Love and Other Hot Beverages Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 1537

  Burnsville, NC 28714

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Love and Other Hot Beverages

  Copyright © 2017 by Laurie Loft

  Cover art: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: May Peterson, maypetersonbooks.com

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-596-8

  First edition

  July, 2017

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-597-5

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  After a rough breakup, Todd Addison wants time alone to grieve. While still dreaming of winning back his ex’s love, he moves across the country and finds work with a construction company. The last thing he needs is the cute office boy developing a crush on him, especially since he’s back in the closet.

  Sebastián Nye can’t help feeling sorry for the obviously brokenhearted Todd. Though rebuffed repeatedly, Sebby chisels away at Todd’s resistance, determined to help him forget—a task potentially beyond anyone’s capabilities. He never meant to fall for the poor guy, but he does. Hard.

  Desperate to hold on to Todd, Sebby hatches a sneaky plot guaranteed to end Todd's heartbreak—if Todd doesn't bail and ruin everything. Just when things can’t get more complicated, Todd’s ex wants him back. And Sebby’s abusive ex is just waiting to catch Sebby alone. Todd and Sebby must decide what’s worth fighting for, what’s worth sacrifice, and what’s worth compromise, or their relationship will begin and end with a broken heart.

  For Stan, who makes me hot beverages.

  About Love and Other Hot Beverages

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  More like this

  The office boy smiled at Todd. “That coffee’s shit.”

  Hard hat under one arm, Todd stared at the coffeepot in front of him. He waited impatiently for the drip to stop, conscious of several teammates waiting their turns. They jostled one another as they laughed and joked. The men with their hard hats seemed to take up more space than necessary in the confines of the mobile office. Todd itched to get his coffee and get out into the fresh air.

  “You look like someone who would appreciate good coffee,” the boy continued, and Todd knew a fishing query when he heard one. What the boy meant was, You’re gay, aren’t you? Because everyone knew that gays liked gay coffee. Todd tried to remember the boy’s name. They all called him office boy.

  “I like shit,” Todd said with a feral grin. “Keeps me awake. Keeps me from falling off buildings.” Todd was not interested in having his cover blown. Passing for straight among a gang of construction workers was easy enough if you watched yourself, and that meant not watching any cute office boys. He reached for a cup, but the boy handed him one first, his tanned fingers brushing against Todd’s.

  He’s shorter than I am. Not many guys were. The one who had broken his heart had been four inches taller than Todd.

  “I know a good place to get real, honest, quality coffee, not the sludge they keep here,” the boy continued. Apparently, Todd’s feral grin was not scary enough or het enough. “I don’t mean like Starbucks—a local coffeehouse. It’s real nice, lo prometo.”

  “I’m allergic to coffeehouses,” Todd said. “Step inside one and I’ll need hospitalization.”

  It was in a coffeehouse that his heart had been broken.

  The cozy New York coffeehouse had seemed innocuous enough. And then there had been one Vivian Oscar Stanton-Owens, a young man of only eighteen who had so adorably crushed on Todd. Todd should have known better—he had known better—but, flattered by the attention, had thought, Give the kid a thrill, and then had fallen for him like an idiot. There in that cozy coffeehouse, Todd had lost his heart and had it handed back to him like so much old coffee grounds.

  Todd poured, staring at the brown liquid and not allowing his eyes to flick toward the boy even for a split second, definitely not noticing his dark-sienna hair and how it curled against the back of his neck.

  “I’ll bring you some good coffee tomorrow,” the boy offered. “I only buy fair-trade beans. I grind them fresh each time. And I use spring water and a French press.”

  That’s all I need, another kid with a crush. “I prefer this shit.” Todd threw the coffee back like a slug of whiskey, scalding his entire mouth and throat so that he was unlikely to taste anything for days. Adjusting his goggles over his eyeglasses, he turned and exited the mobile office with a manly, het swagger. He forced his mind away from the lingering impression of alluring deep-brown eyes.

  Atop the Gimondi Brothers’ scaffolding, Todd indulged his favorite fantasy. Looking out over the ground below,
he imagined a slight figure in bright colors picking his way across the lot, shading his eyes with his hand, squinting up at the crew. In Todd’s mind the light gathered around this figure, haloing the white-blond hair, and Todd imagined how his heart would seize up, how he would trip over himself getting to the ground. He would fling his hard hat aside, run to the figure and halt, perhaps an arm’s-length away, noting the look of mingled hope and apprehension on his—on Vivian’s face.

  Todd would have to swallow hard. “You’re here . . . You came all the way to Denver?” Viv would nod and smile, and Todd would clasp Viv to himself, and the hell with all construction workers and all heterosexuals and all the world, because Todd would kiss Vivian in full view against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.

  Some mornings later, the crew gathered around a hole while the foreman decided what to do. They stood, a study in casualness, arms crossed or hands on hips. How many laborers does it take to look at a hole? Todd wondered. He dragged his eyes from the dirt to gaze at the mountains. He was still a flatlander, easily mesmerized.

  “Good morning, men.”

  Todd turned to see that the office boy had approached on silent cat feet. A chorus of unintelligible monosyllables answered.

  As he unscrewed the lid of a thermos, the boy piped up: “Payroll’s done early, so pick up your checks at lunch if you want.” Cheers sounded. Gus, a grizzled man next to Todd, clapped the boy on the back, causing him to spill whatever he was pouring into the lid-slash-cup. The boy held the dripping cup away from himself, letting the liquid dribble onto the dirt. The aroma of good coffee reached Todd.

  “Oh, sorry, Sebby,” Gus said.

  Sebby. That’s his name. What kind of name is that?

  “It’s okay. Here . . . hold this?” Sebby offered the thermos and cup to Todd.

  Annoyed, Todd accepted them. Sebby pulled a bandanna from his pocket, then took hold of Todd’s wrist and wiped the cup. Sebby’s fingers pressed firmly on his skin. Todd ground his teeth, not wanting to pull away and get coffee-splashed. After wiping every possible microbe of coffee from the outside of the cup, Sebby let go, fingers stroking Todd’s wrist in a familiar manner as they slid off. “Try it.”

  “You letting him try your private stash? How come he rates?” Gus laughed.

  “You’re welcome to try it too, Gus,” Sebby offered.

  It did smell tempting. “Give it a go, Gus. Good coffee gives me the runs.” Todd pushed the coffee at Gus, turned, and stalked off. He imagined he could feel Sebby’s eyes on him and found himself trying to remember which jeans he’d donned that morning. He had to fight to keep from touching himself to check.

  “Yeah! Paid early! Office boy does it again! Hand me that three-quarters,” Dean, one of the pipe fitters, said.

  “He actually does the payroll?” Todd asked, passing him the requested tool.

  “Yeah. Whatcha think he does?” Dean grunted with the effort of tightening the bolt, lying in an awkward position, his arm extended to reach into a tight spot.

  “I thought he just handed out the checks.”

  “Naw. He’s an accountant or some shit.”

  An accountant. If that was true, then Sebby had to be older than Todd had first thought. If he had an associate’s degree, he’d have to be around twenty. “How long has he worked here?”

  Dean shrugged. “He was here when I got here, and I been here off and on for two years. Another year and I’ll make journeyman.”

  Around twenty-two, then.

  The lunch siren sounded, and the crew swarmed down to the ground. Some men headed to the local diner, while others ate in their cars or near the scaffolding or sprawled on the ground. Todd sat in his rusty old pickup with the windows rolled down. Since the Vivian incident, he’d been living with his older brother, Lloyd, and his sister-in-law had packed a lunch for him. He unwrapped it and opened a book: The Inimitable Jeeves. There was nothing better than a Wodehouse book when one needed cheering. The breeze ruffled his sweat-damp hair as he chuckled at the exploits of Bertie Wooster.

  A shadow fell across his book. Todd glanced up.

  “Coffee?” Sebby asked. He leaned his forearms on the open window so that his hands were inside Todd’s pickup. One hand held a styrofoam cup.

  Todd’s smile emptied itself. “I told you I’m allergic to the good stuff.”

  “I know. I brought you the bad stuff.” Sebby wiggled the cup a little, and Todd took it.

  “Oh . . . well . . . thanks.” He sniffed it and grimaced. The earlier whiff of Sebby’s quality beverage made the office shit smell even worse.

  “You like to read,” Sebby observed.

  Todd nodded. “And you’re blocking my light.”

  “What is it you’re reading?”

  “A spy novel. W.E.B. Griffin.” Todd knew W.E.B. Griffin to be a manly, het writer because his brother read him. Todd took a gulp of coffee and couldn’t help making a face.

  “You take it black, don’t you? I’ve never seen you put anything in it.”

  “It tastes more gawdawful than usual. But I like it that way,” Todd hastened to add.

  Sebby leaned in, and Todd leaned away. “You don’t like that coffee,” Sebby said in a conspiratorial tone. “Taste mine. I won’t tell.”

  Hello, innuendo. The corners of Todd’s mouth twitched, and he forced himself to frown. The boy’s voice was as smooth and sweet as café au lait.

  Todd wondered if Sebby tasted like his good coffee.

  “What kind of name is ‘Sebby’?” He put as much scorn into his tone as he could muster.

  “Sebastián. My momma was Mexican. But my dad thinks ‘Sebby’ is easier to say.”

  “Sebastián,” Todd repeated, and his tongue went numb. It was a beautiful name, and Todd wanted to say so. Instead, he drank his coffee.

  “What kind of name is ‘Todd’?” Sebby shifted, turning to the side and tilting his head back. Sunlight fell on his face, and Todd saw that his brown irises were sparked with tiny gold flecks.

  “It’s, ah, I don’t know. It means ‘fox.’”

  “Fox on the run.” Sebby flashed Todd a smile before turning and walking away. Todd spent the rest of his lunch wondering what that remark might mean.

  “Uncle Todd? Why don’t you like girls?”

  The voice drifted down out of the semidarkness, and Todd gazed up at the slats of the bunk above him. The youngest of Lloyd’s three sons had been kind enough to evict his stuffed animals from his bottom bunk in order to accommodate his unfortunate uncle, and these after-dark heart-to-hearts were becoming habitual. “I like girls fine. My best friend is a girl.”

  “Yeah, that girl that was here with you.” Holly, Todd’s best chum since they had both fallen in love with the same guy in ninth grade, had accompanied Todd and provided moral support on the road trip from New York to Denver. Quitting a job and running away was bad enough, but if not for Holly, he didn’t know what he might have done.

  “But you don’t date girls. You date boys. Maybe if you dated girls, you wouldn’t have got your heart broken.”

  Todd chuckled. “Ryan, I assure you that men who like women get their hearts broken just as often. It’s a part of life, and rather unavoidable.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna get mine broken. I’m never gonna be in love. Love is gross.”

  “An elegant philosophy and one that I cannot condemn.”

  Todd crouched alone, goggles atop his hard hat on his head, pretending to wipe dirt from his eyes. On a construction site, no one saw this as either suspicious or unusual. Unfortunately, Todd’s hands were grimy, and he was quite handily accomplishing the supposed cause of his pretended activity.

  “Coffee?”

  The gentle voice made him glance up. Of course it would be Sebby standing over him, offering a cup and an expression of detached concern. Todd grabbed the cup and gulped. A rich and aromatic liquid went down his throat before his sense of smell alerted him. “Motherfuck,” he sputtered.

  “I sneaked the goo
d stuff on you, yeah. You gonna knock me down?”

  Todd shook his head and went back to wiping his eyes.

  “There’s an eyewash in the office.”

  “No . . . thanks . . .” He gulped the coffee again and grimaced. Swinging the cup in an arc, he threw the rest of it out, painting a parabola on the ground in front of him.

  Sebby tsked. “What is it with you and the coffee? Was your last boyfriend Juan Valdez?”

  Todd raised his head and glared at him.

  Sebby tsked again. “You’re a mess. Come on into the office, Todd. That’s an order.” He turned and walked off. After a moment, Todd got to his feet, his knees creaking like a ninety-year-old’s. He hurried to catch up with Sebby, who paced across the site.

  “Fox on the run,” Sebby said.

  “Ah, what?”

  “You’re on the run from a love affair gone bad.”

  A consternated Todd had no reply.

  “You don’t have to talk about it. It’s just, um, you’re pretty pitiful, you know.”

  Pretty pitiful, Todd thought, privately enjoying the alliteration.

  They reached the mobile office, and in they went, the screen door banging behind them, and they were alone.

  “Clean up.” Sebby pointed at the sink. “I’ll get the eyewash.”

  Todd set aside his hard hat, goggles, and eyeglasses. He tore off a fistful of paper towels and wetted them in the sink. The cold water refreshed him as he buried his face in the wet towels and wiped away the grime.

  “Lean back over the counter.”

  Todd jumped. He hadn’t heard him approach. “What?” He began finger-combing his hair. I have helmet hair. Sweaty helmet hair. And that makes my hair look a dark, icky blond, and why do I care what I look like? He gave his hair a final fluff. “What?” he repeated.

  Sebby tossed a cloth towel to Todd, raised a plastic bottle, and shook it. “Eyewash. Lean back over the counter.”

  Todd reached for the eyewash. “I’ll do it myself.”

  Sebby held the eyewash out of reach. “You can’t. Lean back.”

  “How do you mean?” Discomposed, Todd did not know how he could lean backward over the narrow counter.