About The One that was Lost
Written by TC Blue
108 pages / 52500 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-721-3, 1-60370-721-2
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
Elliot is a player until a traumatic evening sends him running a friend's errand to Boston, where he meets up with Jamie. Jamie's a former short-term lover, and the two get along well enough, but Elliot doesn’t want a relationship. Jamie and Elliot end up being friends who are very attracted to each other, separated by distance.
Jamie likes Elliot and thinks they could have some fun together, right up until he realizes he wants something more, but Jamie tells himself it will never work. After they spend a night making love, the intensity of which scares Elliot enough to run away, Jamie tries to put Elliot behind him. When Elliot realizes what he’s given up, he goes looking to get Jamie back, but will Jamie make it easy on him?
Review
Kiernan Kelly, author of the In Bear Country books, writes: Jamie and Elliot are opposites in almost every sense of the word. Jamie is older, experienced, well-educated, and earns a good living, while Elliot is younger, blue-collar, and works at the local gym, but when sparks of the physical variety fly between them, they waste no time diving between the sheets for a few hours of good, old-fashioned, no-strings-attached buddy-sex.
When it's over, Jamie goes back to his life in Boston, and Elliot, to his job as a personal trainer, but neither are able to stop thinking about the other, even though both insist there's no chance for them to be anything other than casual lovers. What neither man counted on was becoming friends, or having that friendship threaten to deepen into something more profound than either man is ready to experience.
In "The One that Was Lost," TC Blue opens her characters' hearts and minds fully to the reader, giving us a wonderful look into the psyche of a pair of strong men whose hearts are deceptively fragile, and the rough and sometimes twisted path love takes. By turns sweet, scorching hot, and insightful, "The One that Was Lost" is a not-to-be-missed read!
Sample
"So you're the new sucker, huh?" Elliot said, pitching his voice low enough that Jim wouldn't hear. Of course, he could probably bellow the question without having his current roommate notice, the guy was so unaware of anything besides that fucking Michael who'd broken Jim's heart. For fuck's sake, didn't Jim have any dignity at all? Sure, Michael was back for a visit -- and looking nothing like the reedy, pasty, moping man Elliot remembered -- but he'd brought his boyfriend. That should have at least had Jim trying to seem less like… a moron, Elliot supposed.
Jim was just staring at Michael, even though he was obviously trying not to look like it… and fuck if Michael wasn't staring back, though the man was much better at hiding it than Jim was. And meanwhile, Michael's boyfriend was just standing there, acting like he didn't see, didn't know… which Elliot figured meant the big, studly moron was in denial.
Laughter wasn't the response Elliot had been expecting. In fact, he'd been hoping the boyfriend -- Jamie, he reminded himself -- would get offended. Possibly grab Jim's "Mike" and get the hell out of Trish and Chandra's apartment. That would have been perfect, actually. But it didn't happen, wouldn't happen, because Jamie laughed and shook his head.
"I'm guessing that's your way of asking about me and Michael," the man said, his blue eyes sparkling merrily. How could anyone be that fucking casual when their lover -- presumably monogamous lover, which just made Elliot cringe -- was paying so much attention to someone else? "It's really not any of your business," Jamie said, "but Michael and I aren't together. Or not in the way that you seem to think."
Elliot snorted. "Yeah, right." But for whatever reason, he wasn't at all surprised when Jamie took his arm and pulled him away from the others, settling in the far corner of the girls' living room. "Is this the part where you tell me that you're not fucking him? Because I may be younger than you… much younger than you. But I'm not stupid."
Jamie rolled his eyes, which was surprising. "Depends," Jamie said. "Is this the part where you try to convince me that you're fucking Jim? Be warned, though. I already know you're not."
The worst part was, it was the truth. He really wasn't fucking Jim. Or being fucked by Jim. Whichever. There was nothing even remotely sexual going on between him and the guy he lived with, which pretty much sucked beyond the telling of it.
Oh, he wasn't in love or anything; Elliot knew that much. But he wouldn't have minded the occasional night or two. Jim was fucking gorgeous. Tall, built, funny, smart… and still saw Elliot as some sort of annoying little-brother type. "We're not fucking," Elliot said. "We're friends."
Jamie smiled at him then, a real smile, and Elliot thought it was because he'd been honest. Of course, Elliot also thought it made Jamie even better looking than he'd already been, what with the way those azure eyes were shining. "But you want to be," Jamie said smugly, and Elliot let out one short, sharp puff of air.
"Well, duh," he said. "I mean, have you even looked at him? Yeah, I want us to be fucking. Just like you want to be fucking Mike." Because he'd just realized that the way Jamie watched Michael wasn't that "I can't wait to get out of here and naked" kind of look. It was the "God, please let me have this" look that Elliot tried to convince himself he'd never worn. "Shit," he said a moment later, looking into Jamie's eyes and noticing that he and Jamie were almost the exact same height, "Sorry, man. I just… we all figured that Michael coming back and bringing someone with him meant he was… y'know. My bad."
If he hadn't been watching so closely, Elliot thought he would have missed the small, pained smile that twitched Jamie's lips. But he was watching, so when he saw it, he pretended he hadn't. He didn't know the guy, but there was no point in making Jamie feel worse. Not when that bastard Mike had obviously hurt this pretty man just as much as he'd hurt Jim. And, huh. He thought Jamie was pretty, now that he knew Jamie wasn't responsible for any of Jim's pain. Go figure.