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M/M, Contemporary Romance, Friends-to-Lovers [Coming June 18, 2026 / 9,000 Words] AMZ / Apple / Kobo / SW / All Buy Links Ash knows there's no shame in being inexperienced, but he's also got a feeling he would really like sex given half a chance to find out. Unfortunately, his options are limited: he isn't wired for casual hookups with strangers, and his few serious relationships never felt quite right. The only person he actually wants is his best friend; if only Ash could figure out how to ask without turning their entire friendship upside-down. There's probably something contradictory in the way all this noise helps to settle Ash's nerves. The bar is unusually loud for a Tuesday night, crowded with a quantity of patrons usually reserved for the weekend. When Ash first walked through the door, he wondered if he'd somehow fucked up his internal calendar—he does get carried away with work, sometimes badly enough to forget what day it is—but he quickly figured out this is a simple matter of bad timing. Multiple birthday parties, presumably twenty-firsts judging by the glee with which drinks are being ordered, turning the familiar establishment into a chaos of shouting and music. He could have turned right back around and texted Harrison to meet him somewhere else, but he didn't. Part greedy insistence that this is their bar, regardless of how many strangers decide to drag their birthdays through its doors. Part desire for the familiar trappings of the place, even if the space is more deafening than usual. Part stubbornness and the fact that it took him over a week to work himself up to having this conversation, and if he changes course now he's liable to chicken out and run. So he's here now. It's a small miracle that he managed to find two open seats at the very end of the bar—and a larger miracle that he's managed to guard the empty one from aggressive partygoers long enough for Harrison to arrive. Now his best friend is claiming the tall bar stool with the kind of fluid grace no one ever expects from Harrison Marshall's stocky frame. Ash tries not to stare too blatantly, but fucking hell, Harrison looks good. He must have come straight from work, because unlike Ash in his white t-shirt and the well-worn jeans just tight enough to emphasize his ass, Harrison is wearing a perfectly tailored suit and mauve tie. The suit sculpts itself perfectly to broad shoulders and powerful arms, and Ash looks away, taking off his thick-rimmed glasses to wipe at imaginary smudges with the hem of his shirt. He always feels small—more delicate than he especially likes—next to Harrison, but tonight their mismatched statures are distracting him in entirely different ways. When Harrison waves down the bartender, all he orders is a coke, which confirms beyond doubt that he's picked up on whatever weird vibes Ash has been giving off these past few days. Harrison is usually more the gin and tonic type. If he's keeping deliberately sober at their usual haunt, walking distance from both of their homes, then it's because he knows there's something more serious going on. It's not serious, though. Ash refuses to tell himself otherwise. It's important, and far outside the usual scope of their friendship—which is probably why Ash has been a jangle of awkward nerves all day—but not that big a deal. And if Ash admonishes himself enough times, maybe he'll even find some way to believe it. Ash has stuck to a glass of soda too, rather than the lager he really wants to indulge. He doesn't want to be fuzzy tonight, and he sure as hell doesn't want alcohol to be a reason for Harrison to turn down what he's about to propose. "How was work?" Harrison asks, with a nudging elbow and a fond smile. Somehow Ash finds bland words through his nervousness, answering without raising his eyes from the bar top. He is hyperaware of his friend's body heat along his side, close as their barstools are squashed to make space for too many patrons coming and going with drinks. There's a small dance floor off to one side of the room, so overcrowded with revelers that it's impossible to see the booths beyond. Despite noise filling the bar all the way up to its high ceiling, Ash finds it remarkably easy to make himself heard amid the echoing clamor. Some quirk of the corner in which they sit maybe, the slant of the ceiling, the sheer proximity of his stool beside Harrison's. Whatever the trick of it, Ash only needs to raise his voice a little, and he can hear Harrison just fine. "So?" Harrison asks before the spiral of discussing a drudgingly normal day can psych Ash out of his plan. "You gonna tell me what's up?" Ash tries not to blush, but heat suffuses his cheeks anyway. He raises his eyes to meet Harrison's piercing look, and finds his friend leaning on the bar with one elbow, watching with the kind of intense focus that would make Ash blush even harder if he weren't already at maximum capacity. He could hedge. Evade. Surrender to the sheepish and slightly terrified thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat and simply brush the question off. But that's his inner coward talking, and this is the whole reason he's here tonight. There is something he wants, and he has no intention of running away before putting it into words. AMZ / Apple / Kobo / SW / All Buy Links |
Cover design by Yolande Kleinn ISBN 978-1-946316-68-4 |