About Mandarin Orange: Sweet & Sour
by TC Blue
225 pages / 67200 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-191-3
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html, lit, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, prc, epub, also available in
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Riley has never been the kind of straight guy who sneers at gay men.
Hell, most of his best friends are gay, and it only matters when Riley wants
to drink a plain old beer at the froufy bars they drag him to. He can look
and appreciate, but dudes just don’t do it for him. Or so he thinks, right
up until the new downstairs tenant arrives almost literally on Riley’s
doorstep.
The raging storm and motorcycle crash with which Kelly makes his entrance
pale in comparison with the battle inside Kelly himself once he gets to know
Riley. Riley is damnably hot, nice, and exactly Kelly’s type, except for one
little thing -- according to all the evidence, Riley’s straight.
Is love truly blind, or does it just wear blinders? Riley and Kelly need to
figure it out before the labels and categories drive them irrevocably apart.
Sample
No one ever said having the front wheel of a motorcycle
jammed into an SUV's wheel well was a good thing, Riley thought with a grunt
as he strained to drag the bike backward. Unfortunately, jammed was exactly
the right word. He hadn't thought Kelly had been going that fast when the
impact occurred, but it had been enough to mess up the guy's helmet and
cause a minor concussion, so what did Riley know? And maybe the seemingly
permanent joining of vehicles had something to do with the rain. Like the
wetness made the rubber slicker than usual and the bike's wheel had pushed
in farther and harder than it could have done while dry.
Now, of course, it was dry, which might explain the degree of difficulty in
uncoupling Harley from Ford. The added weight of the trailer-type
contraption that Riley had managed to disconnect from the motorcycle had
probably contributed to the degree of connectedness, too, but the fact that
the trailer was up against the side of the house didn't seem to be helping
much right then. "Fuck, I'm gonna have to lube it up."
"Um, excuse me?"
Kelly stood on the front walk, a grin on his face, though Riley didn't know
if the smile was due to the way he'd jumped at Kelly's voice or what Riley
had just said. Only one way to find out, though, so Riley repeated what he'd
thought a moment or so earlier.
"I'm thinking you got it way deep in there because it was so wet, man, but
it's dry now, and just jerking it at random isn't doing any good. So maybe
if I work something slick in there, it'll be easier to slide you the fuck
out again. Make sense?" Riley shrugged and Kelly burst out laughing. "What?"
Kelly shook his head slowly. "Nothing. Just... no, never mind." That grin
was still there, though.
"What?" Riley demanded again, crossing his arms and trying to look stern.
Another head shake. "I don't know you well enough to say what I'm thinking,"
Kelly said, shoving his hands into the front pockets of what Riley knew were
freshly laundered jeans. "It might freak you out or something."
Riley cocked his head, trying to figure out what the hell Kelly was talking
about. Then he replayed his own words and it hit him. "Fuck," he said,
laughing, "I say that kind of shit all the time, man. Jer says I'm missing
my brain-to-mouth filter, but what the fuck ever. I just think it's funny."
And sometimes he didn't even notice when he said things that might make
other people -- like Kelly, apparently -- try to censor themselves. Weird.
"I guess it is," Kelly agreed once Riley had gone back to examining the
intimacy of the vehicles. "Honestly, you kind of reminded me of my kid
brother for a minute, there. He's seventeen, but his sense of humor stopped
maturing around twelve."
Riley's loud snort was deliberate. "And you're what? Twenty going on forty?
Please. Now do us both a favor and find me something to oil these babies up,
okay? Or... wait. I'll do that. You need to get your ass back upstairs and
rest or some shit. You had a fucking concussion yesterday, man."
"I'm twenty-four. And I feel okay now," Kelly answered, and Riley snorted
again.
"Shut the fuck up, get inside, and sit your ass down. Play with your fucking
dog or something. Or... fuck. He didn't shit in my house, did he?" Because
that would suck. Goober already smelled bad enough. The last thing Riley
needed was to have his apartment stinking of dog shit on top of it.
Kelly's eyes rolled. Riley saw it while he stalked toward the porch. "I took
him out a couple hours ago. You were still asleep. He's fine. But I need to
find a store. I gave him what little food didn't get ruined by the rain, but
there isn't any left now."
Well, shit. That was what Riley got for taking in a guy with a big-ass
fucker of a dog, wasn't it? "Fine. Get upstairs. I'll get your bike the fuck
separate from my ride, then you can tell me what kind of shit we need for
Goober, okay?" And Uncle Peter was going to get a fucking earful, just as
soon as the man started answering his phone.