A Mary's Boys Novella
Steven Conley loves the excitement of owning his own Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in Denver, Colorado, and his chosen family of coworkers makes life even better. Steven never regretted leaving the corporate grind behind until his father’s harsh deathbed words leaves him doubting himself.
Ryan Fuller abandoned a lucrative career to start his own party-planning business, but he keeps afloat by coordinating funerals for the local mortuary. When Ryan bumps into Steven—his best friend’s uncle and the man Ryan has secretly crushed on forever—the attraction explodes into a night of passionate abandon for both men.
Steven is blown away by the care and deep connection he feels for the hot young mortician—until Ryan admits who he really is. Reeling from the recent upheaval in his life, Steven must decide whether to give Ryan a chance. To find love, they must risk it all....
Buy links: Dreamspinner | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Cat gives this one 5 Meows with a 4 Purr heat index...
Steven's father had just passed away. He and his father did not get along and the passing was bitter. Steven was also having second that's about his restaurant Hamburger Mary's as its so far in the red he doesn't see any way out. He is sad and alone and his usual hookups don't sound appealing just empty. At his father's viewing, he runs into a pretty young mortician and they get together and Steven finds himself with more confused feelings.
Ever since Ryan was a teenager he has had a thing for Steven, his best friend's uncle.He never dreamed his fantasy would come true but one night he runs into Steven at the funeral home he is moonlighting in and they have sex. Ryan thinks it's a one-off but is surprised when Steven shows back up for more.
Deeds and Confetti is the fourth book in the series. All of the books were good but each got better and better. They are character-driven stories with lots of fun, crazy and sexy characters. There is a little story tying each man together and of course some hot man-sex. In this one, Steven the owner of Hamburger Mary's gets his own story.I will admit I was waiting for this one myself. I love May-December romance. We also get to see more Vahin and of course ManDonna as well. There were a few sad moments and this story had a lot more angst than the others, but Mandonna and Vahin added the comedy to lighten it up. The scene at the end brought tears and was also a very good ending as well.
If you like May/December romance with lots of years in between, Quirky characters, a sexy romance and of course hot man-sex this is for you.
Excerpt...
THE CELL phone screen showed the time and the date. No missed calls, no missed texts. Steven wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or not. No news was good news, but he’d rather just get it over with.
“Wow. I thought my powers of seduction were going to be impossible to resist. This fireman costume wasn’t cheap, and it’s for sure not worth it if I’m not as sexy as your phone.”
Steven glanced back up, partly embarrassed for being called out and a little annoyed. The annoyance flitted away at the sight of the rippling six-pack showing through the open fireman’s jacket. “Oh, it’s working. Believe me.” He met the man’s gaze. “You are definitely the sexiest police officer I’ve ever seen.”
The man’s brows furrowed.
“Shit. I mean firefighter. Plus, the sexiest cop would be Marlon. He’s rather….” Damn it. Now he couldn’t even flirt correctly? “Sorry. You are crazy, crazy hot, Ri—” Steven caught himself just in time. Not Richard. Reid? He replayed the last few minutes of conversation. “Rick.”
Though not fooled, Rick seemed satisfied that Steven had at least come up with the right name. “Thanks. And you own the place, right?”
Steven nodded and raised his voice to be heard over the music and rumble of the horde of people. “Yep. Sure do.” He glanced around his restaurant. Hamburger Mary’s was packed and looked even more like a gay bar than usual. Shirtless wasn’t typical attire here, but on Halloween, anything went.
“Great. So how about a drink on the house? It will up your chances.” Firefighter Rick gave a wink and flexed his left pectoral.
Steven balked. He also mentally said no. It wasn’t worth it. Not tonight. To try to remember names, to have to get a drink to get laid. He had work to do. So much work. And he had worries to stew over. So much worry. And a free drink to get laid? What the hell was that? If anything, he was used to the other side of that offer. He wasn’t a scrub, and he was so used to offers to be taken home that he was willing to bet he could walk away from the firefighter and find someone new in the next three minutes. But that sounded like way too much work. And Rick here was maybe twenty-two and maybe had 5 percent body fat. It made sense he would require a drink to go home with a man he probably looked at as a grandpa.
Possibly sensing he was losing Steven’s attention, Rick flipped the conversation. “You’re the only guy in here not dressed up. What’s that about?”
Nope, so not worth it. He’d gotten shit from all the employees, and now he was getting it from this whippersnapper. Oh, fuck, now he was thinking whippersnapper. Seriously? He pointed to the embossed Mary emblem on the breast of his shirt. “I’m dressed up. I’m a restaurant owner.”
Rick cocked a brow.
Steven did his best not to sigh out his frustration. He was going to need distraction tonight. The kind this Playgirl centerfold wannabe could definitely provide. “Let me get you that drink. Beer?”
Rick grimaced like he’d been offered a dirty diaper. “I’ll take a Rum Martinez.”
Oh, for fuck…. No. Definitely not worth it. “That drink requires wood chips and a smoke diffuser.”
Blank stare.
“I’ll get you a rum and Coke.” Steven turned, debating if he really was going to get the drink or if he’d rather just leave the guy standing there. Then a one-star review on Yelp flashed through his mind. And a long night without a warm, naked body to distract him. Rum and Coke it was.
Before he could make it behind the bar, the music faded and trumpets sounded over the speakers, blaring out “Hail to the Chief.” Steven’s heart sank, and he tried to force himself to not turn around, to not look. His head drag queen, ManDonna, had told him their show for the night was going to go down in the annals of history; of course, she’d said anals of history, in pure ManDonna fashion. Steven had expected something with Elvira or the Sanderson sisters. Something suited to Halloween. Not this. Dear God, not this—whatever was about to happen, it wasn’t going to be good.
Already regretting his lack of willpower, Steven turned toward the stage. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. A black man with a blond wig marched through the dressing room door and headed toward the stage. Definitely not a drag queen. Then it hit him. Hershel, ManDonna’s straitlaced, construction worker husband. Holy shit.The atrocious blond wig. “Hail to the Chief.”
He was going to lose the deed to Hamburger Mary’s. No doubt. This shit show was going to end up on YouTube. The government was going to sweep in, condemn his property, and he was going to be shipped off to another country. No matter that he’d been born here and was the whitest mutt of all white mutt ancestry.
The crowd was already screaming like a rabid mob at the sight of their alternative President, but it was nothing compared to when ManDonna and Ariel Merman exited the dressing room shortly after the blond Hershel. ManDonna was nearly unrecognizable in a long brunette wig, a silver bikini with leopard print, and ten-inch gold heels. In one hand, she waved a small American flag. In the other, a larger flag with white, blue, and red stripes and a red star in the middle. He wasn’t exactly sure what that represented. But it didn’t matter; it was all a death sentence. ManDonna was a stunning drag queen, but she was older than Steven and definitely not bikini-body ready, at least not as much as the First Lady would expect.
Ariel, on the other hand, could almost pass for the First Daughter. She might be even more beautiful. A blonde wig fell halfway down her back, and though she was more covered up than usual, the tight white gown clinched over her left shoulder left nothing of her amazing body to the imagination. She strutted in her silver heels like she’d been born in them and waved her four purses around as deftly as if she were a member of the color guard. The price tags on each, affixed with extra-long string, became little flags of their own.
Steven’s mind raced, trying to predict how badly this was going to go. When the music switched from presidential to pop, his heart sank. So much worse than he’d expected. As Brandy’s and Monica’s voices began to argue before the song began, ManDonna and Ariel lip-synced, twitching their fingers in each other’s faces and thrusting their hips side to side with every syncopated beat of “The Boy is Mine.”
Before long, the First Lady and the First Daughter were on either side of the orange-turned-black President, purses and heels used as weapons over Hershel’s head. Before the last lines of the song faded, the crowd was shouting their unadulterated pleasure and the blond wig had exited Hershel’s head and made its way through the restaurant, taking its turn as selfie after selfie was snapped.
This was either going to be the highlight of his restaurant’s existence or its deathblow.
STEVEN HAD checked his cell every few minutes the entire night—still blank. It wasn’t like he could miss a call. Not to mention he’d turned the volume back on once all the customers left. Even his friends, his staff, had finished cleaning and setting up for the next day and had gone home. There was no distraction. No way he’d miss the chimes of a call or the chirp of a text.
He checked again.
Still nothing.
Steven did a double take at the phone’s display. Holy fuck—2:00 a.m. Everyone else had left over an hour ago. How had that happened?
Rick and his sexy fireman’s body flashed through his mind. Huh. Steven hadn’t noticed him after the drag show. And he for sure hadn’t remembered the rum and Coke. Fireman had probably gone home with the hot Thor who had won the costume competition. Steven couldn’t bring himself to care.
He should be home. In bed. The night had been even crazier than normal, but Halloween in the gay community always was. Thank God he’d flaked out on dressing up instead of trying drag for the first time like everyone had wanted. He was exhausted. He should just go home, drink a tumbler full of American Honey whiskey, and fall into bed.
Well, no. That wasn’t what he should do. Not at all. But he wasn’t going to worry about what he should do. That’s what big sisters were for.
Bed. He would go to bed.
Instead he took a newly cleaned glass, tilted it beneath the nozzle, pulled back the lever, and filled it with golden beer.
Steven sighed before it even touched his lips and again as he lowered the glass, then leaned against the bar, looking out at Mile-High Hamburger Mary’s.
His Hamburger Mary’s.
The retro pink-and-gold décor, vintage photos of half-naked musclemen, and a ceiling painted like a blue sky with white fluffy clouds were a far cry from the towering office high-rises of downtown Denver he’d left behind. He glanced at the wall of hooker-style stiletto shoes they used to deliver the bills to customers, and he smirked. Yeah, definitely not the world of corporate finance.
Finance. Good God. What had he done?
Steven had been rich, at least comparatively. A nice 401(k), a padded bank account, stock options. All of it traded in a midlife crisis of a choice to open a restaurant. Now here he was, forty-five, not a dime in savings, and so in the red he might as well be a vampire victim. Oh, wait. He was forty-six now. Damn it.
Fuck, man, melancholy much?
Steven straightened, let out a huff of breath, tilted the glass to his lips a second time, and drained it dry. He started to wash the glass, then remembered that Vahin was taking the first shift tomorrow because he and his boyfriend had tickets to something or other later the next evening. With a chuckle, he laid the glass on its side about an inch from the sink. Just to let his best friend… bartender… know he was thinking of him.
Okay, bed.
Within minutes, all the lights were off and the security system armed, and Steven stepped out into the pleasantly cool night and locked the door. Two cars zoomed up 17th Street, taking the deserted time of night as an excuse to race. A man—well, maybe a man—slept in a bundle of blankets on the sidewalk across the street. Other than that, Steven was alone. A rare moment for him, outside his little apartment. He glanced up at the sky. No clouds. Just stars. Billions of stars.
“Are you going to let him in? Or maybe send him to the other place?” Steven hadn’t meant to speak out loud, but his whisper didn’t startle him. Morbid thoughts. He didn’t want to picture his father in hell, if it actually existed. But he sure as fuck couldn’t picture the asshole in heaven either.
Steven had made it to his truck but hadn’t even gotten the key in the ignition when his phone chirped.
Shit.
He didn’t need to look, but he did anyway.
Pat.
Come now, Steven. If you’re not here in half an hour, I’m coming to get you. And if you make me leave Dad right now, I’ll kill you.
And she might.
Steven started his truck and drove to the hospital.
He should’ve had another beer.
Brandon Witt resides in Denver, Colorado. When not snuggled on the couch with his two Corgis, Dunkyn and Dolan, he is more than likely in front of his computer, nose inches from the screen, fingers pounding they keys. When he manages to tear himself away from his writing addiction, he passionately take on the role of a special education teacher during the daylight hours. I grew up in El Dorado Springs, Missouri for the first 18 years of my life. The day of my 18th birthday my mom, dad, brother, and I loaded up the cars and moved to Estes Park, Colorado. I now live in Denver with my two perfect corgis, Dunkyn and Dolan. Growing up in an ultraconservative, Christian environment, then moving on to get my bachelors in Youth Ministry, I struggled with being gay for most of my life. This included five years in reparative therapy (ex-gay therapy), meeting one to three times a week. At the age of twenty-six, I finally accepted who God make me to be and never looked back, and have never been happier. Each struggle, whether it be church, fearing damnation, heart shattering break-ups, and losing family to cancer and accidents, seems to make it’s way into everything I write, as well as a core of loving being alive. Life is hard, but man, is it ever wonderful! I’ve worked with children (ages 8-18) with emotional disabilities since 2000, first as a counselor in a residential treatment facility, and now as a special education teacher. During my sophomore year in high school, Ms. Hungerford introduced me to creative writing, and since that day, I’ve dreamed of being an author. Having Elizabeth North offering a publishing contract was one of the most life-changing days of my existence. I now dream of being a writer full-time. My boyfriend, Stephen, is hoping for that as well, as he wants to tag alone on a world tour. Big dreams. Big dreams. Though my writing seems polarizing to many readers, both positive and negative, regardless of which of my books you choose, I pray that in its pages you find both the struggle and immense joy of life. I am humbled and honored by each person that reads my books. Thank you so much for making my dreams come true!
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