by Amy Lane
Sammy groaned. “I was doing so well,” he muttered. “I didn’t…. God. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Cooper murmured and pushed him back into the bed. “Here—I’m going to go get you juice. We’ve got one with green apple in it that the kids really adore. Trust me.”
“Mm…. Sounds amazing. I’ve really missed your juices,” he said, meaning it. “I don’t mind drinking them at all.”
“Good. Hold tight.”
He left the light on, and Sammy got a look at the bedroom while he lay there. In fact, he seemed to remember decorations in the bathroom too. Oh yeah.
Just like his bathroom. Sea turtles.
“You decorated,” he said softly when Cooper returned, juice cup in hand. New lamp with a blue shade, blue valances on the windows, framed Cary Grant and Donald O’Connor posters on the walls. Even the comforter, which had been guest room white, was now blue with magenta trim. Sammy couldn’t remember much from the night before, but he’d place bets on there being an area rug on the floorboards near the bed, and he could even see a wall-mounted television, with a DVD player and a shelf with a beginner’s DVD collection under it.
“I did,” Cooper admitted, handing him the cup and then sliding back into bed next to him. “I wanted a home for you to come back to.”
Sammy squinted. “But this is my home,” he said, puzzled.
Cooper looked away. “I moved all your stuff into the other room of the apartment,” he admitted. “Your study, your clothes. Everything but the piano—it’s all here. And….” He looked back at Sammy, his intent clear in his eyes. “I told Channing that we’d move into that little house after you graduated. That if he wanted to order a baby grand piano for your present in two years, that would probably be an awesome idea, so you could have your music there. I’ll probably still be the manny, but I’ll be in school too. We’ll figure things out. But you and me are a you-and-me now, Sam. I mean, we’ll always have your scary rich uncles in our lives, but I like them. I said, ‘Sam wants to come home,’ and Channing and Tino said ‘Voila,’ and I’m not going to argue with that. They got you home. Now it’s my job to take care of you, now that you’re here, you understand?”
Sammy’s turn to look away. “Cooper, I’m… I mean, we may have to live off my trust fund a little. I… may be able to teach part-time, like I am now, but….” He gave a weak smile, coming to peace with this at last. “I’m never going to set the world on fire. My body just won’t do all the stuff I want it to do. In my dreams, I compose, I teach, I perform every weekend, and run the kids around in my spare time. I watched Channing and Tino do it. They were Superman and Batman and all the men in between. But… but my body won’t do that. Are you going to get tired of that? I mean, it’s boring the fuck out of me!” He tried a laugh, but he punctuated it by wiping the back of his hand across his eyes.
“Drink your juice, Sam,” Cooper reminded him gently, and Sammy finished it off before setting the glass down on the end table. He turned back toward the man he loved and found Cooper sprawled across his chest, holding him so tight he almost couldn’t breathe.
Almost.
“I love you,” Cooper whispered into the hollow of his throat. “Your heart is strong in all the places mine isn’t. I’ll do anything, live anywhere, to have you in my life. Do you understand me? If your body was one hundred percent, I’d wait home while you toured for as long as you kept coming home to me. But it’s not, so we’ll be home together. I’m okay with that, because we’re together. Do you understand? I’ve had people come and go from my life, Sam, but if you ever got yanked out of it, I would not survive.”
Sammy held Cooper with all he had, stroking his curly brown hair, nuzzling his temple. “I’ll be happy, then,” he promised, knowing it wouldn’t be a hard promise to keep. “We’ll have our family, and someday maybe children of our own. And we’ll be happy.” The tears came, mostly of relief, but a lot of them came from the glow in his chest, the strengthening warmth that told him Cooper was there, in his arms, and however his life went, even if it wasn’t the way he planned it, he would not be alone.
“So happy,” he whispered. “I love you, Cooper.”
“Love you too, Sam. You ready to sleep some more?”
Sammy half laughed. “God, did you drug the juice?”
“Nope. Just want you to get all rested up. We need you back in the land of the living.”
Well, that was the truth. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Cooper pulled back and had Sammy turn off the light. They both slid down into bed, facing each other, while Sammy’s eyes drifted closed.
“So….” Sammy yawned. “Should we plan a wedding or something? After graduation? Or should we elope.”
“Oh my God!” Cooper propped himself up on his elbow. “Sammy! I completely forgot to tell you! Guess who’s getting married at the end of September?”
Sammy blinked through the sleep in his eyes. “We only know so many people,” he muttered, trying to think.
Cooper laughed gleefully. “This one is the best couple—you totally love them. You’ll be so happy!”
Sammy could only think of one couple they both knew who had yet to be married.
And yes. It made him so very happy.
When Brandon Proposed to Taylor
“PRINCESS,” Taylor said softly to his closest friend, “you really have to stop doing this.”
Monica Carol Teresa Alexa Gaudioso Robbins-Grayson looked down at the tiny son in her arms and tiredly kissed his forehead. “Well, the pill and a re-up on Jakey’s vasectomy—I think if I have another one, we’re going to have to concede to God’s will and just change my name to Easy-Bake, you think?”
Taylor took the baby from her, sleeping after his lunch, and tucked him into the hospital bassinet. Jacob had run home to shower and hug the other five kids, while Taylor sat first watch. They’d perfected this maneuver with the birth of Nica’s fifth child and Taylor’s namesake, the irrepressible Princess T.
“I concede nothing of the sort, sweetheart. You’re done. Your job contract making adorable children has been fulfilled. Looking at you makes me tired.” He blinked his eye and hid a yawn behind his hand.
Nica laughed softly, but she was falling asleep too. Well, she’d put in a rough sixteen hours—she’d earned herself another nap or six.
He propped himself back against the wall and closed his eye, wishing his eye patch could clone itself and leave him completely in the dark. He loathed hospitals. The only reason he’d be here in the ambience of the body monitors was for his best friend.
Booted footsteps sounded in the room, and Taylor blinked, smiling when Brandon came into focus. “You’re late, Brand—you missed the big event.”
Brandon shrugged. “Please—if I wanted to see a person squished in and out of a cooter, I’d watch het porn. There’s a reason I picked kinesiology. You know that, right?”
Taylor just stared at him, in awe. “How do you do that? Every goddamned time?”
“Oh hell—I just said something that made your brain explode again, didn’t I?”
He had to laugh. Brandon was built like a linebacker, and God, if he didn’t talk like a dumb jock, as smart as he was. But Taylor adored his auburn-haired giant and wouldn’t have him any other way.
“Come here and kiss me,” he ordered quietly. “I haven’t seen you all day.”
Brandon approached quietly and then offered Taylor a hand. “Stand up, baby—let me get your leg and shoulders. You’ll cramp up if you don’t.”
Taylor obeyed, because Brandon was right. He’d been a good soldier, in and out of the room while Nica went through the worst of her labor, but it took a toll on his body. The last time, he’d been a big crampy mess for an entire day after the birth. This time, with a little work, he might avoid that.
“Mm…,” he said as Brandon started working on his shoulders first. “That’s wonderful. I may keep you.”
“Keep me?” Brandon mock protested. “Keep m
e? With hands like this, you should marry me!”
Taylor swiveled his head to see if Brandon was joking, but he was standing at Taylor’s back, so Taylor couldn’t see squat. “That would be a pain in the ass,” he muttered.
“What, marrying me?” And there was no mistaking the thread of hurt in his words.
“No, marrying you would be fine. I’d love to be married to you,” Taylor told him. “Ah… yes. Right there. But the wedding. It would be a colossal pain.”
“Yeah,” Brandon muttered, voice falling in disappointment. “You’d have to wait until Nica could be your best friend of honor or whatever—”
“Well, first we’d have to get a pastor or someone—so we’d have to ask Nica’s mom. She’d know someone who knew someone, I have no doubt. Then we’d have to buy all the kids clothes—’cause you can’t just have a flower girl with this bunch, you have to have a flower family—that’s what? One, two, three, four, five dresses, including the one for my namesake because she can’t just wear a diaper, right? That’s a lot. All the guys probably have tuxedos or some such bullshit—everyone but you and me, mind you, so that would be a thing to do. We’d probably have it in that park by Channing and Tino’s house, so we would have to reserve that and maybe get some friends to stake it out and mark it off—like velvet-rope stuff. Maybe a week to print out invitations after we reserve the park and hire the pastor, some time for the mommies and uncles and daddies to go shopping—we’ve got to put Dustin, Conroy, and Keenan in suits, and pretty much the only other people we’d want there are the people you work with and some of our student friends. What’s that? Fifty? Could we do fifty people in a park in September? Three months, Brandon—that’s not much time.”
“I need to sit down,” Brandon said, sounding shell-shocked. “Dear God, you’re a force of nature.”
“You didn’t even ask me if I could cater, you bastard,” Nica snapped, waking up and pouting.
“Princess, all you have to do is dress the children. I’d ask your mother to find us a caterer so you don’t make yourself batshit. Oh—and Sammy and Cooper—we need to give them something to do or they’ll be getting married next, and holy God, they’re what? Sixteen?”
“Twenty-one, old man,” Brandon said without heat. “Did you really just plan our wedding in five minutes?”
“No—you haven’t asked me to marry you. Why would I plan a wedding?”
“Marry me,” Brandon demanded with no ambiguity whatsoever.
Taylor turned to gape at him. “That’s it?”
He was glaring at Taylor through exasperated green eyes. “Please marry me, you grumpy perfect bastard. I love you so much right now I swear I’d have your babies, but I don’t have a cooter.”
“Thank God for that,” Taylor said with feeling. “Yes. Of course I’ll marry you. Think Jacob would give you away?”
Nica started to giggle. “He could always sell you his cousin for a couple of sheep.”
Oh God. Taylor bent to kiss her brow. “Love you, sweetheart. Go to sleep. We’ll talk about this when you don’t have a little creature ready to gnaw on you in ten minutes.”
“Love you too,” Nica purred, snuggling down into the heinously uncomfortable hospital bed.
It really was time to leave the hospital room.
“Come on.” Brandon grabbed his hand. “I’ll continue your rubdown out in the corridor, where you can continue to fill me in on all the things we’re going to do for our wedding. What colors will the flowers be? The dresses all those girls are going to wear? Who is going to cater the event? Seriously, Tay—I’m dyin’ here. You didn’t just plan a wedding, you practically wrote a mystery novel.”
“Shut up!”
“Make me,” Brandon purred. They were out in the corridor now, so there was nothing to stop Taylor from whirling Brandon against the wall and pushing their mouths together in a passionate kiss.
Nothing at all.
Author’s Note
Y’ALL, I was writing about Sammy’s condition and the treatment, and then I thought, “Hey, how come I haven’t given blood in a while? Oh yeah. I’m anemic. Just… like… Sammy. Oh.” Taking care of your own health is the grown-up thing to do—but we tend to blow it off repeatedly. Take care of yourselves—you have people who love you.
AMY LANE is a mother of two grown kids, two half-grown kids, two small dogs, and half-a-clowder of cats. A compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head, she adores fur-babies, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckleheaded macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever or sometimes for no reason at all. Her award-winning writing has three flavors: twisty-purple alternative universe, angsty-orange contemporary, and sunshine-yellow happy. By necessity, she has learned to type like the wind. She’s been married for twenty-five-plus years to her beloved Mate and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.
Website: www.greenshill.com
Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167
Twitter: @amymaclane
By Amy Lane
DREAMSPUN DESIRES
THE MANNIES
#25 – The Virgin Manny
#37 – Manny Get Your Guy
#57 – Stand by Your Manny
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Coming in June 2018
Dreamspun Desires #59
His Leading Man by Ashlyn Kane
He wrote a comedy. Fate directed a romance.
Drew Beaumont is bored of the same old roles: action hero, supervillain, romantic lead. He’s not going to let a fresh gay buddy comedy languish just because they can’t find him the right costar. No, Drew bats his eyelashes and convinces everyone that the movie’s writer should play Drew’s not-so-straight man.
Aspiring writer Steve Sopol has never had a screenplay optioned. Now one of Hollywood’s hottest properties wants to be in a movie Steve hasn’t finished writing—and he wants Steve as his costar. Turns out the chemistry between them is undeniable—on and offscreen.
Drew swore off dating in the biz, but Steve is the whole package: sharp, funny, humble, and cute. For Steve, though, giving in to the movie magic means the end of the privacy he cherishes. Will the credits roll before their ride into the sunset?
Dreamspun Desires #60
The Best Worst Honeymoon Ever by Andrew Grey
How can heartbreak turn into happily ever after?
Tommy Gordon is all set for happily ever after—until heartbreak strikes when his husband-to-be leaves him at the altar. In a bid for distraction, his best friend, Grayson Phillips, suggests he takes advantage of the luxury honeymoon anyway! But the last thing Tommy wants is to go alone, so he invites Grayson and his son, Petey, along.
Beautiful Bonaire lends itself to romance, and along with close quarters, relaxing on the water, and a matchmaking kid, Tommy and Grayson soon find themselves closer than ever… and considering more, much to Grayson’s delight. But before they can plan the best best honeymoon ever, dark clouds descend in the form of Tommy’s ex and a sting from paradise that could ruin everything.
Coming Soon to
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Stand by Your Manny
© 2018 Amy Lane.
; Cover Art
© 2018 Bree Archer.
http://www.breearcher.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-104-2
Mass Market Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64108-002-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017951825
Digital published May 2018
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
