About Scarlet: Through the Walls

by Dallas Coleman
58 pages / 16400 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, epub, Sony-optimized pdf

Robert thinks it's a pretty good deal when his boyfriend Dan moves into the old house he lives in. It may be an apartment one floor down instead of moving in together, but it will save him a lot on gas when the time comes for a booty call.

Bad things start to happen once Dan gets unpacked, though, all of them seeming to come out of the dumbwaiter Robert loves so much. Robert and Dan both think they might be losing their minds, but there's more than meets the eye to the dumbwaiter and all of the trinkets it brings in this traditional horror tale with a romantic twist!
 

Sample

"Dan, where do you want this box of books, man?" Robert's arms were already tired from walking up the three flights of stairs carrying boxes and his ass and thighs were going to be hurting for days.

Days.

Still, it was worth it, to get Dan moved in to the same old house as him, just one floor up. It was going to save them tons on gas, on time. He'd been spending an enormous amount of time and energy hauling himself across the city to far north Austin to deal with their booty calls, which, okay, had jumped from once a week to three times, maybe four. His pickup couldn't handle that, though. He'd replaced the rings last month, a rotor the month before, and the fact was, he was low enough on the totem pole at the Discoverer that he wasn't able to afford it all.

Not that his lover could either. Dan worked at the university in one of the tiny libraries shoved away in a soulless research off campus building where only the geekiest, weirdest grad students came to beg to see some ancient tome of blah or wonder.

Then, two months ago the school had announced that Dan's library was moving from shiny and soulless to dank and dark, but already paid for, and now Dan's perfect empty apartment was twenty minutes and an hour and a half in traffic away from work. They'd both spent two weekends apartment hunting, but the students were in every available slot, and the places that were big enough and decent enough were too expensive.

They'd talked, for about seven seconds, about moving in together, but…

Dan was a fucking librarian, for chrissake.

Robert still lived the life of a junior reporter. Up whenever, going wherever, doing whatever the guys wanted. It wasn't the type of life for…

Dan.

Dan, who Robert thought he could almost definitely, possibly be thinking about being in love with.

Dan, who was hot in bed, always there and ready, but staid and solid out of it.

Dan, who might possibly one day be kind of his.

Maybe.

Still, Robert hadn't even come close to maybe ever before. Hadn't even come close to possibly maybe. That was why, when Paul had come to tell him Mike had moved to Dallas for a job at NorTel, and broke the lease on the third floor apartment without even a see ya, Robert had texted Dan immediately. Ten minutes later Robert had been at Paul’s bottom floor front door with Dan's deposit check in-hand before the place could be snapped up.

Right?

Right.

It'd be nice to have the booty call one floor down.