by Jerry Cole
“Full Exposure”
Gay for You M/M Romance
Jerry Cole
© 2019
Jerry Cole
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/.
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 (2019.09.25)
http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com
Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: A. Pittmoore, D. Fair, Julian White, Penny T., Earleen Gregg, Bailey H.S., RB, JayBee, Jenn, JS and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Chapter One
It isn’t the clock blinking 2:24 a.m. in the bottom right corner of his computer that gets Scott to lean back in his cheap swivel chair. In the end, it’s the fact that when he goes to set down his glasses and rub at his tired eyes, there’s no space on his overflowing desk amid the mass of empty water bottles and stacked dirty dishes. Groaning, he tucks the glasses carefully over the collar of his t-shirt, pinching the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to clear the headache building behind his eyes. He can’t remember how long he had been perched at his computer, tapping out lines of code until the letters and numbers began to blur together. With a sigh that fills the empty space of his apartment, he stands up, letting out an undignified noise of relief when his back pops back into place, and begins to gather up the army of water bottles surrounding his computer monitor.
This late at night it’s quiet in the weird, oppressive way that he hates. Somewhere in the ten to fifteen hours he’d been stuck behind his desk, the busy hum of the city outside his window had dulled to nothingness, and even the family living upstairs had gone to bed. He half missed the pounding of feet that shook his ceiling during the day, if only for the reminder that other people exist around him. Stumbling past the scattered shirts and unmatched socks on his living room floor, he dumps the armful of bottles unceremoniously onto his kitchen counter and begins methodically crumpling the air out of each one. It’s a routine he’s familiar with, one he finds himself in every few days or so, when he gets enough of a breather between his usual cycle of working, eating, and crashing on the lumpy futon in his living room to make a half-hearted attempt at acting like a functioning human being.
Scott’s phone blinks at him from its resting place next to the microwave, and he reaches over to tug it off the charger. When he uncrosses his eyes long enough to look at the screen, the words “Gabriel (3)” are emblazoned across his notification bar, and Scott’s mouth pulls tight.
Gabriel: Are you eating?
Gabriel: Wait, that’s a stupid question, of course you’re not
Gabriel: I’m leaving you takeout. Do me a favor and put something other than chips and ramen in your stomach before you sleep
Right on cue, his stomach growls loudly, reminding him that it really has been several hours since the last time he had anything to eat. Dumping the last of the empty water bottles into the recycle bin next to the counter on his way to the door, he steps outside and nearly plants his foot right into the takeout box on his doorstep. It had probably been sitting out for a few hours, but Gabriel always knows better than to get him food that would go bad outside of the fridge with how infrequently Scott actually checks his phone. Picking up the box, he opens it to reveal a cold panini from the shop down the street, and he sends a quick you’re a lifesaver to his best friend as he slides the sandwich from its box to one of the few clean plates left in his cupboard. He sticks it in the microwave without fanfare, leaning back heavily against the countertop as he watches the plate turn through the little microwave window.
His phone lights up at the same time the microwave timer goes off, and Scott nearly drops it in surprise.
Gabriel: Oh, you’re alive now?
Gabriel: It’s a Christmas miracle
Scott snorts at that, pulling the plate out of the microwave and setting it on the counter. He fumbles out a reply with one hand, holding half of his panini in the other.
Scott: And you’re up past your bedtime
Gabriel: Ha ha, very funny. Eat your food.
Gabriel: And leave your house tomorrow. You haven’t seen the sun in weeks
That prompts a frown at his phone screen, and he closes out of his message app to check the calendar. He had left his apartment on the third of the month to pick up groceries and deposit a check into his bank account, and now it was only—October 22. Damn it.
Another message from Gabriel flashes across the top of his screen, and he clicks on the notification before he can feel too guilty about disappearing off the face of the earth for three whole weeks.
Gabriel: You’re checking the date now, aren’t you?
Scott: You can’t prove anything
Gabriel: Just go out tomorrow
Gabriel: Go see a movie, take a walk in the park, join a knitting club. I don’t care. Just PLEASE get some fresh air
Scott sighs. He knows Gabriel is right, really. It’s not as if he can’t afford to take a day or two o
ff work. He’s on his own schedule, and he gets enough comments asking how he manages to churn out programs like they take no time at all. He just never has the heart to say it’s because he averages four hours of sleep a night. Still, something in him balks at the idea of going out, of walking around the city like he has places to go and people to see, because he just doesn’t. Gabriel would always be happy to see him, of course, but that comes with the guarantee of his personal brand of pity and motherly fussing over how skinny and tired Scott is sure he looks, and he isn’t sure he’s ready to face that just yet.
Scott: There’s air inside
Gabriel: Scott.
Gabriel: I know you don’t like this time of year, but it’s not healthy to live like this for so long. It’s been what, five years?
It takes Scott a couple moments to realize he’s clutching his phone so tightly his knuckles have turned white, and when he does, he sets it gingerly back down on the counter. It flashes with a new message notification, and he steadfastly ignores the prick of hurt in his chest that comes with it, focusing instead on finishing his food before it gets cold. He takes bites of the sandwich methodically, paying attention to the movement of his jaw with each one, back turned to the counter so he can’t see his phone light up anymore.
Five years. It’s been five years, sure, and he hasn’t forgotten for a day since. Five Novembers, five cold and heartless Novembers, and when he makes the trek out to the cemetery next month, it’ll be the fourth time he sits with his back against the headstone and clutches his hands into fists so tightly his nails leave red crescent marks on his palms. When his sandwich is gone, plate cleaned of crumbs and spilled sauce leaving him without another viable distraction, he sets his shoulders stiffly and picks up his phone again.
Gabriel: Low blow, sorry. I know how much you miss her.
Gabriel: I’m going to bed, but really. Please go out tomorrow. It’ll be good for you.
A twinge of guilt curls in Scott’s gut, but he shoves it down. Gabriel’s not mad at him, even if he knows he’s acting like a petulant child. He sends off a conciliatory sleep well and thumbs back to his calendar, scanning the dates for anything pressing. The deadline for his current job isn’t coming up for another two weeks, and at the rate he’s been going, he doubts he needs much more than a few days to finish it. He doesn’t really have much of an excuse. He supposes he can spare a few hours to go out for a real meal at a real restaurant, maybe walk down to the river running through downtown to throw some bread at the ducks and pretend he’s one of those brooding literary heroes that likes being alone in the middle of a crowded city.
The autumn chill is starting to spill through the walls of his apartment into his living room, and he’d rather stifle under a mountain of blankets than sleep cold, so for once, he abandons his couch and makes the short trudge down the hall to his bedroom. There’s a pile of dirty laundry at the foot of his unmade bed that he kicks unceremoniously onto the floor with the hollow promise that he’ll run it all through the washer downstairs later in the week. When he crawls underneath the heap of covers thrown haphazardly over the mattress and shucks off the clothes he had been wearing for who knows how many days, the fatigue hits him with the blunt force of a freight train, and he’s out like a light before he realizes his eyes are shut.
The early afternoon light is gray and hazy when Scott blinks his eyes open, body heavy in the way that only comes with a full night of sleep. His head is fuzzy, his mouth feels like it’s full of cotton and tastes like something crawled inside and died. Sometime in the night he had kicked his blankets around so much that they had become less a cover and more of a nest around his legs. Still, he has to admit it’s nice to be able to sleep through an entire night. He must have been more exhausted than he thought if he managed to get through without shuffling out of bed like a zombie five hours in.
Sleeping in a real bed and not on his couch probably helped a bit, too.
When he reaches a hand over the side of his mattress and grapples blindly around on the floor for his phone, his fingers hit the side of a bowl that had probably been there since the last time he slept in the bed, and he grimaces. He can’t even remember the last time he slept in his room. With a huff of displeasure, he rolls over just enough to peer over the side of the bed, steadfastly ignoring the bowl and grabbing his phone from where it had fallen in his sleep. Gabriel’s thread of texts still fills the screen when he unlocks it, and he types out another through blurry, squinted eyes.
Scott: Taking your advice and going out today
Scott: My apartment looks like someone died in here
The response comes near instantaneously. Scott gives a little sigh of relief at the proof that Gabriel really hadn’t taken their conversation to heart the night before.
Gabriel: I thought you did three weeks ago. Have fun
Gabriel: If you know how to do that
Scott wrinkles his nose. Of course he knows how to have fun, he just hasn’t had the time lately.
Cereal is the first thing on his agenda for the morning, but something nags at him in a tone that sounds suspiciously like Gabriel’s voice, and he finds himself going into the fridge for milk and coming out with two eggs and a pack of bacon harrowingly close to the expiration date in hand. He can’t remember the last time he cooked for himself. Code binges usually come with a choice between starvation or copious amounts of takeout and instant meals. Scott has a feeling Gabriel would knock down his door bare-handed to feed him if he so much as dropped a hint that he skipped a meal.
Still, he manages a halfway decent job of scrambled eggs, somewhat relieved that no one else is around to see if he burns the bacon, and more inhales the meal than eats it with how hungry he is. He’s just getting up to dump his plate in the sink when a knock on his front door echoes through the kitchen. It stops him in his tracks for a moment, hand hovering the plate in the empty space above the kitchen counter, and he fumbles for his phone with his free hand to check the date. Thursday, October 22 shines brightly back at him. Gabriel would be at work on a Thursday afternoon. Scott doubts even his best friend would sacrifice his half hour lunch just to run over and make sure he was sticking to his promise.
Leaving the plate on the counter and stepping out of the kitchen, Scott pulls open the front door to an empty hallway. A sense of deja vu sweeps through him as he shuffles past the doorway and actually does plant his foot on the little cardboard box left at his doorstep. He hopes that, this time, there wasn’t any food inside of it. Down the hall he can hear the sound of footsteps pounding up the staircase, teenagers coming home from school and not caring who hears them. He pries his foot from the top of the box and absconds back into his living room with it.
It’s not addressed to him, and that’s the first thing he notices when he sets it down on the counter. Instead of the customary Scott Carter stamped across the front, there’s only the letters E. A. sitting right above where his address is printed in a neat hand. They got that much right, at least. It wasn’t delivered to the wrong door, which would have made for a pretty awkward first encounter with whichever one of his sorry neighbors had gotten their mail both delivered to the wrong door and stepped in. He’s never had a roommate either though, and he’s fairly sure he doesn’t know anyone with those initials, at least not well enough to warrant having their mail sent to his house.
He shakes his head and sets the box to the side. He can forget about it for a few hours, at the very least. He promised himself and Gabriel a nice day out, and after toying with the notion of taking a day off work, the idea is far too tempting to go back on. E.A. and the box are shoved indelicately to the back of his mind as he changes into jeans and a hoodie, running wet hands through his hair in an attempt to make it look like he hadn’t spent the last month alone in a cave. It doesn’t do much, of course, but it smooths down the bigger flyaways and makes him look at least halfway presentable, despite the fact that he’s pretty sure he could be mistaken for his miserable college self if not for the hin
t of stubble shadowing his jawline.
When he looks up into the mirror above his tiny bathroom sink, a gaunt face looks back at him. The bags under his eyes have hardly receded despite his full night of sleep, standing out like angry gray half-moons against his pale skin, and the perpetual five o’clock shadow peppering his cheeks makes him look more like a haggard old conspiracy theorist than a brooding hero. With a groan, he drops his face to splash it with icy water, steadfastly avoiding his reflection in the mirror when he stands straight again.
***
The air is crisp when he steps outside, the heavy heat of summer finally beginning to give way to the harsh bite of autumn, and Scott wonders absently how much of the weather change he had missed while cooped up in his apartment like a hermit. The leaves on the trees lining the sidewalk are just beginning to turn, hints of red and gold edging the green like gilt on paper. He doesn’t get caught up in the flow of lunch hour foot traffic so much as he’s swept along with it, finding himself sandwiched between a couple of businessmen in tailored gray suits, chattering away on their cellphones and paying approximately no attention to Scott trailing by between their shoulders. He breathes in deeply, lets the smell of city life and cold, clear October air fill his lungs as he shoves his hands deeper into the front pocket of his jacket and paces along at the speed of the crowd. He doesn’t have much of a destination in mind other than the vague idea that the direction he’s going leads to some spot along the river running through the middle of the city, but that doesn’t bother him much. Just being outside is nice enough for him, the breeze running over his skin already brushing away the ache in his bones and the stale feeling of being alone for too long. Gabriel would be proud.
On a whim, Scott digs his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and snaps a quick photo to send off to his best friend, his feet motion-blurred in frame against the gray of the pavement. Gabriel sends back a thumbs up and a smiley face.
