by Max Hudson
“Finding You”
An M/M Gay Romance
Max Hudson
© 2019
Max Hudson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.
Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/ (courtesy of Jerry Cole).
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.
Edition v1.00 (2019.12.25)
http://www.maxhudsonauthor.com
Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: RB, JayBee, Naomi W., Bob, Jon Niehus, E.W. Gregg and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter One
Simon Dove
Wednesdays were always a bit of a toss-up. Sometimes, things went surprisingly well. It was always good to see Minnie, even with other company. And, most weeks the food was actually really good, provided his best friend didn't have another burst of "inspiration" about a meal that the three of them could prepare together.
Of course, that was the problem, wasn't it? The hot mess portion of the evening, which invariably came. Every week it came. Sometimes it was the end of dinner, sometimes the middle and sometimes it was even at the door as they were saying goodbye. However, most of the time it was from the second he set foot in the house.
Because it was never just him and Minnie. No, no, Wednesday night "family dinners", as his friend had dubbed them, were a three-person affair. And it was the third person that somehow had a special gift of just making him see red.
He didn't even really know why, if he bothered to put some effort into thinking about it. He had dealt with plenty of difficult people—hell, he did it on a daily basis! Working in customer service, dealing with people who seemed to take a special glee in making his life difficult was quite literally his job.
"Heads up, Dove!"
THWACK!
"Ow!"
Right on cue, almost as if his thoughts had summoned him. Simon took a breath in, then let it out slowly and carefully, turning fractionally on the spot to look back over his shoulder toward that voice. His eyes flicked down, searching for whatever it was that had bounced off his shoulder moments ago and pointedly not looking at the man now strolling up Minnie's driveway.
An apple? Really? I'm gonna kill him, Simon thought.
Okay, deep breaths, deep breaths. Raising his head, Simon finally allowed his gaze to land on the infamous third member of these weekly dinner parties. "Adrian." He nodded in what he hoped was a coolly polite manner, but had a sneaking suspicion came across more as "stilted and awkward." He toed the apple for a moment, then gave it a light kick to send it rolling through the grass across Minnie's lawn. "Was throwing something at me entirely necessary?"
Adrian Crow, the apparent bane of his existence, snorted and shot him that cocky little half smirk that Simon had become all too familiar with in the last four years. "Well, ‘heads up’ usually means you're supposed to catch something," the tiny menace chuckled, blue eyes glinting up at him as he tilted his head back. "I'm surprised you didn't know, honestly."
Simon gritted his teeth. Keep calm, just keep calm, he does this on purpose. "Yeah, I'm aware of the general concept. Why did you even have an apple?"
Adrian shrugged and rocked back on one heel as he reached the doorstep where Simon had been waiting for the last few minutes. "What, you never need a snack?"
Simon just stared at him, droll and unamused.
With a huff, Adrian rolled his eyes and relented, "All right, all right. Minnie asked me to pick some up at the store for tonight. I was just having a bit of fun." He shrugged and nodded toward the bag bearing the circular logo for the local farmer's market hanging from his elbow as he spoke.
Simon narrowed his eyes a bit and pointed out coolly, "That doesn't really answer—fine. Why does Minnie need apples, then?"
Adrian shrugged again. "Hell if I know, I just do what Boss Lady tells me." When Simon rolled his eyes at that particular nickname, he noticed Adrian's expression sour, just a bit, just for a moment. "All right then, Riddler, enough with the third degree. I thought I was the journalist here?"
Simon just shrugged in answer and lifted his hand to knock at the door again. It really wasn't like Minnie not to answer right away. Maybe she was upstairs or something and could not hear them at the door. "Yeah, well, she always has a reason. Guess we'll just have to find out."
Behind him, Adrian groaned dramatically. Simon felt his shoulders tense, but he didn't look round. "You see, that's your problem, Dove. You're not curious."
"Not being nosy doesn't mean I'm not curious."
"Nosy, huh? What's wrong with nosy? Some of the greatest revelations in human history happened because someone was nosy."
"And that's what you're aiming for, is it? Not overly ambitious or anything."
"Better that than boring."
"I am not!"
"I never said you were!"
Adrian's hands went up, eyes widened innocently as Simon whirled on him. He smiled, and if Simon hadn't known better he would have said in that moment he looked almost cherubic. "Just making conversation, Dove, no need to get defensive."
Simon swallowed a noise that rose up in the back of his throat, something very like a growl. An actual growl. God, why did he let the little nuisance get to him so easily? How? "Right, well, if you wanna make conversation you can just—"
"Hang on."
Simon snapped his mouth shut, glaring but honestly a little bit relieved that he had been interrupted. He really had no idea where he was going with that particular sentence.
Adrian was frowning—not at him this time, but at the door. "How long have you been waiting?"
"Huh?" Simon blinked, taken aback. He looked from the door to Adrian and back. "Oh, uh...a few minutes. Why?"
Adrian had pursed his lips and was staring at the door as though it was some sort of puzzle he could not quite figure out. Without warning, he moved up onto the step beside Simon, crowding him up against the door frame. "Whoa, what—?"
"Shhhh." Adrian pressed his ear to the door, three distinct lines drawn between his brows. After a few moments, he glanced up sidelong at Simon and murmured, "You don't think it's weird? That she hasn't answered you yet?"
Simon found himself frowning now as well, though more in confusion than an
ything else. "What, she's not allowed to be busy?"
"She's never busy on Wednesdays, you know that as much as I do," Adrian replied quickly. He straightened up and stared at the door, then abruptly banged the flat of his palm against the wood several times. Simon jumped. "Hey! Minerva! We're here, open up!"
"Jesus!" Simon glowered at him and started to reach for his wrist to drag his hand down, then remembered himself and snatched his hand back at the last second. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he hissed.
"Shhh. Listen." Adrian held up a hand. There were two extra lines in his brow by this point.
Grumbling quietly to himself, Simon subsided. He listened. Nothing.
There was nothing. Nothing in the house.
"Maybe she's out?" He frowned and reached into his pocket for his phone. "I mean, maybe she had to run an errand or something and she got held up?"
"Without letting us know?" Adrian shifted his weight onto one hip and cocked an eyebrow. The bag of apples was forgotten at his feet. Simon could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes. "That's not like her and you know it. Something's up."
Simon rolled his eyes, scrolling through his contacts until he found Minnie's name and hitting "call." "That your investigative journalism senses tingling?" he muttered.
Adrian huffed, leaning closer as the phone rang. "It is, as a matter of fact. She picking up?"
"Well give it a second." Simon leaned away from him and had to stop himself from smirking, just a little bit too pleased that Adrian had to stretch up onto his toes if he wanted to try to get closer to him now.
BZZZ...BZZZ...BZZZ...
"Look, she's not picking up. I told you something was weird—"
"Would you just calm down for five freaking seconds and—"
BZZZ...BZZZ...CLICK.
Call ended.
Simon lowered the phone from his ear slowly, his eyebrows creeping up toward his hairline. Okay, that was a bit odd. "Hung up," he muttered, staring at the now dark screen as though that might offer some answers. "Didn't even let it go to voicemail."
"Give it."
Before he could react, Adrian had snatched the phone out of his hand. "Hey!"
"Shush!"
TING!
"Text message." Adrian swiped his thumb across the screen and quickly tapped in Simon's pass code.
"Hey, what the hell, man?!"
"Oh, come on. Your birthday, Dove, really? It's not that hard to figure out."
A flush crept up his neck and Simon subsided with a quiet grumble. Adrian ignored him, frowning intently at the screen. After a moment, Simon relented and leaned over the smaller man's shoulder. "So? What's..."
His question faded into the back of his throat as he saw his answer on the screen.
Minerva had seemingly fired off a quick text to their Wednesday night group chat when she had hung up on his call: Sorry guys family dinner postponed for a while. I'll let you know.
"Oh." Simon felt his eyebrows drawing together, lips tightening a bit. "That's weird. Why wouldn't she have said something earlier? That wasn't just out of character that was almost downright suspicious.”
Probably just had something come up. Maybe a work thing, he told himself. With a soft sigh, he moved to take his phone back from Adrian. "Well, I guess we just head home? Kind of annoying, actually, I'm surprised she didn't say something sooner."
"Really?" Adrian twisted to look up at him, his grip on the phone still tight. Simon was pretty sure it was unintentional, but that particular move had the investigative journalist pressing up against his front, and he was quite abruptly and viscerally reminded of just how close they were squeezed together on that doorstep. He made a valiant effort to ignore it.
Apparently unbothered, Adrian continued, "You're just going to leave? After that? You don't even want to try to figure out what exactly is going on here?"
Glaring down at him, Simon tugged on his phone again and Adrian finally relented, allowing him to snatch it back. The sudden lack of resistance threw off his balance slightly though, and he wobbled a bit before he managed to get his balance back. God, please don't have let him have noticed that. That would be all he needed, more ammunition.
Now more than a little peeved with the whole situation, Simon snapped back, "What, what's there to figure out? Minnie decided she can't host dinner for a while. That's not weird, it's just a bit out of character that she waited so long to let us know." Like an afterthought. Like he and Adrian were secondary to whatever else was on her mind. That okay, that really wasn't like her. Minerva Dowell was possibly the most compassionate and considerate person he had ever met in his life.
”Everyone has an off day. Didn't mean there was anything nefarious going on.”
"You really think that's true? You think this is all just some normal, inconvenient coincidence."
“I wouldn't necessarily say it's inconvenient not to have to see you every week.” Sure, he had miss the extra time with Minnie, but honestly a break from "Family Dinner" was seeming more appealing by the second. "Yes, I really think that. She probably just had a work thing come up or something, it's happened before."
"Yeah, but never without warning. And her ’work things‘ tend to be a bit more serious than yours. She's a detective, not a teller."
Simon glared and tried to think of something to quip back with, but came up blank. Damnit.
After a moment or two, Adrian snorted at him, twisting to duck under his arm and stand in front of the door, once more staring at it as though it was some sort of puzzle with the answer just out of reach. "Well fine. You go on home then, I'm not stopping you. But I want to know what's going on here. So, I'm not leaving until I get some answers."
Simon bit back a long-suffering groan and glanced up and down the street. All they needed now was some overly nosy, well-intentioned neighbor to phone in a "suspicious sighting" of two men loitering on Minnie's doorstep. "And how exactly do you plan to do that?"
Adrian grinned at him, and he felt his stomach sink.
Chapter Two
Adrian Crow
“Honestly, it’s like you’ve never broken into a house before.”
Simon grumbled something behind him, probably something not very polite, and Adrian smirked to himself. He really just makes it too easy. “Come on, move it. Last thing we need is some overly conscientious neighbor getting suspicious,” he muttered as he finished jimmying the lock open from the outside of Minnie’s back gate. “Honestly, I’ve told her time and again she needs to get this thing fixed. You’d think a cop would be a bit more on top of this sort of thing.”
“Right, because I’m sure we haven’t already made anyone suspicious by standing on the stoop and arguing for the last fifteen minutes,” Simon hissed. Adrian rolled his eyes and stood to the side a bit to let the much larger man squeeze passed him through the tiny gap he had opened in the gate.
“If anyone saw us, they probably thought it was normal,” he assured, following after once Simon was through. “Any neighbors nosy enough to be looking knows that we’re here every Wednesday, and they know we argue. Do you know where she keeps the back key?”
“What?” Simon blinked at him for a moment. His shoulders hunched forward as he seemed to be sort of caving in on himself, glancing around nervously every so often. “No. I don’t. I thought you had a plan?”
Adrian rolled his eyes. “I do have a plan—the plan was to use the backdoor key, but failing that I have a backup plan.”
“Oh good. A backup plan. Excellent,” Simon said.
“Would you stop with the nervous rabbit routine?” Adrian rolled his eyes as he knelt to check under the doormat. They probably had a good few minutes before they were at risk of someone seeing them. Minnie’s yard had a pretty high fence, and as far as he knew none of the neighbors had windows facing directly toward it. “Honestly, if anyone were looking, your nerves would be a dead give-away, you know.”
“No, I don’t know because I don’t make a habit out of breaking int
o my friends’ houses,” his companion snipped back at him. When Adrian glanced back, he saw that Simon had folded his arms over his chest and hunched his shoulders up even further.
Does he think that makes him look smaller? If that’s what he was aiming for, it really didn’t work. “I don’t break into my friends’ houses, usually,” he replied calmly, rolling his eyes. “Mostly office buildings, actually. Shit, nothing here.”
With a sharp exhale, he sat back on his heels and reached into his front pocket, brows drawn together as he rooted around for a moment. I know I had something…Ah!
“Victory.” Grinning quietly to himself, he got to his feet and set about feeding the bobby pin he had retrieved from his pocket into the lock of the backdoor.
Behind him, he heard Simon shuffle a little closer and felt the sudden influx of heat against his back. “Okay. Why did you have that?”
“Were you not listening?” He rolled his eyes, not bothering to look back. “Breaking into office buildings. No one expects the irritating little journalist who’s after that story about their dirty profits to actually know how to pick the lock on their office door. Aha! There we go.”
The lock gave with a soft click and he straightened up, feeling rather pleased with himself. It was always a bit of a rush, doing that. Sorry, Min.
“So you just…carry bobby pins around in case you need to break and enter?” Simon muttered, incredulous. Adrian could not help smirking a bit. For a moment, he could have sworn there was a hit of impressed underneath the disbelief in his tone.
“Nah.” He tried the knob, twisting carefully to make as little sound as possible as he slowly began to push the door open. “I mean you can use a lot of things as a lockpick. I’ve got the bobby pins because my niece had her dance recital today…And we’re in.”
Cautiously, he peered around the edge of the door and into Minnie’s darkened living room. He could not really see anything suspicious, or even out of the ordinary, but he hardly expected to find the answer to this little mystery at first glance. Moving slowly, aware of the sound of every footstep, he began to creep into the room, beckoning Simon forward with a quick flap of his hand over his shoulder and a softly hissed, “C’mon, and be quiet.”
