Love and Monsters

  LOVE AND MONSTERS

  BOOK CLUB BOYS

  BOOK 1

  MAX WALKER

  WALKING PRESS

  Edited By: ONE LOVE EDITING

  Copyright © 2022 by Max Walker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  SYNOPSIS

  Noah Barnes

  A trip to the grocery store changed my life.

  That’s where I bumped into my ‘straight’ co-worker and good friend, Jake Perez.

  I decided to invite him to my book club night, not realizing the chain of events that invite would kick off.

  Immediately our chemistry became too explosive to contain, making our friendship and work relationship complicated. That same night, a bloody package addressed to me lands on my doorstep.

  Falling for Jake was never in the plans—then again neither was being targeted by a dangerous stalker.

  This was going to be interesting.

  Jake Perez

  We were supposed to stay just friends—but how was that going to happen when all I wanted to do was kiss the guy?

  Joining his book club sounded like a perfect way to spend more time with him. I wasn’t counting on liking him more and more with every passing second.

  Then came the targeted threats, throwing a wrench in our budding ‘friendship’.

  One thing was certain, though. Well, maybe two.

  I was going to help Noah figure out who was behind making his life a living hell and I was going to do it while staying as just friends.

  Friends who liked to hold hands and kiss and…

  Yeah. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  ALSO BY MAX WALKER

  The Rainbow’s Seven -Duology

  The Sunset Job

  The Hammerhead Heist

  The Gold Brothers

  Hummingbird Heartbreak

  Velvet Midnight

  Heart of Summer

  The Stonewall Investigation Series

  A Hard Call

  A Lethal Love

  A Tangled Truth

  A Lover’s Game

  The Stonewall Investigation- Miami Series

  Bad Idea

  Lie With Me

  His First Surrender

  The Stonewall Investigation- Blue Creek Series

  Love Me Again

  Ride the Wreck

  Whatever It Takes

  Audiobooks:

  Find them all on Audible.

  Christmas Stories:

  Daddy Kissing Santa Claus

  Daddy, It’s Cold Outside

  Deck the Halls

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  Max Walker

  MaxWalkerAuthor@outlook.com

  CONTENTS

  1. Noah Barnes

  2. Jake Perez

  3. Noah Barnes

  4. Jake Perez

  5. Noah Barnes

  6. Jake Perez

  7. Noah Barnes

  8. Jake Perez

  9. Noah Barnes

  10. Jake Perez

  11. Noah Barnes

  12. Jake Perez

  13. Noah Barnes

  14. Jake Perez

  15. Noah Barnes

  16. Jake Perez

  17. Noah Barnes

  18. Jake Perez

  19. Noah Barnes

  20. Jake Perez

  21. Noah Barnes

  22. Jake Perez

  23. Noah Barnes

  24. Jake Perez

  25. Noah Barnes

  26. Jake Perez

  27. Noah Barnes

  28. Jake Perez

  29. Noah Barnes

  30. Jake Perez

  31. Noah Barnes

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Max Walker

  1

  NOAH BARNES

  He was wearing those khaki pants again.

  The ones that hugged his bubble butt and bunched up between his legs when he sat. They were the pants that turned me absolutely feral. Like a cat in heat, yowling at anything close by that could potentially fuck me. A tree branch? Sure, yowling. A pair of muddy sneakers? Yowling.

  A delicious-looking bulge offered up by my straight coworker and friend? Absolutely yowling. Loud enough to pop a couple of eardrums and break a few windows.

  I adjusted myself in my seat, hiding just how excited those damn pants made me by rolling my chair further under my desk. Somehow, I managed to pry my gaze away, keeping my creeper tendencies in check while I tried to focus on the spreadsheet in front of me. Numbers swam, columns danced, rows rearranged themselves all into the shape of a thick pen—

  “Hey, Noah, you have lunch yet?”

  “Nope, not yet.”

  So if you’d like to serve me some sausage, we can just get started.

  Damn… I was thirsty. And not just for the half-drank Gatorade bottle on my desk (blue, because that was the superior flavor according to anyone with taste buds). It wasn’t exactly a new state of being for me. I’d been boy crazy ever since my hormones kicked into overdrive—likely the exact moment I witnessed the star quarterback of our high school’s football team changing in front of me, nearly causing an extremely embarrassing and traumatizing mess in my towel. Luckily, I held it together that day, but the boy-session never left. I embraced it in my senior year when I came out to two of my best friends in an empty Taco Bell parking lot after we had snuck a (minuscule) amount of vodka out of my parents’ fridge and got drunk at the playground nearby.

  I remember being scared shitless. Eric and Tristan had been my best friends since elementary school. We’d been through some crappy times and some over-the-chart incredible times, always sticking together through it all. But this? Well, this was different. It wasn’t about who cheated in Super Smash or Tristan choosing to go on a date with Sarah Miller over their usual Saturday night hangout.

  This threatened to shake the very core of our friendship. Being gay—especially back in the early 2000s—was something that many people still didn’t understand, and high school boys weren’t exactly revered for their ability to fully understand and empathize with the world around them. Not only that, but kids were mean as shit. My friends might have been okay with me being gay, but would they have been okay with being gay by association? It all stacked up on my shoulders and made the words a mission to get out, likely not helped by the slight slur I had from taking my sip of vodka and orange juice.

  “I’m…well, I’m—”

  “What? Scared of butterflies? We know that,” Tristan said, pushing his glasses up his nose and flashing that thousand-watt smile of his.

  Eric took a bite of his taco, speaking through the crunches. “You’re going to be competing on the next season of Big Brother?”

  “No, yeah, right, I wish. Imagine me on—” I shook my head, getting off track. I just had to let the words out. Two simple yet galaxy-sized words:

  “I’m gay.”

  There was no taking it back once I said it. The truest part of myself was laid bare, right there next to my half-eaten Crunchwrap Supreme. And, as I always should have known, there was no need to take it back. In fact, there wasn’t any need to be scared about coming out to Eric and Tristan either. Not when Eric spoke up and came out himself that same night, Tristan joining the rainbow mafia a month later.

  Turned out that I’d been the first bedazzled domino to fall, but I wasn’t the last.

  “Want to go for some Cuban?” Jake asked, drawing my attention up to his inhumanely blue eyes. Seriously, there should have been some law against having eyes that beautiful. Especially when you were straight. It was way too much power for one person to yield. Pretty privilege and straight privilege? It made me sick to my stomach.

  Not sick enough to say no to a medianoche, though.

  “Sure,” I answered, locking my computer and reaching for my wallet, still under the stacks of papers I had left it under. My office wasn’t exactly the picture of cleanliness and organization, but it worked for me. I’d only been in this position—accounts payable manager for a large construction company here in Atlanta—for about a month now, and in that time, I’d been way more focused on getting myself settled than on organizing my office.

  Jake arched a skeptical bushy brow as I dug in a chaotic cabinet for my keys.

  “What?” I asked. “I’ve got a system.”

  He chuckled, which slightly annoyed me. Was he laughing at me? And why did his chuckle sound so damn cute? “Yeah? What system is that? Windows 95?”

  That got a genuine and surprised laugh out of me. “Alright, let’s go,” I said, grabbing the keys from underneath a tangle of multicolored rubber bands and jingling them in the air. “Before I end up having to reboot you in the ass.”

  Jake turned and gave himself a slap on the ass.

  Damn him.

  Damn him to gay-baiting hell, and damn me, too. Send me on my merry gay way right down there with him, because damn I wanted to bury my face in that juicy a—

  His phone started to ring, startling us both and knocking me right out of my horned-up daydream. He dug in the pocket of hi
s khakis and pulled out his phone, a flash of concern crossing his blue eyes as he read the name on the screen. When he answered it, I could hear a woman’s voice on the other end, but her words were muffled.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t worry. Just stay where you are. Yes, yes, I’ll be right there. Okay, bye, love you.”

  He hung up, the concern staying in that aquamarine gaze of his.

  “Everything okay?” I asked as we stepped out into the windowless hallway lit by a row of fluorescent lights.

  “Not really, no. Sorry, I’m going to have to rain check on lunch today.”

  “Totally fine,” I said. “Go handle whatever you need to handle.”

  “Thanks, Noah.” He held me in place with that infinite sea of blue. It felt almost as if he was about to say something else. Like he wanted to explain his situation further. I tried reading his thoughts, wondering what the hell rattled around inside that big (and admittedly handsome) head of his. Was it drama back at home? Maybe his girlfriend needed help with something, or maybe she was calling him home for an afternoon quickie.

  Whatever it was, I figured I’d find out tomorrow when we bumped into each other. Jake reached out and gave me a friendly pat on my arm, the pat turning into more of a slide as he dropped his hand, his fingers grazing my elbow. He opened his mouth again, but no words came out. He pursed his lips and gave a wave before turning and walking toward the elevator bay, leaving me behind to watch as his perfectly perky bubble butt reminded me just how hungry I’d been.

  Gah damn it.

  I went to lunch by myself, eating my sandwich and sipping on my Cuban coffee and wondering how the hell I was going to stop myself from salivating over a man who’d never want me, at least not in the way I wanted him.

  Whatever. I’ll just get drunk with the book club tonight and find someone to hook up with after. That should keep Jake off my mind.

  “And you’re sure he’s straight?” Eric asked, opening the bag of chips and dumping them in the big red bowl. I squeezed between him and Tristan and opened my fridge, grabbing the queso and guac dips.

  Clearly, I hadn’t stopped thinking about Jake, which was why I had accidentally let his name slip when the boys asked me why I looked so pensive.

  “Maybe bi? Pan? I don’t know. I just know he had a picture of him and his girlfriend on his desk. Unless he has a sister that he kisses on the cheek in front of the Christmas tree.”

  “Girlfriend or sister, neither options are really ideal for you if he’s kissing her like that,” Tristan helpfully noted.

  I rolled my eyes as I transferred the dips from their plastic containers and into smaller ceramic bowls. “It’s fine, guys. Even if there was a shot, I don’t think I’d take it. Especially not if he really is in the closet. Not after Franky. He made me cross off anyone that could hurt me like that again.” I grabbed the dips and walked back into the living room, setting them down on the coffee table as Eric brought out the chips. There was a stack of labeled notebooks and a cup full of pens and pencils sitting in the center of the table.

  “What Franky did to you was fucked-up, but everyone’s situation is different. I’m not saying there’s even a chance with Jake—”

  “.Thanks.”

  “—but if there was, then you can’t assume that he’d act the same as Franky. That guy was a huge dick, and I think he would have been a dick whether he was closeted or not.”

  Tristan walked in, a bowl of grapes and strawberries in his hand. “Who’s got a huge dick?”

  “Stand down, size queen,” Eric quipped. “We’re talking about someone being a huge dick, not having one.”

  “Although,” I said, raising a finger in the air, “Franky did have that too.”

  “Was that why you stayed with him for that long?” Tristan asked as he dropped onto the couch, nearly knocking over the book he had left on the armrest.

  “No, I stayed with him because—when he wanted to—he knew how to be wildly romantic, and I’m a naive little lamb that’s watched way too many rom-coms and thinks one of those happy endings can happen to me. I just have to find and possibly fix my Prince Charming before that happens.” I shrugged, bare feet on the carpet as I trod back to the kitchen. “But there’s no fixing someone who doesn’t want to be fixed… and yes, the dick did help.”

  “Truth,” Eric said as he followed behind me. “Franky likes playing with people. It had nothing to do with him still being in the closet. If someone is truly struggling to come out because of family or whatever else, then yeah, I get it. But Franky didn’t have an excuse. He was just a self-hating queer dude that wrapped you up in his toxic web.”

  I took a deep breath, leaning against the counter. Everything Eric said was right. Per usual. Eric always had the read on people and knew someone’s intentions before they even shared introductions. He’d called out Franky from the moment I brought him around, saying that there was an off-putting energy around him. I ignored the warnings and red flags so that I could dive headfirst into a messy yearlong relationship instead that left me with some heavy-duty emotional scars and a heaping of shitty memories. From being cheated on (multiple times) to being left stranded in Cabo after an explosive argument on vacation, I didn’t really have much to fondly look back on.

  But I had stayed with him. The brief moments of bliss I experienced with him were enough to keep me coming back for more. That trip to Cabo started with him renting out an entire villa for the two of us, the outdoor bathtub already full and covered in rose petals when we arrived, my name spelled out in ruby-red petals on the floor.

  Little did I know he had a similar setup two streets down for the other guy he was flying in that same day.

  “You’re going to find your prince,” Eric said, hand falling onto my shoulder. He smiled, dazzling me with that trademark grin of his.

  “I’m fine with a duke. Hell, I’ll even take a viscount. A court jester? Who-the-fuck-ever, so long as they have a penis and a pulse.”

  Eric snorted, shaking his head. “We gotta work on your standards.”

  “Yeah, clearly,” I replied, laughing with Eric as I opened the fridge to grab the most important ingredients for a successful book club meeting: the wine… shit. Where was the wine? I moved aside the half-drank milk carton on the brink of expiring, hoping bottles of chardonnay would magically appear in between an empty bottle of orange juice and a stack of peach yogurts.

  None did.

  “Fack,” I said, closing the fridge. “I’m out of wine.”

  “Want me to text Yvette or Jess? See if they can grab some on their way here?”

  “No, that’s fine. I’ll run over to the grocery store real quick.” I grabbed my keys from the crystal bowl on the counter and slipped on a pair of sandals. Tristan looked up from his phone, arching a recently plucked and shaped brow.

  “Aren’t we starting soon?” he asked.

  “I’m just grabbing some wine real quick. I’ll be back. If the girls get here before me, you all can start.”

  I left my friends in the living room, walking down the steps of my townhouse and jumping into my car. It was supposed to be a simple trip to the Publix around the corner; little did I know that my entire life course would be altered just because I forgot to restock on twelve-dollar bottles of wine. I could have stayed home, asked the friends who were on their way to pick up some wine for us. We could have had a dry night, sipping on water and Pepsi instead. I could have gone to the gas station or ordered it through a delivery service on my phone.