really, really unlikely. I think it’d be safe, if you want to give it a try.”

The boy nodded slowly, as if reluctant to surrender himself to the intoxication of hope. “Maybe. I mean, it sounds good. But I need to think about it.” He stood, ready to leave.

Mark rose quickly. “Okay. Absolutely. But, look, I’m worried about you. I don’t want to let this go for very long. Will you give me your word that you’ll come back tomorrow and check in? Just a check in, not more unless you want more. Will you do that for me? Will you give me your word?”

Alex looked uncertain, then raised his eyes quickly, the challenge clear. “You’re gay, right? That’s what I heard. Is that true?”

Mark smiled ruefully. It was amazing how often it was a factor in his chosen profession, one way or another. “It’s true.”

“And you just walk around, just…just…being gay…”

“I walk, I sit, I wake, I sleep. All gay, all day.”

“And it’s allowed? I mean, your job, or whatever. You’re allowed to be gay?”

“I am.” No need to get into the shades of reality, there. On the surface, the statement was true, and it was what this kid needed to hear. “And you’re allowed to be gay too. But you’re allowed to keep it to yourself if you want to, or share it if you want to. And no one else is allowed to treat you differently because of it.”

“They will anyway.”

“Yeah. Some of them will. But a lot won’t. And anyone who does isn’t just being a jerk—they might actually be breaking the law.” Alex looked curious more than anything else now, and Mark decided to push a little. “So you’ll think about the online stuff. And you’ll give me your word that you’ll be back here tomorrow to check in. Same time, same place?”

Finally, the nod. “Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow.” Alex squinted. “And it’s okay for me to say I’m working on a school project? You’re telling me it’s not a sin if I lie?”

There were times when Mark’s clerical collar felt especially tight, and this was one of them. “I can’t say it’s not a sin. It would be better if you could tell the truth. But God sees everything, and He is very understanding and forgiving. In this case, I think He would understand.”

The boy nodded. “Okay. Tomorrow, then.” He wasn’t exactly skipping on his way out of the office, but he seemed better than he had when he’d entered, and most days that was all Mark could hope for.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to gather his energy. It had been a long day. A long week. He loved this part of his job and he knew he was good at it, but it was exhausting. He wanted to go home, have a quiet drink and crawl into bed, but he couldn’t do it. His parents would be expecting him to check in on them, and they might have visitors, all of whom would want some words of wisdom from him, even though he was just as confused as they were, if not more so. He was glad to be distracted by the ringing of his cell phone, and gladder still to see the name on the screen.

“Hey,” Will greeted him. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay. Just packing up at work, then going to my parents’ place.”

“Which will be more work,” Will said. “Have you eaten yet?”

“There’s food at Mom’s. People have been bringing casseroles and stuff over, just like…” Just like when it had actually happened.

“I already ate,” Will said, “but I could probably eat again.”

“You want to come with me to visit my parents?” Will was a friend, but he wasn’t usually that much of a martyr.

“Hell no. I was thinking of The Garage. We could have a couple drinks. You could have dinner, I could have dessert. I think wings count as dessert, don’t they?”

“I shouldn’t. My parents will be expecting me.”

“I’ll call them and tell them you’ll be by later.”

“You’ll call them?”

“Because if you do, you’ll wimp out. You know you will. And I should check in with them anyway. Express my condolences, or whatever it is I’m supposed to say.”

“Will—” Mark started, but he wasn’t sorry to be interrupted.

“I’ll meet you at The Garage in fifteen minutes. And, Mark—remember to take off the collar. It makes people nervous.”

“It makes sinners nervous to be in the presence of a righteous man?”

“They think you’re Catholic. It makes sinners nervous to be in the presence of someone they think is a thirty-four-year-old virgin.”

“Premarital sex isn’t approved of in the Anglican church either, you know.”

“And you have the nerve to call yourself a righteous man?”

“Shut up. I’ll see you in fifteen.”

Mark ended the call and frowned at his phone. Will was just kidding, and it wasn’t like Mark actually thought of himself as being without sin. But he shouldn’t joke about his weaknesses, shouldn’t allow himself to think of them as anything other than transgressions not only against God, but also against the congregation he served. He was a sinner, encouraging others to avoid sin.

He thought of what he’d told the boy: God sees everything, and He is understanding and forgiving. It was a comforting thing to tell a kid trying to navigate the tricky world of family, friends, and uncooperative urges. But was it something Mark should be counting on in his own life?

“I need a drink,” he said out loud, and headed out the door.

“She wants another kid.” Will groaned after the punch line to his long tale of domestic discord. He waved a sauce-covered chicken wing in the air. “Like that’s what we need! Another mouth to feed. More daycare bills!” He took a bite and gave it only the most cursory of chews before swallowing. “We have a boy. We have a girl. One of each means we’re done. Everything is in balance right now. Everything but the damn check book.”

Mark had lost some of his friends when he came out, and faded away from most of the rest when he declared his intention to become a priest. Will was about the only one who’d stuck around, and now Mark had to remember to treat him like a friend, not a member of his congregation. No sermons here. He had advice involving prayer, conversation and counseling, but he crammed some fries into his mouth instead. He’d taken his collar off literally and figuratively.

“How’re your parents doing?” Will asked, and his voice was quieter with the changed subject. “Your dad sounded okay on the phone, but I saw them on the news last night. Your mom looked…”

“Yeah. I know.” Mark could still see her shattered expression. She was almost as upset now as she’d been three years earlier. “It’s hard. I don’t know if it would have been that much easier if he’d served the full sentence, but this?” He shrugged and tried to look at it philosophically. “In a way, maybe the anger is good. Before, she was just numb and helpless. She’d lost her baby and there was nothing she could do about that. But now she’s talking about writing petitions and getting laws changed and all kinds of nonsense that’s never going to happen and wouldn’t do any good if it did, but at least she’s active, you know?”

“And you? How are you doing with it?”

How was he doing? He shook his head and raised his beer glass, eyeing the amber contents appreciatively before downing the few inches that remained. Will nodded like he’d heard and understood the answer, and he raised his hand to call the waitress over for another round.

“I shouldn’t,” Mark said. “I need to drive.”

“You live five blocks from here.”

“I have to stop in and check on my parents.”

“They live three blocks from here. It’s a small town, man, and your family likes central living. Take advantage of the fact.”

“What’s it going to look like if people see my car left overnight in a bar parking lot?”

“It’s going to look like the parish priest has the sense to be careful about drinking and driving. Or, given the piece of crap you’re still pretending is a functioning vehicle, it might look like the parish priest is hoping someone will take mercy on him and steal his car so he can cash in the insurance and get a new one.”

So they had another beer, and then another, and Mark wasn’t drunk but he was pleasantly lubricated when he finally decided he’d put off his parental visit long enough. He was walking behind his friend, heading for the front door, when Will stopped so suddenly that Mark ran right into his broad shoulders.

Will turned to face him. “Let’s go out the back,” he said.

“What? Why?” Mark peered over his friend’s shoulder, searching for an explanation. His whole body froze when he saw it. “Son of a bitch.”

Will shook his head. “Yeah. I know. Let’s just get out of here.”

“They’re having a party,” Mark said. He shifted to the side, staring at the scene in front of him. Three or four long tables had been shoved together like the bar did when sports teams came in after their games, but on this night, no one was celebrating a great pitch or brutal body check. This night, the guest of honor was a blond kid with cold green eyes, sitting at the head of the table with his hand wrapped around a mug of beer. He was smiling at the woman next to him as if she were the most beautiful and charming thing he’d ever seen. The rest of the extended table was lined with laughing, celebrating drinkers welcoming home their prodigal son. The man who had killed Mark’s baby brother was being treated like a hero.

“Let’s get out of here,” Will repeated, and this time, Mark let himself be led away.

He made it out into the parking lot and briefly wondered whether the beer and burger he’d just eaten were going to reappear, but he managed to hold himself together. “A party,” he said softly.

“It’s bullshit,” Will said. “The son of a bitch should still be in jail. He should be rotting in there.”

Mark had worked in prisons, and he still spent a lot of time at the Anglican-sponsored halfway house in town. He believed in rehabilitation, and he absolutely believed in forgiveness. But when he thought of those green eyes, the way they’d stared out from the prisoner’s dock in the courtroom, cold and emotionless, showing no remorse, no regret for having taken a human life? “Yeah. He should be rotting in there.” But he wasn’t. He was here, back in town. And the town just wasn’t that big. “I need to get over to my parents’ place,” he said. He couldn’t do a thing about the killer and his party, but at least he could be with his family.

He stopped suddenly and fumbled for his phone. He was giving up too easily, thinking of himself as powerless. Lucas Cain was a menace. Three years ago, he’d killed Jimmy, and now, on his first night out after serving his laughably short sentence, he was back in a bar, drinking and carousing just as he’d been before. He’d learned nothing, and that meant he was still dangerous. Mark needed to do what he could to lower the risk. And if Cain ended up back in prison where he belonged, that would certainly make things a lot easier for Mark and the people he loved.