In Step: Painted Bay #3
Author: Jay Hogan
Genre: MM Romance
Standalone: Yes
Tropes: Small Town | Opposites attract | Hurt/comfort | Forced Proximity | Age Gap | Redemption | Forgiveness | Coming out | Living your truth | Found family | Humour
When hearts collide on the dance floor.
Amazon: https://readerlinks.com/l/2002327
Catch up with the whole series here: https://readerlinks.com/l/2094148
Synopsis:
Karma. You reap what you sow, and KANE MARTIN isn’t looking for forgiveness.
But the arrival of ABE TYLER in Painted Bay has Kane dreaming of the impossible. The sexy, silver fox choreographer is determined to pull Kane out from the shadows, but Abe’s career isn’t about to shift to Painted Bay, and Kane’s life is in neat little boxes for a reason.
A past he isn’t proud of.
A family he’s walked away from.
A job he doesn’t deserve.
A secret he’s ashamed of.
But life’s dance can make for unexpected partners, and learning to trust and keep up with the footwork is the name of the game.
Two steps forward, one step back.
It takes two to tango.
Trigger Warning: Contains references to past abuse and bullying.
Excerpt I:
The pattering rain grew heavy on the iron roof and my thoughts ran to the beautiful guy I’d glimpsed in the window above the garage the night before. His name was Kane, apparently. He worked with Fox and Leroy and rented the bedsit, and I wondered why Judah had made no mention of him when he’d given me a rundown on virtually the entire town.
Even in the gloom and lit only by the reflected porch light, Kane’s stunning good looks and shoulder-length sun-bleached locks belonged on the cover of a surfing magazine, not manning a boat on a mussel farm. Just the memory had my cock thickening in my hand. Nope. I dropped it with a groan. Way too creepy since I was surely gonna have to talk to the guy at some point.
Get a life, Abraham.
The click of claws on wood made their way up the hall and a black nose pushed my door open. I scooted back and patted the bed. “Come on, gorgeous.”
Mack pushed through and jumped on the bed, quickly settling in a big lump behind my knees. Prue followed soon after, curling her small feline body into a ball between Mack’s front paws.
“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” I scratched Mack behind the ears. “Why do I sense I’m being played here? Are you normally allowed on the bed?”
They both ignored me.
“Okay, you get a free pass this time, but I’m taking it under advisement. One word from your daddies and this is all over. Now move over, you’re hogging the blankets and there’s a dirty paw print on my damn sheet. I th—” I jumped at the loud knock on the front door right outside my bedroom.
At this hour? I got up on one elbow to peek through the window. Huh. Surfer boy himself. But with no answering footsteps from Leroy and Fox’s bedroom, I figured they were still . . . occupied.
“Guess I’m it.” I threw back the covers and bounced out of bed, shivering with the sudden wash of cold over my bed-warm skin. “Shit.” I glanced down at my black briefs, then briefly considered my still-unpacked bag before pulling the spare blanket around my waist instead and hotfooting it to the front door. The glacial blast when I hauled it open almost knocked me sideways and instantly pebbled my skin.
“Damn, that’s cold.” I fumbled the blanket up under my armpits but not before I noticed Kane’s eyes bug out of their sockets. “Sorry.” I motioned back down the hall. “It’s just me. Leroy and Fox are . . .” I snorted in amusement. “Well, they’re likely having a lot more fun than either of us and getting a damn sight warmer in the process. How can I help you? It’s Kane, right?”
Kane nodded, still staring at my naked chest, and for some ridiculous reason, my cheeks warmed. Oh, for fuck’s sake. I was far too old and comfortable in my own skin for that rubbish. I danced for a living and there wasn’t a square inch of my skin that hadn’t come under intense scrutiny at one time or another. Age might’ve frayed me around the edges a bit—I wasn’t as tight or streamlined as I used to be—but I didn’t suck for a forty-two-year-old who was pushing middle age and with a perilous fondness for pasta.
“Kane? Hello?” I sucked in a breath laced with a strong hit of ocean salt.
“Um.” He licked his lips and his gaze shot up as if suddenly aware he’d been staring, and I got a good look at his eyes for the first time. They were the clearest, deepest blue, like those tropical lagoons you drooled over in tourist brochures. Although that’s where the similarity ended as they jackrabbited nervously across my face, making me wonder what the hell I’d done to unnerve the guy.
“I, um, came to drop off the food,” he muttered, still not meeting my eyes. “For Mack.” He dropped the weighty bag of dog food on the deck at my feet, pulled up the waistband of his jeans, and turned to leave.
“Wait.” My hand shot out. “We haven’t met. I’m Abe Tyler. I’m staying with Leroy and Fox while I help Judah out with his class recital.”
Kane stared at my hand for a second like it might bite him, and his grasp when it came was cool, dry, and very short. “Hi. I’m Kane Martin.” He blushed prettily. “But then . . . you obviously know that.” Once again, those magnetic-blue eyes flitted away, and I realised Kane was older than the whole surfer vibe indicated—closer to thirty than twenty.
“Yeah, Leroy mentioned your name and that you worked with them. It was you at the window last night, right?” I inclined my head toward the bedsit, prolonging an unnecessary conversation that was turning me into a human popsicle. But the man in front of me was as gorgeous as I remembered, and a man’s balls worked strange magic on his brain that way. “We, ah, waved.” I bit back a smile and he blushed. He fucking blushed.
Kane tugged at his jeans, then glanced up at the bedsit and sighed. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be nosy—” He hesitated and the flush deepened. “Yeah, total lie. It’s a small town, you know?” He dropped his gaze and scuffed the sole of his boot on the old plank deck worn smooth with age.
I chuckled. “I get it. I came from a small town too.” I willed him to look at me, wanting another moment with those cobalt eyes and the cut-glass cheekbones with a spray of freckles like someone had thrown chocolate hail and only a few had stuck—a darkly sweet and all-too-inviting constellation.
“Really?” He finally met my gaze. “I thought you hailed from Wellington?”
I shook my head. “We moved to Wellington when I was eight. But I was actually born in Reefton on the South Island. You don’t get much more small-town New Zealand than that. Couldn’t wait to leave, to be honest.”
His lips quirked up, soft and red and . . . fuck me, I wanted nothing more than to kiss them. They were the only soft thing about Kane. Like his cheekbones and the hollow beneath them, everything else seemed a little too sharp, a little too thin, a little too . . . hungry. Like the tips of his shoulders that poked through his sweater and the outline of his clavicle at its neck. The bulky knit hung loose on a narrow frame over a pair of jeans that seemed perilously close to falling from his hips, judging by the number of times he hauled them up. I felt the ridiculous urge to sit him down and feed some meat onto those bones.
Excerpt II:
Apart from the rain clearing, nothing had gone right on the mussel farm all day, and everyone was in a foul mood by the time we docked at six, in the dark and much later than usual. We’d let Martha know not to hang around, and the entire wharf was cloaked in evening shadow apart from a glow in Morgan and Judah’s boathouse and another in the studio out back.
Were Judah and Abe still working? I knew Morgan didn’t like Judah pushing himself too hard. Then again, it was none of my business.
We cleaned up and left Patrick talking furtively on his cell while the three of us, and Mack, headed toward Leroy’s SUV, still bitching about the pissy day.
“Is Patrick seeing someone?” I glanced back. “He’s been very close-mouthed about his social life lately. And he’s been on his phone a ton.”
Leroy snorted. “Wasn’t aware he ever had a social life.” He caught the rugby bag Fox threw his way from the SUV.
“Didn’t think you guys had training on a Friday?”
“We normally don’t,” Leroy grumbled. “But our beloved coach has decided we need to win this bloody game tomorrow afternoon against Russell United, and we apparently sucked big hairy donkey balls at Wednesday’s run on the paddock. Like another lot of drills is gonna somehow raise our standard of ball handling from pitifully woeful to hands of steel. If there isn’t a beer in this after we’re done, I’m gonna be fucking ropeable.”
Fox chuckled and pulled Leroy into a kiss. “You’re such a big softy.”
“Idiot.” Leroy wriggled free but failed to hide his lopsided grin.
“Do you need me to take Mack home?”
The dog cocked her head at her name and Fox opened the rear door, waving her in. “Nah, she likes to run with the team. Tires her out.” He headed for the passenger seat, buckled up, and then pinned me with a look. “And here’s a novel idea. Since Patrick only needs you tomorrow morning, maybe you could actually leave the bedsit for once and go have some fun.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
Fox rolled his eyes and I waved them off. So, I didn’t have a life. There was nothing new about that. I threw my bag over my shoulder and set off up the hill, my attention drawn to the glow in the studio and the upbeat music leaking through the fire door, which had been propped open with a chair.
The closer I got, the slower my steps, until I found myself at a complete stop about ten metres from the open door. I glanced around but I was alone. Beyond the studio lay Madden land and the hill up to the homestead. Judah’s boathouse, the wharf and Painted Bay were out of sight to my right, at the front. And behind me, the road was flanked by a steep, bush-covered bluff up to the township perched on top of the hill.
Feeling like a spy in some low-budget movie, I detoured down the small bank and picked my way across the sodden grass to the open fire door, the muffled thuds of feet hitting the floor growing louder by the second. The studio floor sat about thigh height, and I dropped my bag on the damp ground and sneaked my head through the opening.
The room was about twenty by thirty metres, big enough for Judah’s kids to comfortably move around with their wheelchairs and canes and other equipment that might be necessary, but tonight there was only one person using the space. Abe. And I was instantly spellbound.
His body flew across the room in a whirlwind of turns and leaps in sync with the rhythmic bass so loud it rattled my spine and thundered in my chest. Big band music—horns and saxophone, and double bass and piano, and drums. Memories crashed through my head and almost took my knees from under me—my mother dancing in our kitchen, my tiny hands in hers, spinning and laughing, dipping me, spoon in one hand like a mic as she crooned words that never seemed important at the time. The music was everything. How had I forgotten that?
A word popped out at me. Swing. This was swing music.
I startled as Abe landed a jump close to where I was hiding, so close I could pick out the small holes in those soft-as-butter leggings. The thin material outlining every fibre of muscle in his thick thighs and the bunched muscles of his arse, his cock nestled soft and large in his groin. The waistband rolled low on his flat stomach tight with ridged abs over a steel core lightly dusted with hair. The cut-off T-shirt wet with sweat and clinging to his toned chest and budded nipples.
Holy fucking hell.
I barely contained a yelp, ducking back into the shadows until the sound of his feet fell into the distance and I risked another look. Perspiration coursed down his face, his dark hair threaded with silver pulled into a topknot that bobbed with every leap and turn, eyes closed like he was dancing by feel, led around the space by some invisible force. And I stood transfixed, my ridiculous dick thickening in my jeans like the traitorous fucker that it was.
And still Abe danced, sliding past the open door where I crouched watching, his voice low with the music, singing, stray words catching in my ears, arms wide, then high, then circling into a spin. Around and around until he suddenly stopped, dancing on the spot, tap, shuffle. Whatever the fuck it was called. His body dipping and rocking to the beat, a wide smile on his face.
And then he was off again, and I lost myself in the pure, raw joy of his energy, pretty sure of only one thing: that I’d never felt anything close to whatever Abe was feeling in that moment—the energy of life rippling through him, power and hope and emotion. I’d never felt that, not even close. There was a magic to it, and heat and lust and wonder. A hunger I’d never allowed myself to feel ripped open in my heart. In that moment, Abe was alive to his core, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that felt like.
About Jay:
Heart, Humour, & Keepin’ It Real
Jay is a 2020 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Gay Romance and her book Off Balance was the 2021 New Zealand Romance Book of the Year. She is a New Zealand author writing mm romance and romantic suspense, primarily set in New Zealand. She writes character driven romances with lots of humour, a good dose of reality and a splash of angst. She’s travelled extensively, lived in many countries, and in a past life she was a critical care nurse, nurse educator and counsellor.
Jay is owned by a huge Maine Coon cat and a gorgeous Cocker Spaniel
Find Jay in all the places: https://www.jayhoganauthor.com/landingpage
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