Loving Bailey

If only letting go of past mistakes were as
easy as moving out of your father's house and into your
boyfriend's!

Ashton Duval is a professor at the college
Bailey attends, and even though there's no rule against dating
students, he knows something about the strain that power imbalance
puts on a relationship. He's been down that road before, and he
doesn't want to put the man he loves in the position of feeling
like less than an equal partner.

Bailey Harris has been in love before, with
disastrous consequences. His heart tells him this time is different
though. And after nearly two years of hands-off dating, he's ready
to move forward with his boyfriend.

Secrets Bailey's held as treasures in his
heart, emotions he hadn't realized were undermining his confidence,
and a man from his lover's past all threaten to destroy the life
they've been building.

Sequel to Loving Eden

Contemporary M/M Romance

Acknowledgements

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
locations and incidents are products of the author's imagination or
are used fictitiously. As such, any resemblance to any persons,
living or deceased, businesses, events, or locales is
coincidental.

Cover Art

Photography by © Artem Furman -
Fotolia.com

Design by Laura Harner

Editing by Jae Ashley

Copyright July 2013 © Lee Brazil

All rights reserved. This book or any
portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever

without the express written permission of
the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a
book review.

Trademark Acknowledgements:

The author acknowledges the trademarked
status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned
in this work of fiction:

501's
: Levi Strauss &
Co. Corporation

Band-Aid
: Johnson & Johnson
Corporation

Chapstick
: Wyeth LLC

Ford Fusion
: Ford Motor Company

iPod
: Apple, Inc.

Netflix
: Netflix, Inc.

Scantron
: Scantron Corporation

Yale
: Yale University Not-for-Profit
Corporation

Chapter One

Open windows let in the salt-soaked breezes
of the California evening, and with them the laughter, shrieks, and
good-natured hum of humanity that abounded in the early summer
evening. One of his neighbors was barbecuing, and a delicious spicy
sweet scent drifted in occasionally. He'd turned the television on
for white noise when he arrived home an hour ago, and it continued
to drone on in the background. These weren't the things that kept
Dr. Ashton Duval from accomplishing what needed to be done tonight.
The three unexpected and unanswered text messages from his ex,
Dennis Romgarten, chair of his department at the college, weren't
the cause of his distraction either. Nothing he had to say
interested Ashton outside of working hours.

In the comfort of familiar surroundings with
their incumbent noises, a pile of blue books which contained
handwritten final essays from over one hundred fifty freshmen
surrounded Ashton. His colleagues chided him for the old-fashioned
method of test taking. They preferred their students to email
essays in typed format. Ashton figured having the students in his
composition classes actually write their final essays in class
guaranteed the work he scored was original and not copy-pasted from
elsewhere on the net. Handwritten exams also meant he had to squint
and strain his eyes to read practically illegible handwriting from
students no longer accustomed to working in pen and ink. The
results were frequently disastrous, but often very telling.

He'd carefully sorted the exam books into
piles, those that would be unbearably difficult to score, those
that were sure to be brilliant, and those that would be tedious but
not painful to read. Over the six years that he had been teaching
Comp 101, he'd developed a reward system of sorts to make the task
easier. One painful essay scored, plus three tedious essays, and
then he'd be permitted to read one from the "sure to be brilliant"
stack.

Usually that system worked just fine and
allowed him to plow through the reading and have this portion of
the grading for his class done before the final exam. The method
ensured that he could grade the data assessment portion of the
test, one hundred fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and matching
questions about correct word choice, punctuation usage, and
grammar, quickly and easily. Usually.

This year, there were too many distractions
and he wasn't at all able to focus on scoring the essays, not the
good ones, the bad ones, nor the merely tolerable ones.

Instead, he sat in the early evening,
regretting his insistence that Bailey not come over. He'd known
that if his boyfriend were in the room, he wouldn't get a damn bit
of work done. He'd hoped that the prospect of seeing Bailey when he
finished his grading would give him incentive to finish quickly,
but his masterful plan had backfired.

The television blithered on in the background
about record amounts of summer traffic and potential danger from
sharks or maybe ultraviolet rays at the beaches. He couldn't focus
on any of that. The only thing his mind wanted to dwell on was that
graduation was ten days away.

Ten days, each comprised of twenty-four
hours. Two hundred forty more hours during which he would do his
best to be a gentleman and keep his hands to himself and his lust
in check. “Pomp and Circumstance” had soared to number one on his
personal list of favorite songs ever.

Because after graduation, he and Bailey could
move forward.

So while he should be thinking about whether
the essays that he had to score met state standards, all he could
focus on was that, in ten days, eighteen months of waiting would
come to an end. Blue eyes and plump red lips interfered when he
tried to comprehend a mind-boggling student analogy between
Aristotle and John Lennon.

Strong, lean muscles and a flat, toned
abdomen honed from working construction dragged his concentration
away from a discussion of the merits of uniforms in school. Two
hours of effort had seen less than a tenth of the papers graded.
The tiny fourth pile of scored essays looked pathetic next to its
counterparts on the polished oak table.

The peal of the doorbell was a relief from
the self-castigation of not working. He tossed the paper he was
grading onto the stack and rose. Pushing a frustrated hand through
his hair, he crossed the jute carpet he'd chosen for his living
area to the front door. Peering through the peephole, he couldn't
help a broad smile. Bailey stood on the porch, rocking back and
forth on his heels, looking like he'd come straight from work in
his T-shirt and jeans.

Ashton opened the door and gestured for his
boyfriend to enter. Bailey held up a white takeout bag, an
uncertain expression on his face. "I know you said not to come
because you had to work tonight," he said. "But I thought I'd bring
dinner over."

Though he had requested that Bailey not visit
so he could focus on getting the grading done and be free for the
coming week, Ashton heard the insecurity and found himself unable
to refuse. After the way Bailey had been mocked for his crush on
Eden St. Cyr, his ego had been pretty fragile. "C'mon in." He
gestured into the room. A halo of incandescent light from the floor
lamp and the flickering lights of the television lit his
comfortable leather sofa. "It's a bit of a mess." Seeing the
vibrant younger man in his cottage reassured him. He wasn't like
Dennis, he wasn't doing to Bailey what Dennis had done to him.

"I'm sorry. I know you said you were busy.
It's just… I wanted to see you." Bailey stepped inside and pressed
a brief kiss to Ashton's cheek. He crossed the room to the sofa but
instead of sitting, stood hovering awkwardly with the takeout bag
balanced in his big square hands. Ashton hurried after him and
shuffled the graded blue books into one small pile and the
un-scored essays into two larger piles that he stacked on the floor
between the sofa and the lamp.

"Have a seat." Ashton gestured to the
sofa.

Bailey dropped the bag on the table and sat,
relaxing into the overstuffed arm of the sofa. Ashton paused to
study him, and then returned to his position under the lamp.
Clearly there was more going on here than an urge to see him.
Turning, he smiled encouragingly at Bailey. The distance between
them as well as the expression on Bailey's face spoke of his
discomfort. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?" He
reached out and placed his hand on Bailey's knee, gave an
encouraging squeeze. Once, he'd been young and looked up at his
lover like that. He hoped he did a better job of nurturing Bailey's
needs than his ex had done for him.

Bailey met his gaze briefly before turning
his attention to the TV that still played in the background. His
cheeks were flushed and he seemed fidgety. "You don't think I can
just stop by because I wanted to see you?"

Ashton slid closer. The clean scent of sweat
and sawdust clung to Bailey, more potent than any cologne his past
lovers had favored. He drew his hand up Bailey's arm to a shoulder
then cupped the back of his neck, massaging the tense muscles
softly. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to Bailey's temple. "I
think," he said, "that if this were any normal visit you wouldn't
be so tense and distant." Not willing to accept the distance, not
when their time apart was coming to an end, he wrapped his arms
around Bailey and tugged him closer into his embrace. "Are you
going to make me guess what's brought you here tonight when you
should be studying for your exams next week?"

Bailey leaned against him and he could
practically feel the heat of his flush through his shirt. "I need
you to promise me you'll do something for me."

"Anything," he promised rashly.

"My dad and Eden want to throw me a
twenty-first birthday slash graduation barbecue party. Will you
come with me?"

He didn't have to think twice about that. In
the eighteen months that he and Bailey had been seeing each other,
he'd been waiting for an invitation to meet Bailey's family. He'd
understood with the daily schedule of classes and work that finding
time for the two of them was enough of a struggle. He hadn't
pressed the issue of meeting Bailey's family, figuring Bailey would
bring the subject up when he was ready. "Absolutely. When?"

"Tomorrow. Just like that?" Bailey drew back
slightly, squinting at him. "You aren't the least bit worried about
meeting my dad and Eden?"

"Should I be?" Ashton kissed Bailey lightly
on the lips. "If I recall, they know you're gay. It will be the
height of hypocrisy given their relationship for them to object to
ours. I don't see any reason to be concerned about it."

Bailey cuddled close and heaved a sigh
relief. "I know. It's just…I thought that it might be awkward since
I'm moving in here after graduation."

"Graduation solves a lot of problems for us,
doesn't it?" Though the community college didn't expressly forbid a
relationship between a professor and a student, much to Bailey's
chagrin, Ashton had refused to allow more than kissing and petting
between them until Bailey was no longer a student at the college
where Ashton taught composition to incoming freshmen.