Afternoon Americano (Coffee Boys Book 3)

  AFTERNOON AMERICANO

  COFFEE BOYS BOOK 3

  BECCA BRANT

  Copyright © 2017 by Becca Brant

  Cover by Silver Heart Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  26. Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading!

  CHAPTER 1

  VINCENT

  “‘ I want to feel you inside of me,’ Laurence said, wrapping his fingers around the hot, hard length of Daniel’s cock–”

  “Jesus Christ, Landon!” I snapped my laptop shut and whirled around to glare at Landon, but he just laughed at me, and dropped into the chair next to me, slapping his balled-up apron on the table next to him. “Don’t you have any concept of privacy?”

  “You’re writing in a coffee shop, dude. You’ve got to deal with the possibility of someone reading over your shoulder.”

  “That doesn’t mean you should try to do it,” I said, straightening up and smoothing my clothes with an indignant huff.

  Landon waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Disrespecting your privacy is one of the perks of being your friend.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I said, opening my laptop again to check my email. I figured as long as he was interrupting me anyway, I could make use of my downtime.

  “I’m on break,” he said with a shrug. “You should take one too. You’ve been over here hunched over your keyboard all afternoon.”

  I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I can’t afford to take that many breaks right now. If I don’t hurry up and finish this book, I’m going to miss my release date.”

  “It still blows my mind that you write this stuff,” Landon said, shaking his head with a smile. “How can you write all these books about gay shenanigans if you’re straight?”

  “E. L. James isn’t a billionaire with BDSM tendencies, and she seems to do just fine.” I stopped to consider that for a second. “Actually, she might be now. But she wasn’t when she started.”

  Landon laughed. “Okay, you got me there,” he said. “I guess it’s more that I can’t believe you want to write this stuff. Isn’t it hard to do, when you don’t have the…experience?”

  “What I’m writing is about relationships, not sex.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Okay, it’s both. But the relationships are the more important part, and love is love, you know? Sure, there are experiences that are uniquely gay, but for the most part a relationship is a relationship, and the feelings that go into it are the same.”

  Landon rolled his eyes. “Right, because you’re such an expert on relationships.”

  He had a point there. For someone who wrote about love all day, I was pretty terrible at picking good partners for myself—I wrote epic tales of romance, but every relationship I had seemed to be a comedy of errors. It was such a predictable pattern that my friends (mainly Landon) kept joking about starting up a betting pool every time I started dating someone new. For all I knew, they were actually doing it.

  “It’s not like I don’t know the theory behind healthy relationships,” I said, aware that my voice was coming off a little defensive. “It’s just that I don’t…you know, have them.”

  Landon laughed again—from someone else it might’ve sounded cruel, but I knew Landon didn’t have a malicious bone in his body. “You’ll find someone eventually, dude. It might help if you didn’t spend all your time hanging out in a gay coffee shop.”

  “I like it here.” I said with a shrug. “And it’s kind of helpful. Helps me get into the right frame of mind.”

  “What, to observe the exotic gays in their natural habitat?” he said in an exaggerated documentary announcer voice, and I gave him a gentle punch in the shoulder.

  “Come on, you know it’s not like that. I just…I don’t know, it’s the atmosphere. And they have this little lending library that I can use for research sometimes,” I said, gesturing at the bookshelf behind me. “Plus, it’s the closest coffee shop to my house, and I’m lazy.”

  “Not too lazy to come out to Cicero’s tonight, I hope,” he said, poking me in the arm.

  “What’s at Cicero’s?”

  “Brady’s band—come on, don’t you pay attention?”

  “One of the perks of not living with the guy is that I don’t have to.” Landon’s roommate was a good guy, but I’d never really cared that much about his music—it was way too experimental for my tastes.

  “Well, a bunch of us are going out for drinks and to watch his show. It’s gonna be a good time. You should come, if you can tear yourself away from your weeping cocks,” he said, flicking the side of my laptop.

  “I dunno, weeping cocks are pretty compelling,” I said with a grin, then shook my head. “I can’t, though. I’ve got a date.”

  Landon let out a theatrical gasp. “What? Vincent McAlister has a date? Do we have to start up the betting pool again? Is it anyone I know?“

  “No and no,“ I said emphatically. “The girl’s name is Skye, I think? I’ve never met her—it’s a stupid blind date that Beth set up. I tried to cancel, but you know how Beth is.“

  “Do I ever,” he said darkly. “Sorry you were on the receiving end of it. I’m glad Beth hasn’t gotten me on her ‘this boy needs a boyfriend’ radar yet.”

  I nodded in agreement. Our friend Beth considered herself an expert in all things love and relationships, and when she got it in her head that someone needed a partner, they were getting one—whether they liked it or not. The best way to deal with her was just to smile and nod and play along until an even more unfortunate soul caught her eye.

  “Well, I hope you have a good time,” Landon said, sounding at least mostly sincere. “Maybe you’ll get laid and stop being so mopey all the time.”

  “I am not mopey,” I insisted. “I’m just quiet. Intense. A brooding creative type—that’s hot, right?”

  Landon snickered and gave me a solid thump on the back. “Sure, dude, if you say so. But if the whole thing goes belly-up and you need something to do for the rest of the night, you’re more than welcome to show up at Cicero’s.”

  I gave a heavy sigh. “That’s a more likely outcome than I’m likely to admit.”

  “Come on, Vincent—have some confidence. It’s sexy.”

  “It’s not that I’m not confident, it’s…” He gave me another of those raised-eyebrow looks. “Okay, I guess I’m not that confident. It’s just hard to think things are going to go well if they haven’t in the past. Anyway, I’m an unwilling participant here—as soon as she finds out I’m not looking for a serious relationship, she’s probably going to take off.”

  “Maybe not.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’ll turn out that she’s totally up for some no-strings-attached casual sex, and you’ll have a great night.”

  “Unlikely.” I snorted. “You’re kind of spoiled, only dating guys. Hetero dates don’t usually end in people groping each other like horny teenagers—not first dates, anyway.”

  “There’s an obvious solution to that,” he said, raising his finger in the air.

  “Believe me, if I ever decide to go gay, you’ll be the first to know,” I said with a laugh.

  He gave me a wicked grin. “Why? Are you gonna look to me to be your guide into the world of mystery?”

  “Ugh, no, you horndog.” I couldn’t keep a little bit of a laugh out of my voice, though. “I just meant you’re my friend and I’d tell you—your mind is always in the gutter.”

  “Not always—I can be romantic, too.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it. And what do you mean, ‘world of mystery?’ I write about gay sex for a living—I’m pretty sure I know just about all there is to know about your world of mystery.”

  “Except for one thing,” he said, grinning his “I’m about to say something dirty” grin.

  “Oh, come on—”

  “You don’t know how it feeeels,” he said, drawing the word out in a singsong tone.

  “I don’t need to know how it feels,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s what research is for.”

  “Suit yourself, dude. I’m just saying, your writing might improve for having that firsthand experience.”

  I chuckled, shaking my head again. He flashed me one more grin and pushed himself out of his chair, tying his apron behind his back. “You haven’t even read my books. You don’t get to critique them.”

  “Fine, I’ll read one.” There was a note of defiance in his voice.

  “Oh god,” I groaned, my head in my hands. I wasn’t especially shy
or ashamed of my writing, but somehow having a friend who knew me in real life read my work made me stress out beyond belief. Despite the gay stuff, I tended to put a lot of my own…well, fantasies and tendencies into my work, and the idea of someone I knew reading that made me feel all squirmy and on display. “Could you do me a favor and not tell me about it if you do?”

  “No promises, dude—you said I get to critique you if I read them.”

  “That’s definitely not what I said.”

  “It’s what I heard.” He glanced at the clock and let out a little sigh. “Okay, break’s over. Back to the grind.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table thoughtfully after he left. Something about his suggestion nagged at me—he’d made it before, of course, but I had usually brushed it off. This time, though, I found myself coming back to a particular memory.

  When I’d said that I didn’t have any gay experience, I’d been lying, just a little bit. Not like I’d done anything at all like most of the stuff in my books, but years ago a friend and I had once…uh…helped each other out. Just hands, nothing too serious—from what I understood, it was something a lot of straight guys tried at one time or another when they were drunk or horny or just really bored.

  Thinking back on that time now, I didn’t look back with regret or disgust, but at the time, I’d reacted pretty badly. I’d been a lot more uptight then, and after having my hand on the guy’s cock, I had a hard time being in the same room with him anymore without a rush of embarrassment and shame turning me into a stammering mess. My own hangups had eventually ended that friendship.

  Since then I hadn’t sought out another “friendly handjob” or anything, but I’d learned to accept what happened. Now when I thought about the experience, it was just…something that happened. Not bad; more like a pleasant diversion—I mean it was a hand on my cock. Of course it was going to feel good.

  I sighed and switched tabs back to my book in progress. If I was dwelling so much on this, it was probably a sign that I had gone too long without getting laid. Maybe this blind date would be a good thing after all. If this Skye girl I was meeting turned out to be interested in a casual thing, I could let off a little steam. And if she wasn’t, maybe I could try out dating again.

  I shook my head at myself. Okay, if I was going down those mental paths, it had definitely been too long since I’d gotten laid. I only considered relationships when I was feeling desperate.

  Chuckling silently at myself, I went back to work on my weeping cocks and hungry holes.

  CHAPTER 2

  VINCENT

  I sat at the table in Pho Grand, fidgeting with my napkin and menu and trying not to be an anxious horny wreck.

  I wasn’t doing a very good job at it.

  It didn’t help, of course, that I’d just finished up a particularly intense scene in my book—the big meaningful sex scene where the characters admitted their true feelings for each other and then proceeded to communicate those feelings with their dicks. I always ended up a little off-balance after writing those scenes.

  Was it narcissistic to get off on your own writing? It always made me a little self-conscious.

  It wasn’t even that I was getting off on it, not exactly. It was just that in a scene with so much emotion and so much sexual energy, it was hard to not be affected at least a little bit. I didn’t get a raging boner from it or anything, but I was often left with a sort of thrumming energy after I finished a particularly intense scene, a feeling of want and emptiness, of wishing for that sort of thing in my own life.

  Now I was left with that energy in a Vietnamese restaurant while I waited for my blind date to show up, and my nervousness wasn’t helping that energy disperse at all. I was starting to hope that my date did turn out to be one of the rare women who was into casual sex—not that I had a ton of casual sex as a general rule, but it could be a solid form of stress relief, and I was definitely in need of some of that right now.

  “Vincent?” a cheerful voice said, and I turned to see a guy with sandy brown hair and a wide, easy smile approaching my table. His face was dimpled but his clothes were smooth, clinging to his body in well-tailored lines that emphasized his not-too-bulky build. He reminded me a little of the protagonist in my latest book, actually.

  “Um, yes?”

  His face broke out in relief. “Oh, good—I always feel so awkward on blind dates, wondering if I’m about to embarrass myself with the wrong person. I’m Skye,” he said, holding his hand out to shake.

  This…was not what I’d been expecting. This was so far outside the realm of what I was expecting that I had no idea how to respond. My brain had suddenly jolted completely in the wrong direction, spinning off ineffectively like a car slipping gears.

  I furrowed my brow, trying to remember my conversation with Beth when she’d insisted on sending me on this date. Had she actually used a pronoun?

  Oh, right. Beth had been experimenting with using “they” as a default pronoun whenever she hadn’t been told otherwise. It was kind of cute, in a quirky “Beth” sort of way, and I had to admit it was, you know, very politically correct and socially sensitive and all.

  But it did occasionally lead to embarrassing moments like this, apparently.

  Skye’s face fell a little. “Wow, that’s…not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. Am I not your type?”

  I shook myself out of my stupor, grasping his hand and giving it a quick shake. “Nice to meet you. I just, um…you’re kind of not, in a manner of speaking.”

  He gave me a puzzled look. “What manner is that?”

  “I’m not, um…gay,” I finally said weakly.

  He gave me a disbelieving look. “That seems like a pretty big oversight. Why did you agree to come on this date, then?”

  I ran a hand through my hair, giving an exasperated sigh. “Beth somehow talked me into it, but she didn’t actually mention you were a guy. I definitely would have said something if I’d known.”

  He let out a laugh, clear and bright. “Oh my god, the pronoun thing, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a small laugh of my own. “I never even thought about it—I just chalked it up to the usual Beth-related weirdness.”

  “I probably would’ve done the same thing,” he said with another laugh. He had a nice laugh, not harsh or cruel at all, just a light, bright expression of joy, even as it was tinged with a hint of self-consciousness. “Beth is always such a trip. I remember this one time she —”

  Skye suddenly cut himself off, scrubbing a hand across the back of his head like he suddenly realized that he was standing in the middle of the restaurant with a guy who didn’t want to be on a date with him.

  “Ah, anyway,” he said, shifting on his feet a little, “I guess I’ll just be going, since this isn’t really what you signed up for.” He gave me an awkward little wave and started turning around to leave.

  The words were out of my mouth before I realized. “Wait, you don’t—I mean, you might as well stay.”

  Skye gave me a dubious look. “You’re really not obligated to go through with the date. I promise I won’t tell Beth.”

  “No, not like an actual date,” I said, feeling the tips of my ears burning. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly so desperate to keep this guy here—maybe because if I didn’t, I’d have no excuse for avoiding going to Brady’s show. “But obviously neither of us have other plans tonight, and it’s no fun to eat alone. We could just hang out for a while and talk about how weird Beth is.”

  Skye seemed to relax a little bit at that and he broke out into a wide smile. “If we do that, we’ll be here all night. But yeah, I suppose if you don’t mind…any excuse to have the spring rolls here is good in my book.”

  “Great,” I said indicating the other seat and putting on a dramatic announcer voice. “Let the not-a-date begin!”

  Skye laughed, fanning himself lightly with one hand. “Oh, you sure do know how to charm a guy.”

  He sat down, and we pored over the menus, making pleased noises at the offerings. I hadn’t eaten here in a while, and I was glad to have an excuse to do it—not that I couldn’t have just come here whenever I wanted, but going out to eat by yourself can be kind of a drag. Good food is better with company.