GENRE: Gay Romance
LENGTH: 20,353 words
RATING:

Exciting news abounds in Stone Acres, California, the former gold rush town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. All the couples from the Foothills Pride contemporary romance series are chatting and spreading the word.

The whispers of movie scouts in Stone Acres have the couples speculating about how a film might impact their lives. Rumor says the potential film would tell the stories of how and why the newcomers left the Bay Area to settle in the foothills.

Some of the men, like Jimmy Patterson, Fredi Zimmer, Jeff Mason, and Mitch O’Shea, think to see a movie being made could be fun. But the others, including David Fairbanks, Vic Longbow, Christopher Darling, and John Barton, think the ordeal would be horrible, everything from invasive and embarrassing to heart-breaking.

Meanwhile, as the rumors make the rounds, a couple of good old boys steal Mitch’s specialty SUV and take it for a joyride. The lark ends with the car falling into an old mine shaft, seriously injuring one of the passengers.

How does the town handle so much happening? Like the rest of us, they go to lunch and talk about it.

EXCERPT:

“Hey, old dudes! Guess what?” Our nineteen-year-old freshman in college burst through the door like an action hero about to save the day.

When Frank, dad #2, frowned, I, dad number #1 also known as Pops, winked at him and smiled. Every once in a while, Frank got confused when Henry burst in and shouted at us. Was our son kidding about something or was he being, well, the most genuine Henry he could be? Sometimes even I had trouble figuring out what was going on.

“What?” I asked Henry. “Has something extraordinary happened in sleepy old Stone Acres?”

I had an idea what Henry was trying to tell us. News travels fast in Stone Acres. Still, why spoil Henry’s excitement? Not to mention, why not have a little fun before our conversation turned more sober?

Frank caught on right away. His eyes changed from befuddled to merry. We both had a pretty good idea what Henry was excited about, but Frank was ready to tease him. I sighed in happiness. This was the Frank I had fallen head over heels in love with. The game was on.

“Let’s see,” Frank intoned at his most careful, ponderous way. “Chickens are laying duck eggs? Hmmm, no. I would have heard about it from one of the customers here in the hardware store. Customers love to gossip. Christopher?” He turned to me.

“No, it’s probably something more global, not immediately rural. Bill Gates is erecting a statue to Steve Jobs on Elon Musk’s lawn?” I took my phone out of my pocket and looked down. “No, probably not. Most of my programmer friends would have sent out alerts. Nope that’s not it. I’ve got nothing in my texts.”

“Maybe food prices have dropped?” Frank walked over to the counter and shut down the hardware store register. The store’s been in his family for decades and is rightfully his pride and joy. “Wait a minute. We know what Henry’s excited about. What is Henry always excited about this time of day?”

Everything shut down, Frank walked up to me and gave me a kiss.

“It’s lunchtime. One of the three most important times of a summer college student’s working day.”

We turned to him. Henry had the are-you-finished-yet look on his face. His forbearance overriding his usual casual attitude.

“Guys, get serious. There are two things. One today and one to come. They’re both big and important. We can’t do anything about the first one, but we gotta get our shit ...”

“Language in the store ...” Frank and I said in unison. The store was a public space. So no swearing.

“We gotta get, you know, um, a plan together for the other one. Or we’ll be screw ... yeah, I can say this because it’s a hardware store. Screwed is a perfectly good hardware word.”

Frank and I even sigh in tandem these days. It’s the only response to Henry sometimes.

I don’t know why I thought the University of California at Davis would change Henry, but I did. Instead, he went in so confident in himself that except for his classes which he interested him and he excelled at, he was still unflappable.

To see him so excited about events outside the hardware store, his friends, and his classes was unusual. Except what happened to Mitch’s car was also rare.

“Okay, whatever’s going on, can we save it until we get to lunch?” I asked.

“Yeah, okay, but you’re going to be bunched when you hear.”

Henry was out the door and almost across the street before Frank got the store locked up with the CLOSED sign in place.

“Bunched?” he asked as we walked over to the sandwich shop.

“Really excited.”

“Huh.”

“Don’t ask me.” I shrugged. “Even I get lost sometimes.”

“Indeed.”