Friction

Books in the Gravity series.

Force

Book 3

♡  Excerpt  ♡

Late Spring 2000

The fresh morning air and bright sun drew me from my second-floor window out on the rooftop. I followed a well-worn path that I’d trekked hundreds of times before. When I reached the point just beyond the downstairs living room windows, I leaped to a grassy patch below, easily landing on my feet. From there, I followed the fence line to my favorite place, our property’s edge along Dog River.

Small ripples lapped gently against the shallow shoreline. I took a seat on my butt, just shy of the river’s edge. Life’s troubles stayed at a distance here, which was why I spent most of my time in this spot.

But the river didn’t work its usual magic that day. Probably due to this being my last time here.

My heart seriously hurt.

Absently, I picked up a rock and tested its weight by sifting it through my fingers. My grandfather, my pop-pop, came to mind, causing the pain in my heart to ramp up a notch, thinking about the care he used to teach me how to skip a rock properly. Because of him, I could throw a stone better than most. It might even be my superpower.

The last time I saw him, he called me to his side for a final bit of advice. It echoed through my head as if he were sitting right next to me now. He explained that experiencing pain was essential in the process of love. Pain showed us how deeply we cared, and how lucky we were to have loved in the first place. Pop-pop knew he was at the end of his life, even if I had refused to believe it.

At fourteen years old, a week shy of my fifteenth birthday, I knew way too much about pain and not near enough about love.

“Beau. Are you awake, son?” The muffled sound of my mom’s voice called from inside the house. If I guessed correctly, she was probably near the kitchen. She’d then call me again at the base of the stairs before trotting up to see I wasn’t in my bedroom. It gave me a few more precious minutes of privacy before she found me outside.

She… Me too, I guessed, but for the sake of my current pity party, this was all on her. She planned to exile me from my childhood home in Alabama to live in Sea Springs, Texas, where she grew up and where my other set of grandparents still lived.

I had until the long-haul movers loaded everything we owned into the back of their truck then moved us across the planet to my grandparents’ bed-and-breakfast. Maybe the distance wasn’t quite that far, but for the sadness clogging my world, I needed the dramatic flair.

“Beau! Quit pouting and come downstairs. It’s time,” my mom called louder.

I glanced at the empty covered boat dock built fifty feet into the river. Only a ghost of its former self. Empty and void of all the personality that once hung on the walls. Pieces of décor and memorabilia my father had collected over the last fifteen years.

The rock in my hand hummed, drawing my attention there. I got to my feet, readying the toss. After all, as the two-year reigning champion of stone skipping, awarded by the governing body of the Dog River Festival, I knew how to make the rock bounce across the ripples.

With my arm reared back, I threw the stone forward, sending it flying low across the river. My eyes locked on its descent, ready to count the skips. A throw that should have garnered at least twelve jumps.

It didn’t. Not even one. The rock sank underwater before it ever had a chance to get started.

If a moment represented a life, this was mine.

“Beau, come on, babe! The movers are almost here.” Her heavy clomps up the stairs rang of her irritation.

“You there?” Scott Lee, my lifelong best friend, called from behind the privacy fence. We’d been neighbors for as long as I remembered. We did everything together. Spent some part of every day with the other, and had one another’s back no matter what the situation.

We also had a healthy competitive streak between us. If healthy meant we approached every task with a battle-to-the-death attitude. Each determined to win, no matter the cost. We fished, exercised, and did all our schoolwork together in a race to see who was the strongest, fastest, or smartest.

But, if I were being honest, the invisible connections that bound us together had begun to show signs of unraveling. Scott had grown stupidly girl-crazy, like his brain cells had gone haywire. He wanted and was determined to find a girlfriend who put out. It was all he talked about anymore, and I wasn’t there with him.

Seconds later, Scott poked his head over the high fence. A couple of colorful balloons sprang up behind him, bouncing in the air as he fluidly jumped over the tall slats, landing easily on his feet. The balloons stayed on the other side, unattached to my friend.

“Who’s with you?” I hissed quietly, moving quickly toward Scott to keep him from my mom’s line of vision.

“Come over, I got you,” Scott spoke louder than necessary, sure to have drawn my mom’s attention. “Don’t worry,” he added, looking over at me as he lifted his arms in the air. Mine followed his up. “I put a ladder up. We just gotta help ’em down. They wanted to surprise you.”

“I’m scared,” Lauren said. The very worst possible voice for me to hear right now. My arms dropped to my sides. She’d ruin my last few moments alone.

I’d known Lauren for as long as I’d known Scott. We all lived in the same cul-de-sac. She’d gone from being a good friend to a stalker in training about six months ago when her sights set on me with laser point accuracy. Nothing I did ever dissuaded her. She was determined to make me her boyfriend. With the way she planned our lives together, maybe she thought I already was.

We were to be married straight out of college, and have four children, three boys and one girl for me to spoil. We’d have a lot of money due to my lucrative career with the National Football League. She referred to herself as my beautiful, arm-candy wife. She planned to be a stay-at-home mother, and shop with all the money I made.

Lauren was a pretty girl. Her dark hair and tanned complexion made her unique in a town where freckles and sunburns were the most common.

Her scared face poked over the cap board. The balloons jostled frantically under her death grip. Her dark gaze sought mine then riveted there, staring for several long seconds as tears welled.

My brows dropped in response. “Who’s she with?”

“Katie,” Scott whispered excitedly. He tapped his elbow against my arm in a weird conspiratorial gesture. His brows waggled suggestively with excitement.

“Come on. We got you,” Scott reassured.

Lauren hiked a leg over the top of the fence. Scott nodded at me to join in helping her down.

I hesitated, knowing that any time I touched Lauren, she took it as a sign of encouragement. My hands fisted at my sides. I didn’t want to help.

My strict adherence to manners instilled in me since birth fought my bad attitude, and I forced myself forward. Lauren wiggled around until she dropped down against me, chest to chest, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck. I heard the balloons knock against one another behind my back.

She clung to me. I hit a growth spurt last year. Nine inches in twelve months with no sign of slowing. My current height of six feet, two inches tall towered over most of my friends. I was also strong due to ten years of playing football. My father was the varsity head coach of the local high school. Since he had won more than he lost, he held local celebrity status. Of course, I was given no choice but to play ball.

Lauren, on the other hand, had peaked at around five feet tall, and weighed maybe ninety pounds. She hung on to me until I bent to put her feet on the ground. Her viselike hold remained. We stood eye to eye, me looking down, her looking up, in an awkward stance as tears trickled down her cheeks.

“When’re you comin’ back to see your dad?” she asked. The waterworks made her voice raw, and she sniffled an awful sound right in my face.

I tried to straighten to my full height, but she held on tight. It took my hands gripping her forearms, giving a quick push to break her hold.

The balloons jostled free, floating into the sky above my house.

“Darn it,” Lauren said, using her fingertips to wipe at the tears and eyeliner under her eyes. “I made you the chocolate chip cookies you like. Katie’s got ’em.”

As if on some sort of cosmic cue, Katie hiked a leg over the fence, immediately losing her balance. The cookie tin dropped to the ground. It landed in such a way that the lid popped open. The cookies tumbled onto the grass.

“No,” Lauren yelped. “I made these for your ride.” She scurried for the cookies, making her best effort to salvage them.

“Beau. They’re here to load the truck. They could use you and Scott’s help to speed things along,” my mom said firmly from the kitchen door. She had finally found me. “Come on. It’ll put us on the road sooner and they’ll pay each of you twenty-five dollars.”

I acted as if I didn’t hear her.

Until the right verses wrong code that I’d been born with reared its dumb head. I sucked. My mom had fought with my father, arguing to allow me the freedom to make my own decisions. It was the beginning of the end of my parents’ marriage.

My father had earned a reputation for being meaner than a diamondback rattlesnake. Seriously angry most of the time, but my choice to quit football took his wrath to an all-time high. Where my father refused to look at or speak to me, not a single word since the night I broke the news months ago, he directed the brunt of his violence out on my mom.

I finally cast a look at her. The pretense of not hearing her was lost anyway when all three of my friends turned her way.

“Hi, Mrs. Brooks,” Lauren said, still bent over the cookies. “I made you guys something special to eat for the drive. They dropped, but some survived.”

“Hi, girls.” My mom lifted a hand in a wave. “You’re sweet. Beau’ll have them eaten before we ever reach the interstate.”

Lauren beamed at me, clearly loving the idea.

Scott whacked me with force on the chest. “Get your ass movin’, Brooks. We got money to make.”

What was left of my mood sank.

Scott and I started toward the house in unison, step for step. My mother waited at the door as we walked across the yard. She didn’t trust me to actually follow through and come inside. Only stepping aside to hold the door open for Scott and stopping me with a hand on my forearm.

“Please try to be happy for us. This is the fresh start that we need.” Her words ran on a loop, like a broken record, over and over again. I got it. And she wasn’t wrong.

I finally gave a single nod, my gaze focused on the man with a clipboard, assessing the many boxes and furniture in the living room.

Scott came into my line of vision and took on a fighter’s stance in front of me. His fists drawn, executing the perfect playful one-two punch at my shoulder. “Burnin’ daylight, son. I’m stronger than you, no matter what you think. I got two to your one today.”

“You’re a douche,” I muttered, rubbing a hand at my shoulder. He’d used way more strength than necessary. My mom released her hold on my arm, allowing me to follow Scott inside.

“Don’t worry. I’ll console the girls when you’re gone,” Scott tossed out, winking at me from over his shoulder.

I added clueless to Scott’s irritating traits.

“Still a douche,” I said.

With a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw the worry on my mother’s face. We shared a brief stare, which meant something, but I wasn’t sure what. I didn’t like her being worried about me. I did enough of that for both of us.

The Gravity Series is an unforgettable whirlwind gay romance chronicling the love of two men over three decades. Friction heats up the scene with passionate alpha males who navigate the often-rocky road to love. Love’s rarely easy, but when it’s true, it’s a battle worth fighting for.