On a trip from Chicago to Florida for some fun and relaxation, professional photographer, Kyle Barrows’ car breaks down in a rural town in Alabama. He never dreamed his fun would come at the hands of the hot mechanic Larkin MacAvoy. Muscular, hairy and domineering, Larkin is a one-night stand that Kyle wishes could become something permanent.
Larkin has been in a bad mood for some time. When pretty boy, Kyle shows up complaining about his car problems, Larkin wants to ignore him. But the clean-cut, boy next door good looking fellow with the puppy-love expression turns him on and he takes Kyle home for a night of passion that awakens him to the idea of falling in love.
EXCERPT:
Kyle Barrows turned the volume down on the radio in his Lincoln Town Car. The drive along Interstate 65 through Alabama wasn’t his normal route from Chicago to Florida, but he liked a change in scenery. Long stretches of greenery were calming. The strange screeching sound he kept hearing wasn’t.
He’d had a full tune-up on his car before taking this trip. Meticulously on schedule, he always had his car looked over every three months. Oil changed, spark plugs, air filter, tires rotated and wherever else those grease-covered fellows did to make sure his car ran smoothly. Especially when he had a long drive ahead, like this trip he made every summer to Florida to relax on a beach along the gulf and take some awesome photographs for his photography business’ website.
It was surprising how many jobs he got from people that chose him because of those photos. He still had no idea why beaches and water attracted people that lived in a big city. Or maybe it was for the same reason he traveled to the beach, to escape the monotony of his life, except they chose to mentally flee their hum-drum lives. How that figured in on him getting to photograph the events in their lives, still didn’t make sense.
With the radio off, he couldn’t hear the strange noise the car made.
Maybe it has something to do with the radio?
He turned the radio back on and listened. Nothing. Wasn’t that the way it always was? When you wanted to see, smell or hear something you thought you had seen, smelled or heard, it didn’t happen again.
Kyle left the radio on. It played a tune he liked. He sang along, recalling the last time he had heard the song. It was one of those nights he was still with his boyfriend Chad. That thought saddened him and he decided he didn’t want to hear music he had shared with the man that broke his heart.
He reached to turn it off and the screeching sound stopped him. It was brief and irritating. He turned off the radio and the squeaking faded. Then disappeared. It wasn’t coming from the radio was it?
He thought of his long nineteen-hour trip, more than halfway there, he didn’t want to turn back and go home. Starting out at four a.m. had him in Alabama. He’d made good time, but it was late in the afternoon. He didn’t want to break down on the interstate.
It didn’t seem that long ago he saw a sign for an off-ramp. He watched for another. The best thing to do would be get the car to a garage and have someone check it out.
A tractor trailer came up fast on Kyle’s left side. He hated the way those big trucks rocked his car as they drove by. His fear of loosing control of his car was one reason had a big car instead of a compact.
Kyle kept his eye on the big rig as it passed, making sure the trailer didn’t sway over the line and come too close to him. With both of them going over eighty-five miles an hour, one tap against his car would send him spinning out of control.
Once the tractor-trailer had gone ahead, he looked for the off ramp again. It came up quickly. He didn’t catch the name of the town, but that didn’t matter as long as they had a garage.
He pulled off.
At the stop sign, nothing showed the direction he should head. No arrow or advertisement for food, gas or lodgings, let alone a mechanic’s garage.
He turned right.
Nothing but pastures and trees lined the sides of the narrow road.
Was it a road? Without markings in the center, the strip of asphalt could have been a driveway.
Three and a half miles later he found civilization. Most of the quaint old buildings were empty. Their storefront names were faded and somewhat illegible. An eerie feeling came over him when he realized he hadn’t seen a moving vehicle since leaving the interstate.
He looked ahead. Why had he watched that movie the other night with the children and the cornfield?
One traffic light blinked yellow at what appeared to be the only cross street. He stopped at the flashing caution and looked both ways.
“Cars.” He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them.
A number of vehicles sat parked a couple hundred feet away. He turned his car down the side street and drove to where the vehicles were in front of a diner in an old brick building.
Joe’s Cafe. His pulse slowed even more with relief when he saw people inside. For a minute, the deserted street had him worried he was in a ghost town.
He surveyed the area and saw a garage across the street. If he hadn’t been looking, he would have never noticed it behind all the parked cars. Or were they derelicts?
He pulled to that side of the road into a parking space. Getting out of his car, he glanced around for signs of life. Nothing moved. Was the place out of business? He walked up to the office door and peered through the glass on the door. The interior was dark. He went to the window cluttered with flyers taped to it from the inside. Amongst them, he found a sign with the hours of operation.
“Damn,” he muttered when he saw they were closed on Sunday.
Kyle walked back to his car and looked farther down the road. He was at the edge of town. It was unlikely he’d find a garage that way.
Voices from across the street caught his attention. A man and woman came out of the diner laughing. They hurried to their car as if they had somewhere to be. It was too late to ask them about other garages, but there were still people inside the diner. Maybe someone in there could tell him where to find a garage open on Sundays.
He needed something was close by, not wanting to chance getting back on the interstate and breaking down there.
The sun was close to setting. A couple hours at the longest until night darkened the sky. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, just who might be in it. On a road, alone, there was no telling what kind of creepy people might come by.
Kyle strolled across the road over to the diner. The sign on their door displayed their closing time as nine on Sunday night. He pulled the door open and went inside.
A slender middle-aged woman greeted him with a smile and asked, “for here or to go?”
“I’m actually looking for a garage that’s opened today? Can you tell me if there is another one besides the one across the street around here that’s open on Sunday?”
“Sorry. Most garages around here close at about five on weekdays, so I would think if one were open on a Sunday, it wouldn’t be open any later.”
He took his phone from his pocket. After seven. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“Yeah, the long summer days can fool you. By this time next month, it won’t be dark till near nine o’clock. So, would you like a seat and get something to eat?”
“No, thank you. I just really needed a mechanic to look at my car.”
She started to walk away, then stopped and turned around. “Larkin MacAvoy came in about fifteen minutes ago. If you really need something done to your car, you might try talking to him. He’s sitting down there at the last table at the back. But let me warn you, he’s not been in the best of moods lately. Near took my head off for asking how he was doin’ tonight.”
“And how is it this Larkin fellow might help?”
“Why he’s the owner of the garage across the street, darlin. He’s been known to open it up when someone is needin’ help. But not so you’d notice lately.”
“Thanks.” Kyle headed to the back.
It sounded like good luck to have found the garage owner. At the last table, a man sat with his back to him. From the full head of brown hair, he didn’t appear to be too old.
“Excuse me,” Kyle stopped alongside the table.
“What do want?” The man looked up from his plate.
“I—” Kyle started to speak, but the air going in stuck.
He wasn’t prepared to look into the most dreamy blue peepers he’d ever seen on a man.
“Well?” Larkin’s brow lifted, opening his gorgeous eyes wider.
Kyle tore his gaze from the pale pools of beauty and stared at the other handsome features of Larkin MacAvoy’s face. “I need a mechanic,” he said, his mind held captive as he took in the hunk’s broad shoulders.
“For?” Larkin turned his attention back to his plate and resumed eating.
“I...” What did he want to say?
“I’m trying to finish my supper. If you want something, I’d appreciate it if you ask already.” Larkin bumped a pepper shaker and it fell over. He reached to catch it and the back of his hand bumped up against Kyle.
Kyle sucked in a breath. His crotch was level with the table and his cock, stimulated by the sight of a drop-dead gorgeous man felt the brunt of the accidental brush of Larkin’s knuckles.
“So, you were wanting something?” Larkin asked again.
“I had a tune up—I was assured I was fit—But I need checked out.”
Larkin looked up at him again with an intense gaze. He rubbed the corner of his mouth, a moment of pondering in his long stare.
Then Larkin repeated the words Kyle had spoken. Except they didn’t ring with the clarity he had thought they did. If anything, they sounded like Kyle was propositioning the guy.
“You had a tune up. Were assured you were fit. But you still need checked out. Did I get that right?” Larkin’s gaze raked over him.
“Not me, my car,” Kyle said. He shifted from one foot to the other, nervous this virile corn-fed country boy would take offense of any accidental innuendo sounding statement.
“I figured that. So what is it that’s wrong?”
“I heard something and I don’t want to be stuck on the road at night all alone.” Kyle took a deep breath, feeling the summer heat and Larkin’s steady stare stifling.
Larkin’s attention returned to his food. He stirred his fork around his plate, captured a piece of meat and swished it through mashed potatoes and corn, then lifted it and put in his mouth.
Kyle watched him chew. The movement of his mouth made him hotter, made his cock throb and his nipples ache. “Can you do me? I mean can we do it? No, not do it? But do my car? Can you check my car for me?”
Kyle had mangled his sentences. In trying to talk about his problem, his words twisted with his thoughts about the handsome man before him.
Larkin placed the utensil on the table, pushed back his chair and rose. He was several inches taller than Kyle, wider, yet leaner, and very fit by the way his gray t-shirt clung to his ripped chest. Kyle clenched his fists to still the trembling desire to run his hands over the man’s muscular torso.
“Exactly what’s wrong with your car?” Larkin pulled his wallet from his back pocket and dropped cash on the wood table.
“I don’t know. It’s making a funny sound? The lady at the front said you were the owner of the garage. So can you check me out?
The car that is?”
A smile tugged at the corner of Larkin’s mouth and sexy dimples appeared in his cheeks. His gaze dropped, sweeping down the front of Kyle. When it came back up and locked to Kyle’s eyes, Larkin replied, “Yeah, I’ll check you out. Let’s go.”
Kyle followed Larkin through the diner toward the front door.
“Have a good evening, Larkin.” The waitress put her hand on Kyle’s back and rubbed it as she talked. “Everything will get better in time.”
“Good night, Liddy,” Larkin replied. “Tell Joe I should have the parts for his car mid-week.”
“I’ll tell him,” she replied.
Kyle wondered if the Joe he spoke of was the same one that had his name on the diner. Seemed likely. He didn’t ask. Larkin seemed hurried, as if he didn’t want to talk to the woman.
Kyle felt a twinge of jealousy because she got to touch the stud.
Had she read his mind? How was he was just thinking about caressing Larkin and then she was doing it?
Kyle put a hand to his chest as they left the diner. He thought of the way Larkin looked him over. The twinkle in the mechanic’s eyes suggested something he shouldn’t have cared about at this point.
His car should have been his only concern. But how did he ignore his pounding heart? It wasn’t fear that had his pulse racing this time, but the possibility the hot mechanic was gay.
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EXCERPT:
Kyle Barrows turned the volume down on the radio in his Lincoln Town Car. The drive along Interstate 65 through Alabama wasn’t his normal route from Chicago to Florida, but he liked a change in scenery. Long stretches of greenery were calming. The strange screeching sound he kept hearing wasn’t.
He’d had a full tune-up on his car before taking this trip. Meticulously on schedule, he always had his car looked over every three months. Oil changed, spark plugs, air filter, tires rotated and wherever else those grease-covered fellows did to make sure his car ran smoothly. Especially when he had a long drive ahead, like this trip he made every summer to Florida to relax on a beach along the gulf and take some awesome photographs for his photography business’ website.
It was surprising how many jobs he got from people that chose him because of those photos. He still had no idea why beaches and water attracted people that lived in a big city. Or maybe it was for the same reason he traveled to the beach, to escape the monotony of his life, except they chose to mentally flee their hum-drum lives. How that figured in on him getting to photograph the events in their lives, still didn’t make sense.
With the radio off, he couldn’t hear the strange noise the car made.
Maybe it has something to do with the radio?
He turned the radio back on and listened. Nothing. Wasn’t that the way it always was? When you wanted to see, smell or hear something you thought you had seen, smelled or heard, it didn’t happen again.
Kyle left the radio on. It played a tune he liked. He sang along, recalling the last time he had heard the song. It was one of those nights he was still with his boyfriend Chad. That thought saddened him and he decided he didn’t want to hear music he had shared with the man that broke his heart.
He reached to turn it off and the screeching sound stopped him. It was brief and irritating. He turned off the radio and the squeaking faded. Then disappeared. It wasn’t coming from the radio was it?
He thought of his long nineteen-hour trip, more than halfway there, he didn’t want to turn back and go home. Starting out at four a.m. had him in Alabama. He’d made good time, but it was late in the afternoon. He didn’t want to break down on the interstate.
It didn’t seem that long ago he saw a sign for an off-ramp. He watched for another. The best thing to do would be get the car to a garage and have someone check it out.
A tractor trailer came up fast on Kyle’s left side. He hated the way those big trucks rocked his car as they drove by. His fear of loosing control of his car was one reason had a big car instead of a compact.
Kyle kept his eye on the big rig as it passed, making sure the trailer didn’t sway over the line and come too close to him. With both of them going over eighty-five miles an hour, one tap against his car would send him spinning out of control.
Once the tractor-trailer had gone ahead, he looked for the off ramp again. It came up quickly. He didn’t catch the name of the town, but that didn’t matter as long as they had a garage.
He pulled off.
At the stop sign, nothing showed the direction he should head. No arrow or advertisement for food, gas or lodgings, let alone a mechanic’s garage.
He turned right.
Nothing but pastures and trees lined the sides of the narrow road.
Was it a road? Without markings in the center, the strip of asphalt could have been a driveway.
Three and a half miles later he found civilization. Most of the quaint old buildings were empty. Their storefront names were faded and somewhat illegible. An eerie feeling came over him when he realized he hadn’t seen a moving vehicle since leaving the interstate.
He looked ahead. Why had he watched that movie the other night with the children and the cornfield?
One traffic light blinked yellow at what appeared to be the only cross street. He stopped at the flashing caution and looked both ways.
“Cars.” He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them.
A number of vehicles sat parked a couple hundred feet away. He turned his car down the side street and drove to where the vehicles were in front of a diner in an old brick building.
Joe’s Cafe. His pulse slowed even more with relief when he saw people inside. For a minute, the deserted street had him worried he was in a ghost town.
He surveyed the area and saw a garage across the street. If he hadn’t been looking, he would have never noticed it behind all the parked cars. Or were they derelicts?
He pulled to that side of the road into a parking space. Getting out of his car, he glanced around for signs of life. Nothing moved. Was the place out of business? He walked up to the office door and peered through the glass on the door. The interior was dark. He went to the window cluttered with flyers taped to it from the inside. Amongst them, he found a sign with the hours of operation.
“Damn,” he muttered when he saw they were closed on Sunday.
Kyle walked back to his car and looked farther down the road. He was at the edge of town. It was unlikely he’d find a garage that way.
Voices from across the street caught his attention. A man and woman came out of the diner laughing. They hurried to their car as if they had somewhere to be. It was too late to ask them about other garages, but there were still people inside the diner. Maybe someone in there could tell him where to find a garage open on Sundays.
He needed something was close by, not wanting to chance getting back on the interstate and breaking down there.
The sun was close to setting. A couple hours at the longest until night darkened the sky. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, just who might be in it. On a road, alone, there was no telling what kind of creepy people might come by.
Kyle strolled across the road over to the diner. The sign on their door displayed their closing time as nine on Sunday night. He pulled the door open and went inside.
A slender middle-aged woman greeted him with a smile and asked, “for here or to go?”
“I’m actually looking for a garage that’s opened today? Can you tell me if there is another one besides the one across the street around here that’s open on Sunday?”
“Sorry. Most garages around here close at about five on weekdays, so I would think if one were open on a Sunday, it wouldn’t be open any later.”
He took his phone from his pocket. After seven. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“Yeah, the long summer days can fool you. By this time next month, it won’t be dark till near nine o’clock. So, would you like a seat and get something to eat?”
“No, thank you. I just really needed a mechanic to look at my car.”
She started to walk away, then stopped and turned around. “Larkin MacAvoy came in about fifteen minutes ago. If you really need something done to your car, you might try talking to him. He’s sitting down there at the last table at the back. But let me warn you, he’s not been in the best of moods lately. Near took my head off for asking how he was doin’ tonight.”
“And how is it this Larkin fellow might help?”
“Why he’s the owner of the garage across the street, darlin. He’s been known to open it up when someone is needin’ help. But not so you’d notice lately.”
“Thanks.” Kyle headed to the back.
It sounded like good luck to have found the garage owner. At the last table, a man sat with his back to him. From the full head of brown hair, he didn’t appear to be too old.
“Excuse me,” Kyle stopped alongside the table.
“What do want?” The man looked up from his plate.
“I—” Kyle started to speak, but the air going in stuck.
He wasn’t prepared to look into the most dreamy blue peepers he’d ever seen on a man.
“Well?” Larkin’s brow lifted, opening his gorgeous eyes wider.
Kyle tore his gaze from the pale pools of beauty and stared at the other handsome features of Larkin MacAvoy’s face. “I need a mechanic,” he said, his mind held captive as he took in the hunk’s broad shoulders.
“For?” Larkin turned his attention back to his plate and resumed eating.
“I...” What did he want to say?
“I’m trying to finish my supper. If you want something, I’d appreciate it if you ask already.” Larkin bumped a pepper shaker and it fell over. He reached to catch it and the back of his hand bumped up against Kyle.
Kyle sucked in a breath. His crotch was level with the table and his cock, stimulated by the sight of a drop-dead gorgeous man felt the brunt of the accidental brush of Larkin’s knuckles.
“So, you were wanting something?” Larkin asked again.
“I had a tune up—I was assured I was fit—But I need checked out.”
Larkin looked up at him again with an intense gaze. He rubbed the corner of his mouth, a moment of pondering in his long stare.
Then Larkin repeated the words Kyle had spoken. Except they didn’t ring with the clarity he had thought they did. If anything, they sounded like Kyle was propositioning the guy.
“You had a tune up. Were assured you were fit. But you still need checked out. Did I get that right?” Larkin’s gaze raked over him.
“Not me, my car,” Kyle said. He shifted from one foot to the other, nervous this virile corn-fed country boy would take offense of any accidental innuendo sounding statement.
“I figured that. So what is it that’s wrong?”
“I heard something and I don’t want to be stuck on the road at night all alone.” Kyle took a deep breath, feeling the summer heat and Larkin’s steady stare stifling.
Larkin’s attention returned to his food. He stirred his fork around his plate, captured a piece of meat and swished it through mashed potatoes and corn, then lifted it and put in his mouth.
Kyle watched him chew. The movement of his mouth made him hotter, made his cock throb and his nipples ache. “Can you do me? I mean can we do it? No, not do it? But do my car? Can you check my car for me?”
Kyle had mangled his sentences. In trying to talk about his problem, his words twisted with his thoughts about the handsome man before him.
Larkin placed the utensil on the table, pushed back his chair and rose. He was several inches taller than Kyle, wider, yet leaner, and very fit by the way his gray t-shirt clung to his ripped chest. Kyle clenched his fists to still the trembling desire to run his hands over the man’s muscular torso.
“Exactly what’s wrong with your car?” Larkin pulled his wallet from his back pocket and dropped cash on the wood table.
“I don’t know. It’s making a funny sound? The lady at the front said you were the owner of the garage. So can you check me out?
The car that is?”
A smile tugged at the corner of Larkin’s mouth and sexy dimples appeared in his cheeks. His gaze dropped, sweeping down the front of Kyle. When it came back up and locked to Kyle’s eyes, Larkin replied, “Yeah, I’ll check you out. Let’s go.”
Kyle followed Larkin through the diner toward the front door.
“Have a good evening, Larkin.” The waitress put her hand on Kyle’s back and rubbed it as she talked. “Everything will get better in time.”
“Good night, Liddy,” Larkin replied. “Tell Joe I should have the parts for his car mid-week.”
“I’ll tell him,” she replied.
Kyle wondered if the Joe he spoke of was the same one that had his name on the diner. Seemed likely. He didn’t ask. Larkin seemed hurried, as if he didn’t want to talk to the woman.
Kyle felt a twinge of jealousy because she got to touch the stud.
Had she read his mind? How was he was just thinking about caressing Larkin and then she was doing it?
Kyle put a hand to his chest as they left the diner. He thought of the way Larkin looked him over. The twinkle in the mechanic’s eyes suggested something he shouldn’t have cared about at this point.
His car should have been his only concern. But how did he ignore his pounding heart? It wasn’t fear that had his pulse racing this time, but the possibility the hot mechanic was gay.
