Handle With Care Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Sneak Peek

  Dedication

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Coming in November 2018

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  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  His fingers were still tangled with Tyler’s, and as Tyler turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket, Aaron let himself take a risk—just a small risk, compared to the ones Tyler had already braved—and leaned in until there was nothing separating them but the clothes they wore. Tyler let him in like he was expecting him, wanting him there, and the reality of their situation hit Aaron like a fist between the eyes.

  “I could have had this sooner, couldn’t I?” he asked, squeezing Tyler’s hand as he hooked his chin over his shoulder.

  Tyler exhaled, a little shudder rocking him at the end of it, and nodded. “Practically from the day you arrived, yeah.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would you even have believed me?” Tyler asked, his voice rough. “I didn’t think so. I didn’t want to shove the way I feel at you, in case it made you run. I’d do anything to keep you close, even if it means being your friend for the rest of my life, no matter what else I want.”

  Handle With Care

  By Cari Z.

  A fragile heart needs extra care.

  Burned-out social worker Aaron McCoy is on vacation for the first time in years—boss’s orders. Road-tripping to his brother’s wedding with his best friend, Tyler, seems a fun way to spend the mandatory two-week leave, and they set out for Kansas—and a difficult homecoming.

  Aaron’s mother was a drug addict, and his adorable younger brother was quickly adopted while Aaron spent his childhood in foster care. As Aaron mends fences, Tyler hopes to show him that this time, he won’t be left behind to face his problems alone.

  Aaron’s opening up to how right it feels to be with Tyler and the possibility of taking the leap from friends to lovers. But along with the wedding celebration comes a painful reminder of the past. Aaron’s heart is still breakable. Can he put it in Tyler’s hands?

  For Tiffany, who is always inspiring and was especially so for this book.

  Chapter One

  THE sound of Aaron McCoy losing the last thread of his sanity was a lot like the noise made by someone hitting the Escape key over and over, slowly building up speed as their desperation grew.

  “No. No, shit, nonono, this is not happening—” Compound the tapping on the keyboard with quiet disbelief that quickly turned into full-throated despair, and it was quite a way for his sanity to go.

  “Fuck you, you piece of shit, don’t do this to me!”

  YOU HAVE LOGGED OUT.

  “No I didn’t, you logged me out, you son of a bitch.” He smacked the side of the ancient monitor and resisted the urge to grab the tire iron from the back of his Prius and go full-on Office Space on it. “Fuck.” Two hours of entering case notes, right in the middle of what felt like his fiftieth page of documentation, and the system booted him. Because of course it did.

  Aaron pulled his glasses off and set them on his desk, then leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. The office was quiet except for the hum of his computer, mocking him in binary from two feet away. The lights were low, the door was locked. He was the only person there, which was good. Nobody else needed to see him defeated by the fucking TFACTS software.

  Okay. Fine. He had to start over with this case, but he could do that, he had time. Technically, Aaron had fifteen days to update his case files, and he’d only finished with this one on Friday. It was Sunday. But he knew, he just knew, that the minute he let himself think about drawing things out a little more, that was when he’d fall behind, thanks to circumstances he couldn’t control. Shit like his computer deciding to fuck with him, for example. In thirteen days, this would be a real problem. At the moment, it was just an inconvenience.

  “Some damn inconvenience.” His head hurt. His hands hurt, fingertips sore from two solid hours of work. But if he didn’t get the case files done right then, he wouldn’t have time to make his family visits tomorrow. He couldn’t put those off—they’d been scheduled for weeks, and it was hard enough to get people to comply with them without changing the dates and times he’d be meeting them.

  “M’kay. Right.” He let his hands slide down to his lap and stared balefully at the screen. YOU HAVE LOGGED OUT. “I’m logging back in, motherfucker, and you’re going to swallow all the words I cram down your throat if it’s the last thing you ever do.” He sighed, leaned forward, and reached for his glasses. He might have lost the battle, but the war was just starting.

  The sudden clamor of the Beastie Boys was enough to make Aaron jump out of his chair. That was Tyler’s ringtone.

  He grabbed for his phone, knocking his glasses to the floor while he was at it. “Damn it.”

  “Nice to chat with you too.”

  “That was a general ‘damn it,’ not one specific to you,” Aaron said. He didn’t dare move his chair while he felt around for the glasses. The way his evening was going, he’d roll right over them. “What’s up?”

  “It’s pub quiz night.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “And you said you’d meet me there. Remember? We were gonna be the Fool-Hardy Boys.”

  “Oh.” Right, he had said that. “I’m sorry. I’m still at work.”

  “Um.” It was still crazy to Aaron how Tyler could pack a dictionary’s worth of Tennessee drawl into a single syllable. “You know it’s Sunday, right? The day of rest? The not-as-good-as-Saturday-but-still-better-than-Monday day of the week?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So, why are you at work?”

  Aaron stopped looking for his glasses and rubbed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. Damn, but he had a headache. “Case notes.”

  “Uh-huh. For cases that ain’t due for another two weeks.”

  “I don’t want to get behind.”

  “You never get behind. You’re always ahead, that’s why nobody at your work wants to invite you to their barbecues on the weekend. You get that, right? Last thing they wanna do is ask what you’ve been up to and get their own work ethic smacked down.”

  “My team likes me,” Aaron objected.

  “Sure they do. You make their lives easier, but that don’t mean they want it rubbed in their faces. Case in point: you missin’ quiz night with your own family so you can argue with your computer instead.”

  “How did you know I was arguing with my computer?”

  “Figured that was who the ‘damn it’ was for.” Tyler paused, then said, “I’m right, aren’t I? I’m right!”

  Aaron could actually hear the grin spread across his face. “Nope.”

  “Yes I am. Don’t lie.”

  “I wasn’t swearing at the computer.”

  “You were swearin’ because of it.”

  “No, I knocked my glasses on the floor.”

  Tyler scoffed. “Yeah, I don’t believe that for a second. Look—”

  “I can leave now.” He might as well. The longer he went without reengaging with his enemy, the harder it became to force himself to do it. “The pub is just fifteen minutes away, I can get there fast.”

  “Aaron, hold up—”

  “No, I’m serious. I can
make it before it’s over.”

  “It’s already over,” Tyler said, more gently than Aaron probably deserved. “The quiz started at seven―it’s nine now.”

  Holy shit, when had it gotten so late? “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  “I did.”

  Aaron checked his phone. Sure enough, one missed call from Tyler. He must have been in the bathroom. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “S’okay.”

  Tyler always said that when Aaron was a douche, and as grateful as he was for the forgiveness, the fact that he kept needing it was entirely his fault. “No, it’s not. I’m a shitty person.”

  “Eh, you’re not so bad. ’Cept when you play Call of Duty, but I’m kind of counting on that to make me feel better.” If they’d been in the same room, Tyler would have just nudged Aaron with his elbow. “I’m cashing in on your guilt. Come over to the house and play video games with me.”

  Aaron chuckled. “I swear, you’re still fifteen.”

  “Don’t be ageist, man. Video games are for everyone. And hey, I’ve got beer.”

  “Video games and beer,” Aaron deadpanned. “Wow, that’s a fantastic evening in, no wonder you’ve got to beat the ladies off with a stick.”

  “The guys tend to like it, though.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Aaron wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever get used to the sheer ease with which Tyler referenced his bisexuality. It wasn’t that Aaron had a problem with it; he was gay and out since he’d come to Tennessee. To be out, though, he’d had to leave Kansas first. It wasn’t like there’d been anyone there to care, but the group homes were enough trouble without his sexuality being thrown into the mix.

  Tyler had come out when he was sixteen, a year after Aaron had come to live with him and his parents when he began college. Arranging for him to stay with the Howards had been the greatest thing that Child Protective Services had done for Aaron before he’d left Leavenworth. The Howards were kind, warm people that made Aaron feel welcome, and their only kid left at home, Tyler, had latched on to Aaron like a leech. Ten years later, he still hadn’t let go.

  Tyler informed his mother he was bisexual one morning by mentioning, very casually, that he was going to skip Homecoming because “Gina dumped me because I’d rather spend time with her brother than her, and Carl doesn’t want to go to the dance, so we’re gonna hang out here instead, okay?”

  Diana, his mother, had sighed. “Honey, you aren’t datin’ Gina’s brother just to make her mad, are you?”

  “No!” Tyler had replied, affronted. “I’m datin’ him because he’s hot! And Gina didn’t really want to date me anyway. She just wanted to say she was dating me. At least Carl likes me.”

  “Mmkay, then. Bring him on by, but you’re sleepin’ in different beds.”

  “God, Mom.”

  And that had been that. Aaron had felt light-headed when he’d left the breakfast table, glancing back over his shoulder just to make sure that Tyler wasn’t going to get hit as soon as he was out of the room. Nope. Diana just poured herself another cup of coffee. His father Theo had been just the same when he found out.

  “So are you comin’ over or not?”

  Aaron snapped back to the present. “Yeah. I’m coming.”

  “Good! See you soon.”

  Aaron pocketed his phone, retrieved his glasses, and shut his computer down with a baleful “Screw you” as he stood. It was going to be a late night after all, but at least he’d be able to enjoy it after this. He turned out the light on his desk, grabbed his jacket, and locked the door to the cubicle bay as he headed for his car. It was almost summer, and he didn’t really need to bundle up, but he never felt as warm as it seemed like everyone else did down there.

  Tyler lived twenty minutes out from Tipton Hollow, on a county road lined with red maple and blackjack oak trees. The house was a big one, two stories with five bedrooms that had housed various children and foster children over the years.

  Diana and Theo had retired to North Carolina last year to be closer to their largest crop of grandchildren, and Tyler had managed to get together the money for a down payment on his family home. He was renovating it, but in true Tyler fashion, only when he felt like it.

  Aaron parked next to Tyler’s gratuitously large, souped-up 4Runner, a ridiculous car for someone who worked at home.

  “But that’s the whole point!” Tyler had said when Aaron pointed it out. “I’m not gonna be usin’ it all that much so my carbon footprint won’t be much different than yours, but if any of my friends needs a guy with a truck, now I can help out. Win-win.”

  “Your reasoning skills are truly bizarre,” Aaron had said. Tyler had thrown a potato chip at his head.

  Inside, the house was a weird hodge-podge of Tyler’s comfort-minded sense of style and his parents’ aggressively Southern sensibilities. The walls were covered with floral designs, pink roses and baby’s breath displayed in indelible wallpaper bouquets every few feet. The ceilings had crown molding at the edges, the oak cabinet against the wall still held the 12-piece set of china dishes that the Howards had received for their wedding, and Aaron automatically hung his jacket on the coatrack set up by the door.

  The things Tyler had focused on first were the items he used the most: he’d exchanged the sitting room love seat for a long leather couch, replaced the vacuum-tube television for a sleek, enormous flat-screen TV that filled half the wall, and installed an ergonomic workstation for himself that filled Aaron with envy. Tyler’s office chair was possibly the most comfortable thing Aaron had ever sat on, and it had a massage feature as well. Tyler could get a fucking massage while he teleworked. Bastard.

  Right then, though, Tyler wasn’t working; he was sitting in front of his television, his shoulders twitching along with his hands as he played Call of Duty. All that space, and he’d folded himself up into one corner of it, legs crossed, face intent as he tried to shoot his way out of trouble. It didn’t help that his cat was currently occupying his lap, and from the look of things Tyler hadn’t tried to move her. Smart man. Evil Cat was evil.

  Aaron flopped down onto the couch and kicked his feet up onto the coffee table with a sigh. “Man, fuck this day.”

  “You say that about every day,” Tyler noted, glancing over at him with a smile.

  “I mean it about this one, though,” Aaron insisted. “This day can die in a fire. This day can get strung up on the rack and broken in two for all the shit it’s put me through.”

  Tyler’s glance was more lingering this time. “It’s gotta be bad if you’re gettin’ medieval on its ass. What happened? Apart from working on a Sunday like a damn fool?”

  “Nothing.” Aaron shut his eyes, then yelped as Tyler whacked his controller against Aaron’s knee. “Ow! Fucker!”

  “Why do you lie to me? And when you do, why do you do it so damn badly?” Tyler asked. “You don’t come here and tell me everything is shit and then not tell me why. All it does is make me curious, and you know how I am when I’m curious.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure you won’t throw a cherry bomb down my toilet just to see what happens when it explodes.”

  Tyler was already snickering. “Oh, yeah. That was so funny.”

  “The school didn’t think it was so funny. Your mom didn’t think it was funny.”

  “You did,” he insisted.

  “No, I didn’t.” Actually, it had been terrifying at the time, before he’d known how awesome Diana and Theo were. Instead of a beating, Tyler had gotten a lecture that had left him in tears.

  “Well, I thought it was funny. Clue would have thought it was funny, right, baby?” He let go of his controller to pet his tabby’s head. The cat nipped at his finger.

  “That looks like dissent to me.”

  “You just don’t speak the language of the kitty cat.” Tyler petted her again. Clue stretched, splaying her six-toed feet wide, then jumped out of Tyler’s lap and sauntered over to her food bowl.

  “Why didn’t you rename her wh
en you adopted her?” Aaron asked.

  “Because then I wouldn’t have gotten a clue, are you payin’ attention, man? And don’t try to change the subject, I know all your tells. Why did your day suck so bad?”

  Aaron sighed. “Len left today.”

  Tyler frowned. “You ain’t dated Len for almost six months. What’s the problem with him finally leavin’ for Nashville?”

  “He asked me to go with him.”

  Tyler’s jaw dropped, and his eyes opened so wide Aaron was afraid they’d fall out. Tyler was cute in a too-much-personality-to-be-contained way, lanky and blond and perpetually scruffy. He did big expressions well, and shock was especially funny on him.

  “What, today?”

  “No, six months ago.”

  “What the hell did you tell him?”

  Aaron raised an eyebrow. “No, obviously. Since I’m still here.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Now it was Aaron’s turn to frown. “I know you guys weren’t friends or anything, but you were singing a different tune six months ago when I broke up with him.”

  “That’s before I knew he tried to lure you to Nashville! Never mind givin’ the guy a chance, screw him if he wanted to get you to leave. He can go enjoy his cold bed in the big city and be thankful for it.”

  Aaron laughed. “Wow, you’re getting proper Southern vengeful about this! I don’t know why, but it’s hilarious. Keep going.”

  “Nah, I’m done.” Tyler stared at the TV, then shook his head. “Actually, nope, I’m not. But I want another beer before I go on a tear. You want one?”

  “Sure.” Aaron still—astonishingly—had a room there. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d crashed at Tyler’s after drinking a few too many beers, and he was more than ready for one. He had a spare suit in the closet, he’d be fine.

  Tyler bounded off the couch and over to the kitchen. Aaron shut his eyes and listened to the open-shut of the fridge, the soft hiss of the caps coming off, and the slap of Tyler’s bare feet on hardwood as he returned with a—