Guest Post | Love in an Elevator by Holly Day

July 25, 2022July 25, 2022 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 1 Comment

See outside elevator

Hello, everyone! I’m here as Holly today, and I thought I should tell you a little about my newest story, Love in an Elevator – yes, Aerosmith was part of my teenage soundtrack. And, okay, some of their songs are on some of my Spotify lists.

Love in an Elevator isn’t really about love in an elevator, more about falling in love in an elevator. I wrote it to celebrate National Talk in an Elevator Day and to make the talking a little harder, I made one of the characters have a fluency disorder. As if talking to strangers isn’t hard enough.

After years of speech therapy without success, Corey has given up on spoken language and communicates solely through sign language and written text.

Hayden doesn’t notice at first. He does his best to catch Corey in the elevator as often as he can, and since Corey nods and smiles, it takes a few rides before Hayden realises Corey hasn’t spoken to him.

I had a lot of fun writing this one, and while there is bullying, homophobia, discrimination and so on, I’ll still claim that it’s a light-hearted tale.

And if you have a thing for elevators, Ofelia’s Elevator Pitch is about two guys trapped in an elevator. So on Friday, Talk in an Elevator Day is celebrated on the last Friday of July, you can read two elevator stories. One is contemporary, and the other is paranormal 😊

Love in an Elevator

loveinanelevator

Corey Hope’s school years sucked. With a crippling stutter, he was easy prey, and despite being grown up, his bullies still haunt his nightmares. After he left school, he gave up on trying to talk, and communicates solely through sign language and written text. It works great even though he wished he could say something when Hayden flirts with him in the elevator.

Hayden does his best to catch Corey in the elevator as often as he can, and he thinks they might have something, but it all comes crashing down when Corey sees him having lunch with his colleagues. Corey might be drawn to Hayden, but seeing him with his school bullies has old memories washing over him. He won’t let them hurt him ever again, and he’d rather forget about Hayden than risk Hayden hurting him.

How will Hayden convince Corey he’s nothing like his colleagues when Corey refuses to see him?

Buy links:

Contemporary gay romance: 17,560 words

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/LoveinanElevator

Excerpt:

The weekend had passed too damn fast. Corey liked his job, and he’d been lucky to get it, but he liked time off more. He worked from home for the most part and only went into the office for the occasional meeting, but those too were mostly conducted via Zoom these days.
His boss had sent him an email, listing the most urgent projects for him to have a look at. They had built several new websites for different clients, and as a front-end developer, it was his job to create the layout and make sure they ran smoothly.
Today, it didn’t run smoothly. He’d already spent three hours trying to find an error in the coding, and it was driving him insane when he couldn’t spot it.
Stretching, he went to put on more coffee. Once he’d pressed the button on the coffee maker, he stepped into his shoes and exited his apartment. The mail would’ve arrived. All mailboxes were on the ground floor of the building. Corey understood the mailman not wanting to run up all the floors, but sometimes he went weeks between checking his mail. He’d tried to make it routine to go down on his lunch break, but some days he didn’t have the energy. Now he needed a change of scenery.
He yawned and followed it up with another stretch while riding the elevator to the bottom floor. Once the doors slid open, he stepped out and rounded the corner to his left where the mailboxes covered an entire wall. Whisking his key out, he opened the metal door and grimaced at the stack of envelopes. The top one was the electricity bill.
He went back into the elevator while flicking through the letters. Nothing exciting. The door moved when a voice echoed through the lobby.
“Hold the elevator!”
Corey slid his foot out to halt the doors, and as he looked up, Hayden was hurrying toward him.
“Oh, hi.” He grinned, and Corey’s heart sped up. Hayden looked too good for his own good.
“How are you today?” He glanced at the top envelope in Corey’s hand. “Corey Hope?”
Corey smiled and nodded.
A scent of coffee filled the elevator, but this time Hayden didn’t carry a to-go cup. It had been hard to miss the cup he’d carried the last time—the bright green lime slices on an equally bright yellow background had made the cup light up the entire elevator.
Corey narrowed his eyes and breathed in deep. He wasn’t imagining the coffee scent, he couldn’t be.
“Smelling the coffee?”
Nodding, Corey glanced at him.
“Lucky, I wear black, right?” Hayden gestured at his chest, and the black fabric of his a little too tight T-shirt appeared wet. “It was so embarrassing you wouldn’t believe. I was meeting with a potential client, and I’d poured myself a cup of coffee when my asshole boss came through the door. I whirled around, spilled the coffee, and it was super-hot so in my haste to get the fabric away from my skin, I dropped the cup on the floor.”
Corey winced.
“It was a paper cup. What kind of office has paper cups?” He shook his head and sighed. “Tara will be horrified if I tell her. I haven’t decided if I should. It would lead to a ten-minute lecture.” He shrugged. “Could be an amusing one.”
Tara? Should Corey know who Tara was? Maybe she lived in the building too.
Then those dark eyes focused on Corey again. “Anyway, I turned back to the client to apologize for the mess and slipped on the coffee I’d spilled when I dropped the cup. One second, I was standing, the next I was crawling around on the floor. Most humiliating, I’ll have you know.”
Corey gasped and swept his gaze over him, searching for injuries.
“I’ll have a bruise on my hip for a week.” He grinned. “Or at least a couple of days.”
The elevator slowed and soon after the doors opened. Corey stepped out on his floor.
“Are you leaving me, Corey?” There was a sparkle of amusement in his eyes.
Corey nodded.
“But I’m injured. I’d hoped you’d at least offer to kiss it better.” He winked and heat rushed through Corey’s veins. Was Hayden flirting or was he making fun of him?
Corey shook his head, and Hayden exaggeratedly slumped his shoulders. “Maybe next time?”
Corey grinned but shook his head and hurried off toward his apartment. When he glanced over his shoulder, it was to find Hayden keeping the elevator doors from closing with his foot and watching Corey unlock his front door. He gave him a wave goodbye before entering.

Release Day | Keep it Down!

July 9, 2022July 9, 2022 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

It’s release day!!! Keep it Down! is out today. It’s a story about Post-its which should be enough for you to love it 😆 I have a thing for stationery, in case you didn’t know, and while Post-its aren’t what excites me the most (they’re not pretty enough) you can’t live life without Post-its.

Eason is a bit stuck-up, not annoyingly so, but he’s a little stiff. Nate, on the other hand, is a laid-back guy who rolls with the punches. They live next door to each other and… Well, Eason wants to strangle Nate or at least push him down the stairs.

One of the problems Eason has is that while he’s furious at Nate, Nate thinks they’re flirting, and it’s driving Eason crazy. It isn’t until he fractures his leg, that he allows Nate close and realises there is more to him than the constant parties he’s hosting in his apartment.

In the last Read Around the Rainbow post, I shared a video from Falkenberg, where I grew up. If you hop to 2.29 in the video, you’ll see the Bathhouse Park, where Nate takes Eason on a date, though before they can get to that stage, they need to get through ten Post-its.

And this is Post-it number 4

It had been a long week, but luckily Eason only had one day left to work before it was weekend again. The July heat had the clothes sticking to his body most uncomfortably, and he couldn’t wait to get out of the suit.

As he walked up the last flight of stairs, a pink Post-it caught his eye. It was fastened to his door right above the keyhole.

Sighing, he grabbed it and read: Your cat is under my bed.

Eason’s heart banged hard. Loki. He rang Nate’s doorbell, and when the door opened, Eason pushed past Nate.

“Loki? Loki, come to Daddy.” He looked around. Nate’s apartment was neat and clean—not at all what he’d expected. He located the bedroom and dropped to his knees. As he looked in under the bed, he heard the rustle of clothes from behind him and looked back between his knees at Nate’s feet.

“You paint quite the picture, Eason. Mind if I take a photo?”

“Stop it! Where is he? Is he hurt?”

“Love your suit. I’ve always had a thing for flight attendants.”

Eason growled but spotted Loki’s greenish-yellow eyes in the dark in the corner. “I’m a ticket agent. I never board the planes.”

“Oh… Your ass still looks mighty fine in those pants.”

Eason shook his head. “Can’t you be serious for once?”

Nate’s voice dropped an octave or two. “Oh honey, if you had any idea how serious I am.”

The shiver was back. “Nate.” Eason put as much warning as he could into that one word.

“Fine, but I am serious. You’re hot, Eason.”

“Focus.” Eason crawled closer to Loki. “Why is he here?”

“I came home from work not too long ago, my shift ends early on Thursdays, and I went to open the balcony door. It was sunbathing on the chair cushion, but I think I spooked it—”

“Him. His name is Loki.”

“Right. Anyway, he ran past me, fast as lightning, so I searched for him, and he’s been cowering in there for the last forty minutes or so. Hisses as soon as I try to grab him.”

Eason hummed. Loki wasn’t normally a cat who hissed, but it was an unfamiliar apartment.

“Come on, baby.” Eason reached in under the bed, stretching his hand out to Loki. He didn’t want to pull him out, but he would if he had to.

“There was a hole in the net or not in the net, you had fastened it to the wall with some double-sided adhesive rubber strip or something, and it was torn.”

“It’s the kids you hang with. Someone tore it to be able to throw the beer bottle on my balcony.” Anger surged inside again. He hated the kids Nate hung out with.

Nate hummed. “Have you had him long, the cat, I mean?” Nate was still behind him, which made Eason aware of being on all fours with his ass up in the air. The shiver slithering through him had to be because of the temperature difference between the cool bedroom and the sweltering heat outdoors. Same with the flush climbing his cheeks, and the way heat was building in his groin. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t like Nate. He might be hot, but he wasn’t nice.

Loki bumped his nose against Eason’s knuckles which had him smiling. “There you go. Come on. You’re such a good boy. Come to Daddy.”

Nate groaned behind him, but Eason did his best to ignore him.

Loki crawled closer, and Eason got his hand around his bum and pushed him forward, backing away as he did. When Loki came out in the light of the room, Eason embraced him and nuzzled his neck, the black fur tickling his nose. “There you go.”

Nate cleared his throat. “Can I get you a beer?”

Eason scrunched his nose.

“Coke?”

He guessed accepting a drink was the polite thing to do. “Sure, thanks.”

The smile was nothing Eason had seen before, for lack of better word, he’d say it was genuine. It made him nervous, almost as nervous as the heat in Nate’s eyes did. Eason didn’t want to be attracted to Nate.

“Go sit on the balcony, and I’ll be right out.”

“I’ll go leave Loki in my apartment and change clothes.”

“No, leave them on.”

Eason stared at him. “Have you any idea how hot this suit is?”

Nate’s eyes gleamed. “I do.”

“I meant; I’m sweating.”

Chuckling, Nate shrugged. “Fine. You dressed in a suit, crawling around on all fours on my bedroom floor will forever be burnt into my memory.”

Eason rolled his eyes and headed for the door. Nate’s laugh followed him out.

keepitdown

One day, Eason Wickham will push his next-door neighbor down the stairs. Nate Allen might be hot, but he’s the most annoying person Eason has ever met. He has no respect for the people living in the building, and night after night, he has a party. Whenever Eason rings his doorbell and tells him to keep it down, he flirts and tries to get Eason to come inside.

Calling the cops does not affect Nate’s behavior, and neither do Eason’s angry Post-It notes. But when Eason is hit by a car and fractures his leg, Nate sends his friends packing and makes sure Eason is okay. He cooks for him, shops for him, and does his laundry, but he’s still the most annoying person Eason has ever met. Right?

The cute Post-Its Nate leaves for him to find doesn’t mean he’s a different person, and while Eason longs for when Nate gets off work every day, it doesn’t mean they should be more than friends. Does it?

Buy links

Contemporary Gay Romance: 14,878 words

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/KeepItDown

Wrap-Up Wednesday | June

June 29, 2022June 28, 2022 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 2 Comments

I’ve had a good reading month. Not in the way that I’ve read loads and loads, but what I’ve read, I’ve really enjoyed.

Catching Orion by Sloane Kennedy

I’ll start with my least favourite of the month – that does not mean I didn’t like it! I wanted something short, and this is short, and it sounded cute. It was cute, though a bit too insta-love for my taste. Still, it kept me entertained.

44576028._sy475_ ***PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS PART OF AN ANTHOLOGY***

This SHORT STORY (15k words) was previously published as part of the Heart2Heart Vol 2 Anthology but is now being offered as a single title since the anthology is no longer available. Please make sure you haven’t already purchased this story as part of that anthology unless your intent is to own two copies of the story. There is no new content.

Ryan

Dressed appropriately for quiet night at home? Check.
Spoiled, needy cat present? Check.
Gorgeous, mysterious stranger randomly showing up at my door claiming to have a date with me? Wait… what?

Knox is exactly the kind of guy my ugly past has taught me to avoid, but when the heavily tattooed biker shows up at my door with flowers and a gentle touch, I’m kind of a goner. But agreeing to the blind date I knew nothing about is just the start of a crazy night of ogres, onions, wine and dangly bits.

Way too many dangly bits.

Knox

I knew letting myself get set up on a blind date was a bad idea, but I can’t deny that there’s a little part of me that really wants to find Mr. Right. Especially after having been with Mr. Wrong for so long. And everything about Orion “Ryan” Abernathy screams right. But when the cute, young social worker has no idea who I am or what I’m talking about, I know we’ve both been set up.

I fully expect my chance at finding out if Ryan is my Mr. Right to go up in smoke, but when he agrees to go out with me, I’m certain not even the hint of a haunted past can come between us.

Problem is, it’s not his past that comes between us, but a whole lot of naked old man.

Leave it to me to manage to finally find Mr. Right only to scare him off when our first date goes oh so wrong.

Or does it?

https://books2read.com/CatchingOrion

Ghost of Lies by Alice Winters

Next up was Ghost of Lies. I love mediums, and I’ve been glancing at this many times but 415 pages feel a bit intimidating with my attention span. I gave it a go, and I really liked it. Ghosts are always cool, and while reading, I kept telling myself I need to write more stories with ghosts in them.

Ghost of Lies Hiro
Though I was born with the ability to see the dead, I struggled with it until my brother was killed and his ghost was left behind. Now, I’m determined to figure out who is responsible for his death… the problem is that Detective Maddox Booker, the one working the case, is a grumpy and stubborn man who wants nothing to do with me and definitely doesn’t believe in ghosts. It doesn’t help that I keep finding myself looking ridiculous in front of the detective, thanks to interfering ghosts who enjoy laughing at my expense. Still, the more I’m around Maddox, the more I realize that beneath that surly exterior is a kind and caring man who will do anything to help.

Maddox
When another man dies, I know we have a serial killer on our hands—the same murderer who has remained elusive for a year and a half. To add to my frustration, I keep running into Hiro at crime scenes only to hear him claim that he can talk to ghosts. The words of the dead could lead us to the serial killer and even tell us who is next, but ghosts? There’s no such thing as ghosts. Hiro is determined and charming, and no matter what I do, I can’t stop letting him get involved. He’s definitely snagged my attention, but when he nearly winds up dead, I know he’s getting closer to the truth—and if I don’t do something soon, he might be next.

https://books2read.com/GhostofLies

Dragon Ever After by Louisa Masters

A little while back, I read Spirited Situation by Louisa Masters, my first ever Louisa Masters, and I enjoyed it a lot. This, this was even better! I’ve been looking at How to Date a Dragon in the YBBB giveaway, but I still haven’t downloaded a single story from there – I need to grab a few – and now I wish I had read that before I read this. But it doesn’t matter. I was laughing out loud while waiting for the ‘danger’ to happen, but it never did. It was a restful, funny, cute read with a dragon shifter and a cat shifter. Awesome. I’m so glad I read it.

Dragon Ever After Note to self: You can’t teach an old dragon new tricks … he likes to invent his own.

After half a century of chaos, my retirement from leading the Community of Species Government has been bliss. No more hellhounds playing pranks. No more snippy demons demanding my attention. No more cajoling money from the wealthy to support the community. Just peace while I avoid my overbearing father and try to work out what my next steps will be.

Although… maybe three years of peace is enough. It might even be starting to get… boring. In fact, an adolescent dragon crash-landing on my landlord’s shed is just the kind of excitement I need—especially when he brings his species leader to my door.

Brandt. Wing leader of all dragons, suave, sexy, and … slightly unhinged. It doesn’t take much for him to convince me to give up my solitude and spend some time getting to know him. It’s hard to care about the future when I’ve got a dragon of my own to “play” with. Naked dragon rides for the win, right?

But Brandt’s the leader of his people, on call for them all the time, and I’ve left that part of my life behind me. Plus my father insists I should fulfil my duty to the family by getting a nine-to-five job and “marrying well.” That’s not what I want, but riding herd on a group of beings who fly, breathe fire, and could literally crush me beneath their feet would be a huge challenge, especially since Brandt’s kind of loose with rules.

It all comes down to how much I want my very own dragon ever after.

This exciting spin-off from the Hidden Species series kicks off with Percy’s story.

https://books2read.com/DragonEverAfter

Secrets and Scrabble by Josh Lanyon

Now… I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again. Josh Lanyon is an awesome writer. When I don’t know what to read, I pick Lanyon or Mary Calmes depending on what I’m in the mood for, but I’m not a Lanyon fangirl. Again, don’t get me wrong, she can write, the mysteries are good, the characters great and so on, but I’m seldom…touched.
I’ve been looking at Murder at Pirate’s Cove many times, I really like the cover, and now I finally read it. I was surprised by how much I liked it, so I read the second book two, right after. Right after! I usually need a break, and that break often turns into years, before I pick up the second book in a series, but I was all for creepy houses, pirates, and scrabble. Then I realised how many books there are in this series, and my soul died a little LOL. But hey, I read two, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Murder at Pirate's Cove Ellery Page, aspiring screenwriter, Scrabble champion and guy-with-worst-luck-in-the-world-when-it-comes-to-dating, is ready to make a change. So when he learns he’s inherited both a failing bookstore and a falling-down mansion in the quaint seaside village of Pirate’s Cove on Buck Island, Rhode Island, it’s full steam ahead!

Sure enough, the village is charming, its residents amusingly eccentric, and widowed police chief Jack Carson is decidedly yummy (though probably as straight as he is stern). However, the bookstore is failing, the mansion is falling down, and there’s that little drawback of finding rival bookseller–and head of the unwelcoming-committee–Trevor Maples dead during the annual Buccaneer Days celebration.

Still, it could be worse. And once Police Chief Carson learns Trevor was killed with the cutlass hanging over the door of Ellery’s bookstore, it is.

**This story contains NO on-screen sex or violence.

https://books2read.com/Murder-At-Pirates-Cove

Secret at Skull House

Ellery Page is back–and in hot water again!

Unlike everyone else in Pirate’s Cove, Ellery Page, aspiring screenwriter, reigning Scrabble champion, and occasionally clueless owner of the village’s only mystery bookstore, is anything but thrilled when famed horror author Brandon Abbott announces he’s purchased legendary Skull House and plans to live there permanently.

Ellery and Brandon have history. Their relationship ended badly and the last thing Ellery wants is a chance to patch things up–especially when his relationship with Police Chief Jack Carson is just getting interesting. But then, maybe Brandon isn’t all that interested in getting back together either, because he seems a lot more interested in asking questions about the bloodstained past of his new home than discussing a possible future with Ellery. What is Brandon really up to?

Ellery will have to unscramble that particular puzzle post haste. Because after his former flame disappears following their loud and public argument, Ellery seems to be Police Chief Carson’s first–and only–suspect.

***This story contains no on-screen sex or violence

https://books2read.com/SecretAtSkullHouse

You Get Full Credit For Being Alive by Cari Z.

Last, but not least, the reread of the month. You Get Full Credit for Being Alive is awesome, and I’m chatting more about it over at Holly’s blog, so have a look there if you want. It’s a freebie, so grab it if you haven’t read it!

You Get Full Cretid for Being Alive I was never one of the good guys. Never got along with people and never felt the need to. I did a lot for money. Even killed, especially killed, but never without a good reason. After years in this violent business I retired to a quiet life in the woods because I was sick of all the blood. No one knows me here and everything was fine until that night…

First I didn’t see the body through all the rain and darkness but when I drew near I saw him. Thought he was dead with all the blood. But he wasn’t and I considered for a moment to end the job because really… it would have been a mercy kill. He wouldn’t survive those injuries and even if he did he would be a vegetable. I mean… look at that head wound!

But something in the way he was dumped on the back of my property in his ripped police uniform and the word FAG scrawled on his chest made me help him.

So now I’m here. His guardian angel, kind of ironic considering what I did in the past. I watch over his recovery, standing in the shadows where no one can see me.

Words: 38,804

Download here