Southern Winterland

Hey guys! Have a new story coming out on December 6th. Southern Winterland is a Christmas short and the prequel to my upcoming series with MLR Press, so make sure to check it out!

From the By Degrees Universe meet Christian and Remy, close friends who may be destined to be something else…

Christian Murphy is out, proud and very often loud.

Remy Benoit is an equal opportunity flirt, but he swears guys are not his thing.

Different lifestyles had never interfered with their close friendship, but after too much alcohol and almost kissing under the mistletoe a year ago they’ve started to drift apart.

A special holiday event brings the men together, and this time around they might have to acknowledge that mutual admiration and respect are not the only things making them

seek each other out.

Excerpt

“… and I just got off the phone with the designer. She assures me we have the space to build Mrs. Claus’ kitchen in addition to Santa’s workshop. Which is marvelous, don’t you think?”

Remy Benoit glanced from the grocery shopping list he was writing to the phone on his desk, an amused smile on his lips at the tone of his friend’s voice. Chris’s enthusiasm was impossible

to resist on a regular day and downright contagious when he was excited about something, even if that something happened to be his plans for Christmas decorations. Chris was so hyped up by the whole thing Remy was ready to go buy some ice skates. 

Hell.

He could almost taste the eggnog and smell the mistletoe.

In the middle of a disgustingly hot August day.

The memory of the two of them standing under the mistletoe at a mutual friend’s New Year’s Eve party eight months ago made Remy clear his throat. They’d been chatting up a storm, because that’s what they did whenever Chris was in town, and somehow ended up by the door, even though he couldn’t remember moving around the room.

He’d been very close to kissing Chris that night.

“So we’re going to have the ice skating rink, a two car train that will take people from the entrance to the little North Pole village in the back of the parking lot. We’re going to have fake

snow, and ice sculptures, and Santa’s workshop. And lots of elves, because they…”

Remy blinked, thinking how Chris looked a little like one of those elves from the Lord of the Rings movies, what with being tall and lean and all elegant and shit.

Had it not been for their friend Braxton choosing that moment to wish them well on the New Year, Remy would’ve messed up their friendship by giving into what he liked to refer

to as alcohol induced curiosity.

There was no other explanation for it.

Chris was an extremely good looking man, and damn if he didn’t have the most charming personality Remy had seen this side of the Mississippi. The masses were drawn to him like

moths to a flame and he had to admit he was affected the same way. But no matter how curious he got, he shouldn’t mess with Chris’s head like that.

Because they were good friends.

Because Christian Murphy was the poster boy for flamboyantly gay.

And Remy was not.

Flamboyant. Or gay.

Deep down in his gut he knew Chris would’ve welcomed the kiss. There were occasions in which Remy could’ve sworn there was more than friendship and camaraderie in the way Chris gazed at him with those sparkly turquoise eyes of his. Like that one time when Remy showed up at his place for moral support when Chris decided it was time to get rid of his grandma’s personal possessions, or the time when Remy slipped and fell.

Chris had re-arranged an entire week of work appointments and meetings in NYC just so that he could travel to Houston and nurse Remy’s twisted ankle. The injury wasn’t that big of a

deal and Remy had plenty of people willing to help him had he needed them. But the guy showed up anyway. They both knew Chris’s presence wasn’t necessary, but they ignored that fact.

Just like Remy chose to ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head that told him Chris would like to be more than friends.

“… that you have no problems wearing the elf suit.”

Wait.

“What’s that about an elf suit again?”

“Have you not been paying attention?” Chris’s sigh was over

the top. It matched everything else about him. “I’d like for the

staff to dress like elves. You did hear me when I said I need your

help, right?”

“I’m not wearing a green suit with candy cane tights.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Chris tried to sooth him. “The tights

will be green too.”

“Not happening.”

“But—”

“No.”

“Bet you’d look scrumptious,” Chris whispered.

“Bet you’re right,” Remy answered without missing a beat or

worrying about the fact that his voice had dropped at least two

octaves. “But you say that to all the boys, so it ain’t gonna change

my mind.”

“What kind of a slut do you take me for?” Chris giggled.

Being thirty, he should’ve sounded like an idiot. He should have.

“I only say it to the really gorgeous ones.”

“Not dressing as an elf.”

“Will you at least please wear the hat?”

“Only ‘cause you’re so pretty when you beg.”

He knew that he was playing with fire whenever they engaged in this sort of exchange, but he liked Chris too much to stop talking to him.

Flirting with him.

Remy looked forward to spending as much time as he could with Chris whenever Chris left his home in New York City to visit the house and art gallery he owned in Houston. They always

had fun.

Hell.

Remy knew he had talked Chris into coming to Houston way too many times.

But surely that didn’t mean anything, right? Because he wasn’t the only cool guy Remy knew and liked to spend time with, and Chris was very much aware of that fact.

There was Mac, Remy’s best friend, and Braxton, who also happened to be his boss and Chris’s childhood friend. One was straight, the other gay. They were extremely good looking men. Remy was thirty-two years old and even though he’d never been attracted to a man he didn’t have a problem acknowledging his friends were hot.

But he had never wanted to kiss either one.

Or any man, for that matter.

Not until Chris.

Which confused the shit out of him...

Available December 6th, 2011 from MLR Press