A Man to Take a Chance On Page 2
What was even sweeter was Max falling asleep on his sofa. Smitty caught his coffee cup before it could spill over. Not that it would have mattered. The material covering the sofa was patterned, and no one would be any the wiser, as long as they didn’t sit in the wet spot.
Sit in the wet spot. He chuckled to himself.
He scooped up the little doctor and carried him into his spare bedroom. Smitty usually went for big men he could boss around, but he’d found himself increasingly drawn to Max. Maybe because in spite of how short he was, Max was feisty. And of course there was that accent.
He laid Max on the bed, removed his shoes, then eased off his shirt and trousers. Max wore boxer briefs, and it looked like he had a very nice package. He could see the shape of Max’s cock through the soft cotton of his shorts.
Not that he touched. He wore the same brand of underwear, so he knew what they felt like. Yep, that was his story, and he was sticking to it.
“Mon cher,” Max murmured in his sleep. Smitty wanted to kiss those words back into that luscious mouth. If Max had ever said them to him, he would never have let him walk out the door.
Smitty sighed. Everyone at the WBIS had the impression he was the horn dog Vince called him. Why would Max think otherwise?
The truth of the matter was Smitty was just lonely.
He got Max under the covers, took his clothes to be washed, and walked out of the room, leaving the door open a crack in case Max woke and was disoriented.
After emptying the pockets, Smitty put the clothes into his washing machine and turned it to the normal cycle. Then he went out to his car and brought up Max’s clothes.
Everything the man owned fit in two grocery bags.
Smitty was a mild-mannered medical examiner, but just then he wanted to kick Charles Browne down all eight hundred ninety-seven steps of the Washington Monument.
* * * *
The smell of coffee woke Max. It reminded him of home, before everything went bad. He stretched, luxuriating in the feel of the soft sheets and the downy pillow, and yawned. Charles usually made instant—
He remembered. Charles had finally pushed him too far, and Max determined to move out. He’d called Avery to come get him.
Avery had made dinner for him. He’d brewed coffee that was almost a dessert in itself. And then he was supposed to drive Max to the WBIS, where Max would get himself settled in the doctors’ dormitory.
To tell the truth, he hadn’t been looking forward to sleeping in the stark, white facility.
Max had stayed there a few times when it had been necessary, and he knew this wasn’t the WBIS. Where was he?
He pushed himself up in bed and looked around. Light filtered through the curtains over the windows, letting in enough natural light for him to see clearly. There was a dresser, a nightstand holding a clock radio, and a small armchair. The room was very pleasant, but it wasn’t his.
The clothes laid out on the chair weren’t the ones he had worn yesterday.
There was a tap on the door, and then Avery walked in, carrying a tray with a coffee mug and a bowl that had steam rising from it.
“Good morning, Max. I usually go out for breakfast, so I don’t have much in the pantry except oatmeal. I hope that will be okay?”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble.”
“Thank you. I like oatmeal.”
“I sweetened it with honey. Sweets for my sweet. Is that okay?”
“Oh, yes. My grand-mère used to make it for me just like that.” He smiled at Avery. “She kept bees and used to collect their honey.”
“I’d like to do that one day. Retire out to the country, have a little garden and a few hives.”
“Truly?”
“Yeah.”
“I always dreamed of that myself.”
“Maybe one day…” Avery shook his head. “I’m getting way ahead of myself. How about dinner tonight?”
“On one condition.”
“What? That I keep my hands off you?”
Max bit back a grin. Avery sounded worried about that.
“Actually, I was going to say that I cook dinner.”
“You’d cook for me?”
“I’d like to cook for you very much.”
“I’d…I’d like that. But like I said, the pantry is pretty bare.”
“Then we’ll have to go shopping, ne nous?”
“Ne what?”
Max smiled at him. This might well be the man he could take a chance on. “Won’t we?”
Avery looked almost dazzled. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
It sounded very good.
THE END
ABOUT TINNEAN
Tinnean has been writing since the 3rd grade, where she was inspired to try her hand at epic poetry. Fortunately, that epic poem didn’t survive the passage of time; however, her love of writing not only survived but thrived, and in high school she became a member of the magazine staff, where she contributed a number of stories.
Starting a family resulted in the writing being set aside, although throughout those years Tinnean did continue to keep a journal. Once the kids were old enough to do their own thing, she was able to dabble in writing again. It was with the advent of the family’s second computer—the first intimidated everyone—that her writing took off, enhanced in part by fan fiction, but mostly by the wonder that is copy and paste.
While involved in fandom, she was nominated for both Rerun and Light My Fire Awards. Now she concentrates on her original characters and has been published by Nazca Plains, Dreamspinner, and JMS Books
Tinnean is what you might call a hopeful romantic, and if you see her name on a story, it will have a happy ending.
Her signature line, a quote by Ernest Hemingway, says it all: “Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.”
A New Yorker at heart, she resides in southwest Florida with her husband and two computers.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!
Tinnean, A Man to Take a Chance On
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