2017 Top Ten Gay Romance

by J. M. Snyder

  Chase was instantly on his feet, then lowering himself to his knees beside me. He took my hand, and I turned my body to face him. He touched my cheek, and only then could I tear my gaze away from the cake.

  “I love you. I have from the very beginning. Every day, that just gets deeper. You’re my heart, Eli Brenner. And I never want to be without you.” He let go of me long enough to untie the bow and hold up the ring. “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes. Oh, God, yes.” I laughed and leaned forward, kissing him hard, feeling giddy. I hugged him so tightly, I practically fell into his lap. I squeezed him all the harder when realization dawned. “This is why you didn’t want to move in with me.”

  Chase chuckled, kissing my hair. “I’d rather move in with my fiancé then just a boyfriend.”

  I knew in that moment that fairy tales really did come true. I pulled back to look into his eyes. “And even better, I get to marry my prince.”

  THE END

  Wake-up Call by Becky Black

  Chapter 1

  The racket that woke Dez could accurately be called caterwauling. Cats. Yowling and making noises he’d never heard cats make before.

  What the hell? That bloody café. He was about to pull the duvet over his head to block out the noise when he heard a crash and a yell. That brought him jumping out of bed with little conscious thought—and immediate regret as his feet thumping the floor jarred his bad shoulder. He bit down on the pain and moved through the flat in the dark, not wanting to lose his night vision by turning on a light. Streetlamps shining through the thin curtains on the living room window gave him enough illumination to find the door.

  There was a lot of crashing and yelling going on now. He undid the two locks and three bolts of his front door, which opened into the dimly lit common hallway. Down a half flight of stairs, the door of the other flat on this floor stood open, and the noise came from inside it. As he watched, the door suddenly slammed against the wall and two men fell into the corridor, struggling. Dez ran down the stairs two at a time.

  “Police!” he yelled, though he didn’t have his warrant card when clad only in pajama trousers and a T-shirt. “Stop!”

  The men froze and stared up at him. He instantly recognized one as the resident of the flat, the guy who ran the café downstairs. The cat café. From inside the flat, the caterwauling continued.

  The other man, a stranger, unfroze first, and as Dez strode towards them, he shoved away the café guy, who crashed to the floor. The stranger scrambled up and ran down the stairs to the street door.

  Dez instinctively started to run after him, but first glanced at his neighbor. The man had blood on his face, but he was moving, trying to get up. So Dez pursued the attacker pounding down the stairs.

  “Police!” Dez shouted again, trying to find the voice he hadn’t used in months. Trying to find that authority again. The man turned. A silhouette, a deeper shadow in the darkness, and raised his arm—

  GUN!

  Dez froze, muscles jamming. His mind narrowed to a single point, to what he could see in the man’s hand.

  He has a gun, he has a gun, he has—

  The man moved slightly, enough to allow light from the narrow window halfway up the stairs to fall over his shoulder, showing something long and thin, a jemmy or tire iron.

  Dez gripped the handrail so hard he feared he’d come away with a palm full of splintered wood. For a long breathless moment, he and the stranger stuck that way, like a buffering video, then the man turned and fled down the stairs. The front door opened, street light spilling in, and slammed closed. His footsteps were audible for a couple of seconds, then faded.

  Dez unfroze. His legs shook and he wanted to run back to his flat and lock himself in. Sleep. Make this all a dream that would disappear in the morning. But as he mounted the top of the stairs, he found his neighbor still on the floor, groaning and holding his head. Dez dropped to a knee beside him. He had a nasty jagged cut over one eye, and both eyes were unfocused. Dez helped him sit against the wall and looked him over for other injuries, but saw nothing.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “He’s gone. Do you know him?”

  “What…? No…heard a noise and he was in the flat.”

  “And you tackled him?” This guy was a waif type, slight and barely over five-seven. “Not clever.”

  “Had to…the cats…”

  Yeah. The cats. The yowling continued from behind a closed door inside the flat. Best to keep them behind said door. A lot of panicking cats would only add complications to the scene.

  “What’s your name?” Dez asked. They’d spoken a couple of times, and he thought they’d exchanged names, but that had been a while back, when he’d been in a painkiller haze a lot of the time. Now, it came to him in a flash. “Mr. Green, isn’t it?”

  “Francis Green, yes. Ow, my head, fuck, ow.” He looked at his hand, the bloody fingers. “Oh, hell.”

  “Phone?” Dez asked.

  Francis waved vaguely at his door. “Beside the bed.”

  Dez left him leaning against the wall and hurried into the dim sitting room. He turned on the light and found an open door into a bedroom. In the light from the lamp by the rumpled double bed, he saw a mobile phone on the nightstand. He picked it up and pulled out the charging cable into which it was plugged.

  It was 1:47, he noted as the phone lit up. It needed a code to unlock it. Dez tapped the Emergency Call button on the screen.

  “Police and ambulance,” he said when they asked what service he required. He rattled out the address. “One casualty, male, mid-twenties, head injury. Intruder fled the scene, gone west towards Dean Street…Ah, yes, I’m a police officer. Off duty. Derek Walker.” Yes, he thought, hearing the pause before the emergency operator spoke again. That Derek Walker.

  Through the bedroom door, he saw Francis Green stagger into the flat and flop onto the sofa. Dez hung up the phone with the reassurance that help would be with him in minutes, and headed out to Francis. On the way, he almost fell over an open bag on the floor. A quick glance at the contents told him it was housebreaking tools. He left them untouched and knelt by Francis. The head wound was still bleeding freely. Francis seemed too shaky and dazed to put much pressure on it, so Dez stripped off his T-shirt and wadded part of it into a pad to hold over the wound.

  “Ow,” Francis muttered, looking at Dez with pained eyes, but not trying to pull away from him.

  “An ambulance will be here shortly,” Dez said.

  “You’re a policeman?” Francis asked, voice trembling.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  That was how Dez preferred it. He’d spoken to his neighbor only a couple of times. They were the sole residents of the upper-story flats in the converted townhouse. Francis had a much bigger flat than Dez’s. The man lived “above the shop,” running the cat café that took up the ground floor.

  “I should check the cats,” Francis said. “He was trying to get in there. There’s a door down to the café, the safe in the office.”

  “He didn’t get through. The cats sound fine.” Nothing wrong with their lungs anyway. Though they were quieting now that the banging and crashing had stopped. But they were clearly unhappy, and a fresh banging on the door from below set them caterwauling again.

  * * * *

  “No,” Francis protested. “I don’t want to go to hospital. I’m fine.” The paramedic was taping a dressing over his cut. “I have to stay here.”

  “Is this about the cats?” Dez asked. When the police and paramedics had shown up, he’d let them in and had given them an account of what he’d witnessed. He knew one of the officers, vaguely. The other, a probationer, he’d never met. Now, both of them looked at him with an annoying amount of curiosity.

  “I don’t want people going into the cat room and letting them escape,” Francis said.

  “You really do need to go to the hospital, Mr. Green,” the paramedic said as she packed away her gear. “You probably have a
concussion. I’m sure your cat will be fine.”

  “Cats,” he clarified. “There are ten of them. For the café.”

  She looked baffled.

  “Go to the hospital,” Dez said. “I’ll stay here and make sure the cats are okay.” He could easily imagine one of the uniforms blundering in and letting the moggies escape. Freaked out as they were, who knows where they’d run? And they were probably all exclusively indoor cats.

  Francis looked at him, eyes still unfocused. “You? Well, I suppose…Don’t let them out of that room, please.”

  “I promise.” The caterwauling had died down to an occasional plaintive meow.

  As the paramedics got Francis on their casualty chair, Dez hurried into the bedroom, grabbed a coat hanging behind the door, a pair of shoes from under the bed, and the phone. In the living room, he saw a wallet and keys in a basket by the front door. He took the wallet and followed the paramedics and their patient downstairs to the ambulance, standing half on the curb. A couple of people were hanging about to stare at the show, but it was too late for revelers from the night before and too early for morning workers. As the paramedics put Francis in the ambulance, Dez handed him the coat, shoes, wallet, and phone. With those, he could get himself home when they released him.

  “You want me to call anyone for you?” Dez asked. “Your parents?”

  Francis shook his head, winced, and waved a hand instead. “No, don’t. No point in scaring them. Just…take care of the cats till I get back, please.”

  “No problem.”

  Dez closed the door and the ambulance’s siren and blue light came on. It pulled away from the curb and raced down the road. Dez glanced around. The few looky-loos stared back at him, so he was glad he’d taken the time after the paramedics and police had arrived to return to his flat and put on shoes, sweats, and a hoody. He went back inside.

  In Francis’ living room, he found the probationer pointing out a couple of magazines on the coffee table. Attitude and Gay Times. She looked at Dez as if wondering whether he’d been here with Francis when the burglar arrived.

  The other copper, Smithson, Dez now recalled meeting three times before on joint operations. “Think this was a domestic, not an intruder?” he asked Dez. “Some bloke he picked up?”

  For fuck’s sake.

  “Who just happened to be going equipped?” Dez asked, nodding at the burglar’s tool bag.

  “Maybe he had plans for later,” Smithson said.

  “The door from the hallway is forced,” Dez pointed out. “It was an intruder.”

  “Well, we’ve got your initial statement. You can come to the station now to give a full statement if you want.”

  Dez suppressed a shudder. “Not tonight. Send someone ‘round tomorrow.”

  Smithson’s face fell. Maybe he’d wanted to be seen around the station with the man the newspapers called “Hero Cop.” Tough luck.

  “Are you done here?” Dez asked.

  “Aye. I don’t have to tell you not to handle the door or that bag,” he said. “SOCO will be later this morning. Don’t let Green touch anything either if he comes back from the hospital before then.”

  “I’ll tell Mr. Green. What about the street door? Was that forced?”

  Smithson nodded. “We’ll secure it for the time being. It’ll need a locksmith after SOCO finishes with it.”

  “Looks like I’m on guard duty then.”

  “Cat-sitting,” Smithson said, smirking, nodding at the door, which Dez noticed bore a plaque with a design of several cats frolicking.

  Great.

  * * * *

  When the street door was secured, Dez headed upstairs. He managed to close the door into Francis’s flat without leaving his prints on it, and headed for the cat room. It was locked, but Dez found Francis’ keys. Things had gone quiet inside. He slipped inside, wary of any feline escape attempts.

  He found a room with dim, soft lighting. It didn’t have much in the way of furniture—not for humans anyway—but had a lot of cat beds, a couple of tall elaborate play towers, and various ramps and shelves on the walls, forming walkways for the cats, so they could climb high. Boxes of cat toys stood against the walls. There was even a cat-sized exercise wheel. Several pairs of eyes, flashing in reflected light, watched Dez from the high shelves or the top platforms of the play towers. They probably felt safer up there, with all the noise and strange voices. A few braver souls had remained on the floor, but hiding inside various kitty houses and small pop-up tents.

  Dez put his fists on his hips and looked around. “Right, who’s in charge here?” he asked, voice mock stern. The cats continued to stare. Well, he knew the best way to a cat’s heart.

  He found the small kitchen area and the long row of food bowls. Diligently, he cleaned the bowls, piling them on the draining rack. As he worked, he heard a few soft thumps as cats made their way down from the high places. When he glanced at the door, he saw several of them watching him warily. At last, one bravely ventured into the room. A big ginger tabby. It sat by Dez’s feet, looking up at him. After the trailblazer, others followed, and before Dez knew it, he had an audience of several cats. When he got the food pouches out of the cupboard and filled the bowls, the cats started to meow and slalom around his feet, tails stuck straight in the air. Yes, this was definitely the way to a cat’s heart.

  They must have been trained not to jump on the counter as they stayed on the floor. When he started laying down the bowls, quite a scrum ensued, but at last he had ten bowls out and the cats split up to a bowl each. He kept an eye on them, making sure none of the bigger ones swiped food from the smaller ones. Eventually sated, they started to wander off to the other room again. A couple hoovered up any food other cats had left. Probably ex-strays, he thought. Never leave food, because you never know when there will be more.

  When they were all done, he washed up and stacked the bowls by the sink again, then followed his charges into the other room. Many of them had curled up to sleep, some in beds, but several in other places. There were no armchairs for humans, just a couple of beanbags. This wasn’t part of the public area, like the café downstairs, but where the cats lived outside of opening hours, so the place was set up for them, not for people.

  Dez sighed. Beanbags. Good grief. Carefully, he sat in one and found it wasn’t so bad if he reclined. In fact, as he settled in, it felt quite comfortable. He could easily go to sleep…

  No. No sleep. He was supposed to be on guard. And he feared nightmares, triggered by the police, the ambulance, the blood, the gun…that wasn’t a gun. He’d been certain in that moment, when the light had fallen on it, and he’d seen it was clearly not a gun. Yet he’d remained frozen to the spot. Now, he had to turn his thoughts from it, but it wasn’t easy with nothing to distract him. Images flashed in his head and he groaned. Not now. No flashbacks. Gotta look after these damn cats. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face.

  He felt himself starting to spiral down when a weight on his legs made him open his eyes. The trailblazer, the ginger tabby, was climbing up his legs. He flinched a bit, hoping it kept in its claws when it walked over his crotch. It did and stopped on his stomach. It looked at him for a while, out of yellow eyes. It appeared older, and its fur stuck out oddly in places, like it had been stitched back together. All the cats were from a rescue center, Dez remembered reading on a poster outside the café. Cautiously, not wanting to spook it, he reached to the disc on the cat’s collar, which showed the name Riley.

  “Hello, Riley,” Dez said.

  Riley cocked his head, pushing it under Dez’s hand. Dez took the hint and gave him some ear and cheek rubs. Riley approved with some purring. After a couple of minutes, he settled onto Dez’s stomach after kneading it for a moment. Warmth spread through Dez, like he had a furry hot water bottle sitting on him. He left off the ear-scritchies and stroked the cat’s back instead. It began to purr steadily, eyes closed and whiskers quivering. Around them, a couple of cats still wandered around
playing for a while, but soon they, too, curled up into furry balls and slept.

  Chapter 2

  “Looks like you’ve been making friends.”

  The voice woke Dez out of a doze. He blinked awake, trying to orient himself. There was a weight on his stomach—Riley still lay there. It was Francis Green who’d spoken. He stood in the open doorway, head bandaged, looking quite the orphan of the storm, wearing a coat over pajamas pants, a hospital gown, and shoes with no socks.

  “How’d you get in?” Dez asked. He didn’t sit up. Riley wasn’t the only cat cuddling up to him. A couple more had sneaked closer during the night and lay either on or right beside him.

  “Those CSI people are working on the doors,” Francis said.

  Dez glanced at a clock on the wall. Almost nine. Good grief.

  “SOCO, not CSI. How’s your head?”

  “Fine. Well, fine enough.” A couple of the cats had greeted him, and he picked up an all-white, elegant shorthair. “You stayed in here all night?”

  “You asked me to take care of the cats and this is where the cats are.”

  “Fair enough. Give me a second, I have to change clothes. Then I’ll make some breakfast.” He passed the white cat to Dez, obviously not finding it strange that Dez wasn’t getting up, still pinned down by cats. “Look after Daenerys while I change.”

  Dez took the shorthair and it settled on his shoulder, like one of its namesake’s baby dragons. He sighed. “I can’t stay like this all day,” he told the cats. He ticked Riley behind one ear.

  Whiskers twitched, then Riley opened his big amber eyes. He yawned enormously, unfolded, and stretched.

  “No, no, no—no claws!” Dez begged.

  Too late. Riley didn’t dig in too hard, but Dez definitely felt the points of those claws touch his skin. Riley caught a claw in the fabric of Dez’s sweatshirt, impatiently shook it out, then jumped off Dez’s stomach. The others on and around him woke and stretched, too. Daenerys stayed on his shoulder, and this time he felt the prick of claws in his shoulder as she held on while her ride stood up. Well, there wasn’t much she could do to mess up that shoulder worse than it already was.