by T. J. Klune
Then, “Hey, Phillip?”
“Yeah?”
“Why’d you keep it like that?”
“Keep what?”
“The ring. Why’d you wear it around your neck?”
Phillip opened his eyes again. “Because it hurt to see it sometimes. On my finger. To remember… you know. But I also knew that one day, we’d find our way again. I put it on the chain and wore it around my neck. I could always feel it against my chest. Even when I’d forget about it, somehow I always felt it.”
“Oh. I took my ring off for the first time earlier tonight.”
“Not once when you were gone?”
“Not once.”
“Can you…?”
“Can I what?”
“Can you put mine on me again?”
“You want that?”
“Yes. Almost more than anything.”
Almost. Because they both knew what they did want more than anything.
But this was a start.
And so David opened his hand where Phillip’s ring sat. The chain had dented his skin with a strange little pattern. He fumbled with it until he slid the ring off the chain. And in the dark, he slid the ring back on his husband’s finger where it belonged.
Something settled in his heart.
“You need to go back to speak to someone,” Phillip said quietly. “I don’t care if it’s a therapist or a group or what. You can go alone. Or I can go with you. But you have to, David. You have to. You need help. You can’t go on like this. You can’t. It’s killing you. And I need you to be strong. For me. But mostly for her. Both of us have to be. Because if she’s still out there, she’s going to need us to be the best that we can be. It’s the only way. Can you do that? Can you do that for me? For her? I can’t lose you too. I can’t. I just can’t. I haven’t gotten my fill of you yet.”
“Yeah,” David said. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I promise. I swear. I’ll do that. Anything you want. Can I come home now? Please? Phillip? Can I please come home now?”
A single tear leaked out from Phillip’s right eye. It trailed over the bridge of his nose before it fell onto the pillow. “I’d like that that very much.”
David kissed him again, slow and sweet.
They were almost asleep when Phillip spoke again. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“We should make waffles. In the morning. I think I’d like that.”
Then he was gone, eyes fluttering shut.
And before David followed him, before he allowed himself to believe for the first time in a very long time that things might just be okay, he whispered two words.
Two words meant for the man sleeping beside him.
Two words meant for a girl named Alice, out there somewhere in the world.
He was asleep a moment later.
Olive juice.
More from TJ Klune
Gustavo Tiberius is not normal. He knows this. Everyone in his small town of Abby, Oregon, knows this. He reads encyclopedias every night before bed. He has a pet ferret called Harry S. Truman. He owns a video rental store that no one goes to. His closest friends are a lady named Lottie with drag queen hair and a trio of elderly Vespa riders known as the We Three Queens.
Gus is not normal. And he’s fine with that. All he wants is to be left alone.
Until Casey, an asexual stoner hipster and the newest employee at Lottie’s Lattes, enters his life. For some reason, Casey thinks Gus is the greatest thing ever. And maybe Gus is starting to think the same thing about Casey, even if Casey is obsessive about Instagramming his food.
But Gus isn’t normal and Casey deserves someone who can be. Suddenly wanting to be that someone, Gus steps out of his comfort zone and plans to become the most normal person ever.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Once upon a time, in an alleyway in the slums of the City Of Lockes, a young and somewhat lonely boy named Sam Haversford turns a group of teenage douchebags into stone completely by accident.
Of course, this catches the attention of a higher power, and Sam’s pulled from the only world he knows to become an apprentice to the King’s Wizard, Morgan of Shadows.
When Sam’s fourteen, he enters the Dark Woods and returns with Gary, the hornless gay unicorn, and a half-giant named Tiggy, earning the moniker Sam of Wilds.
At fifteen, Sam learns what love truly is when a new knight arrives at the castle—Knight Ryan Foxheart, the dreamiest dream to have ever been dreamed.
Naturally, it all goes to hell when Ryan dates the reprehensible Prince Justin, Sam can’t control his magic, a sexually aggressive dragon kidnaps the prince, and the King sends them on an epic quest to save Ryan’s boyfriend, all while Sam falls more in love with someone he can never have.
Or so he thinks.
In the small mountain town of Amorea, it’s stretching toward autumn of 1954. The memories of a world at war are fading in the face of a prosperous future. Doors are left unlocked at night, and neighbors are always there to give each other a helping hand.
The people here know certain things as fact:
Amorea is the best little town there is.
The only good Commie is a dead Commie.
The Women’s Club of Amorea runs the town with an immaculately gloved fist.
And bookstore owner Mike Frazier loves that boy down at the diner, Sean Mellgard. Why they haven’t gotten their acts together is anybody’s guess. It may be the world’s longest courtship, but no one can deny the way they look at each other.
Slow and steady wins the race, or so they say.
But something’s wrong with Mike. He hears voices in his house late at night. There are shadows crawling along the walls and great clouds of birds overhead that only he can see.
Something’s happening in Amorea. And Mike will do whatever he can to keep the man he loves.
Do you believe in love at first sight?
Paul Auster doesn’t. Paul doesn’t believe in much at all. He’s thirty, slightly overweight, and his best features are his acerbic wit and the color commentary he provides as life passes him by. His closest friends are a two-legged dog named Wheels and a quasibipolar drag queen named Helena Handbasket. He works a dead-end job in a soul-sucking cubicle, and if his grandmother’s homophobic parrot insults him one more time, Paul is going to wring its stupid neck.
Enter Vince Taylor.
Vince is everything Paul isn’t: sexy, confident, and dumber than the proverbial box of rocks. And for some reason, Vince pursues Paul relentlessly. Vince must be messing with him, because there is no way Vince could want someone like Paul.
But when Paul hits Vince with his car—in a completely unintentional if-he-died-it’d-only-be-manslaughter kind of way—he’s forced to see Vince in a whole new light. The only thing stopping Paul from believing in Vince is himself—and that is one obstacle Paul can’t quite seem to overcome. But when tragedy strikes Vince’s family, Paul must put aside any notions he has about himself and stand next to the man who thinks he’s perfect the way he is.
Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.
Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane.
Ox was seventeen when he found out the boy’s secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.
Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces.
It’s been three years since that fateful day—and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.
When TJ KLUNE was eight, he picked up
a pen and paper and began to write his first story (which turned out to be his own sweeping epic version of the video game Super Metroid—he didn’t think the game ended very well and wanted to offer his own take on it. He never heard back from the video-game company, much to his chagrin). Now, over two decades later, the cast of characters in his head have only gotten louder. But that’s okay, because he’s recently become a full-time writer and can give them the time they deserve.
Since being published, TJ has won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance, fought off three lions that threatened to attack him and his village, and was chosen by Amazon as having written one of the best GLBT books of 2011.
And one of those things isn’t true.
(It’s the lion thing. The lion thing isn’t true.)
Facebook: TJ Klune
Blog: tjklunebooks.com
E-mail: [email protected]
By TJ Klune
Burn
How to Be a Normal Person
Into This River I Drown
John & Jackie
The Lightning-Struck Heart
Murmuration
Olive Juice
Wolfsong
AT FIRST SIGHT
Tell Me It’s Real
The Queen & the Homo Jock King
Until You
BEAR, OTTER, AND THE KID CHRONICLES
Bear, Otter, and the Kid
Who We Are
The Art of Breathing
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
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.
Olive Juice
© 2017 TJ Klune.
Cover Art
© 2017 Reese Dante.
http://www.reesedante.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: 978-1-63533-502-6
Published April 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
