Category: Gay romance
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As I stood on the balcony of our hotel suite, the warm ocean breeze tousling my increasingly salt-and-pepper chest hair, I couldn’t help but be suspicious of the long overdue peace that washed over me. I peered down at the turquoise waves breaking gently on the shore, studying them as if they couldn’t be real. The last six months had taken every bit of time, energy, and give-a-damn that I had in the tank.
The soothing rhythm of sea against sand accomplished something that the overnight flight and the water taxi to the resort hadn’t. I finally felt transported a million miles away from the cacophony of my double life. Here, on this secluded tropical island, I wasn’t Mike Dawson, the middle-aged executive with a stack of unread emails and looming KPI deadlines. Nor was I DadMan, the caped superhero the press couldn’t get enough of and whose secret identity every newspaper in town wanted to expose.
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Ethan had always commanded respect with just a glance. His beard, neatly trimmed to salt-and-pepper perfection, framed a face that remained strikingly handsome despite years of boardroom battles. Broad shouldered and tall, his mere presence was an unspoken statement of authority and confidence. But as he stood behind the counter of the convenience store, clad in a simple polo shirt and jeans that clung uncomfortably to his damp skin, he felt the weight of his new reality pressing down on him.
Laid off and forced to downsize from his penthouse in the city to a one-bedroom apartment off the suburban expressway, he had been working nights at a rundown convenience store. The work was boring—few customers dropped by between ten and six—and the long stretches of downtime forced Ethan to confront the changes in his life. No one had any idea he had been a top dog in a C suite; anyone who saw him assumed he was just another middle-aged underachiever selling cigarettes and liquor on the graveyard shift.
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Buzzwords, the city’s trendy local cafe frequented by university students and business executives alike, was always busy on Sunday mornings. The rush of early-morning errand runners had already come through, and with the after-church crowds now pouring in seeking coffee and brunch, free tables were scarce. Theo snagged one of the last remaining two tops by the front door and fidgeted nervously, awaiting his date’s arrival.
The faint scent of starch emanated from his crisp, white, button-down shirt, and his caged junk twitched in his dark gray trousers as he scanned the room, wondering whether any of the men already here was his date. Each time the cafe doors opened, the April wind whirled around him, making him grateful for the open-necked shirt collar. The last thing he needed was to spend the date subduing a necktie determined to flap around in the breeze.
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My husband Terry squeezed me awake, and I looked around the living room bleary eyed. I could never stay awake in front of the TV. The Christmas movie we’d started watching was over, and a poor cover version of “Jingle Bell Rock” played over the closing credits. Instinctively, I reached for my phone to check the time, hoping I hadn’t overslept.
I felt his beard graze my bald scalp as he moved in to kiss me. The scratchy sensation sent shivers down my spine. “I’m sorry I passed out,” I said. I stood up and stretched, already missing the warmth radiating from his body. I rechecked the clock more surreptitiously this time. It was 11:54 p.m. Only six minutes until Christmas.
“It’s okay,” Terry said, reaching out to me. I grasped his hands and pulled him into a standing position. We laughed as both of his knees cracked on the way up. “I love napping on the sofa with you, but if I don’t get in bed, I’ll be a pretzel when I wake up tomorrow.”
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