Long Way Home: a second chance gay romance, page 1
Long Way Home
By Nicky James
Long Way Home
Copyright © 2019 by Nicky James
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Artist:
Nicky James
Cover Photograph:
Paul Henry Serres
Editing:
Boho Edits
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
A house is made of bricks and beams.
A home is made of hopes and dreams
- Author Unknown -
Chapter One
Gavin
April 2003
I’LL NEVER FORGET the first time I saw Owen Wallace. I was sixteen and huddled around our quarterback, waiting for him to call our next play. It wasn’t a game day—those were long finished—just a regular, after-school practice because Coach insisted we train year-round. He’d divided the team in half so we could use the last twenty minutes for fun. He did that on Fridays sometimes.
Owen Wallace stood on the fifty-yard line next to Coach, looking awkward and out of place. He wrapped his gangly arms around his middle, rocking a red binder against his chest, backpack slung over his shoulder, lips slightly parted, and head tilted as he followed every move we made.
Correction—every move I made.
The afternoon sun turned his irises into burning sapphires, and they flashed and flickered with something I couldn’t decipher before he caught me watching him. Then he ducked his head and dug his left running shoe into the ground, color rising up his neck, highlighting his cheeks a pale pink.
The breeze ruffled his sun-kissed blond hair, and he brushed it from his eyes with the swipe of a hand, still transfixed on the grass and dirt under his shoe.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I didn’t look away.
Couldn’t look away.
Who was he? Why was he here? He didn’t have the makings of a football jock. He was too skinny, too nervous and unsure, too . . . pretty?
Then I wondered where that thought came from and looked away.
Josh, our team’s tight end, elbowed me in the gut. “You paying attention, Buchanan? This play’s on you.”
“Yeah.”
I wasn’t.
Swiping my sweaty mop of dark hair from my brow, tucking it back under my helmet, I zeroed in on Chris’s play as he laid it out for us again, giving me the evil eye.
“Break!” Chris shouted.
We took formation and waited. Excited energy snapped like live wires along my skin. The rush. The zone. The heady feeling of being alive as I waited for the play to start.
Ollie snapped the ball. Chris shuffled back, away from the frontline as he scrambled to avoid being tackled. I was in formation and ready for the pass when it came.
With the ball clutched to my chest, I took less than a second to scan for my opening. Then I was free. The field ahead was wide open and all mine.
Zigzagging around the only man in my way, I raced toward the end zone. It was clean and calculated. Perfection. I burst into dance before I crossed the line because I knew it was a done deal. Plus, a part of me remembered that Owen Wallace—whose name I wouldn’t actually learn until practice was over—watched.
I spiked the ball and opened my arms wide, howling my victory as I approached the rest of my teammates. We chest bumped and high-fived, barking and taunting the other players with our victory like a bunch of animals. I tore my helmet from my head, showing off the wicked-ass grin filling my face.
I was cocky and arrogant.
Proud.
But I was sixteen.
These were the moments I lived for.
Football was everything. Football was part of what defined me in high school. It molded and shaped me, giving me a purpose and a status among the other students. I wasn’t just Gavin anymore. I was Buchanan. One of Port Huron Collegiate’s starting lineup. The Panthers. One of the best high school teams in all of Michigan—thanks to our insane year-long practice schedule. A feat, considering Port Huron was barely a blip on the map.
No one cared about my test scores or the fact that I was top of my class in both biology and chemistry. All anyone saw was how I ran the ball. Stacked the points. Won the games.
Coach called it a day and told us to get our asses off his field.
“Buchanan!” he yelled, hand in the air, summoning me with a waggle of three fingers. “Move it.”
I hustled toward Coach, skin on fire, adrenaline pumping through my veins, and sweat trickling between my shoulder blades. It was hot. The sun beat down on us from a clear, cloudless sky. We’d been running plays for the better part of two hours. I needed about a gallon of water and a shower.
Twice, my gaze flashed to Owen as I crossed the field.
Twice, he averted his eyes to his shoes.
“Yeah, Coach?” I stood straighter, hands tucked behind my back, helmet dangling from my fingers, chest forward, and chin high.
“You got somewhere to be, Buchanan?”
“No, sir.”
“Good.” He shifted and nodded toward the boy who I couldn’t stop noticing. “This here is Owen Wallace. Works for the school paper and wanted to do an interview for an article.”
I flashed my gaze to Owen and back to Coach, frowning. Chest heaving from the exertion of practice, I licked my lips, tasting salt, and asked, “Sir?”
“An interview, Buchanan. You’re familiar with the process?”
My cheeks blazed, and I shuffled, avoiding Owen’s focus as I shook my head. “Of course I am, sir. Doesn’t Chris usually do these things?”
I wasn’t the quarterback. Interviews from the local paper or within the school rarely landed on the running back. I was important to the team’s dynamic, but I wasn’t Chris. Chris got all the attention, all the frontline news when the Panthers kicked ass from here to Grand Rapids. Chris was the face of our team—not me.
“Looks like it’s your turn today.”
“Yes, sir.”
Coach clasped Owen on the shoulder, rattling him and almost knocking him off-balance with his giant mitt and unrestrained strength. Owen winced under the pressure, and I smothered a laugh.
“There you go, son. Gavin is all yours.”
Coach didn’t know how true that statement would one day be. I didn’t know either. Sixteen was too young to see or plan the future. Too young to understand the impact that simple, squeaking “hello” would have on the rest of my life.
But Coach walked off the field with the rest of my team, and Owen shuffled, squeezing his binder a little tighter, struggling to hold my gaze as he said, “Hello.”
Not true sapphires, more like marbles. His eyes looked different up close than they’d looked from a half a field away. A swirling mixture of blues from one end of the spectrum to the other, all blended with gray and a splash of silver. Their outer rims were nearly as dark as the ocean.
He cleared his throat and mussed his wind-blown hair as more color rose to his cheeks. “Um . . . Hi?” He thrust out his hand, breaking the hypnotic pull of those otherworldly eyes. “Owen Wallace,” he said because I still hadn’t spoken and didn’t know why.
Kicking myself in gear, I slapped a sweaty palm to his and shook. Another wince, so I let up on some pressure. His hand was just as clammy. Finer boned and much smaller. Soft and without hard calluses or rough edges. Long fingers suited to a piano player and thin wrists, pale on the inside and showing tiny blue veins.
I rattled those thoughts away because they were odd things to notice. As was the color of his eyes.
“Gavin Buchanan. You want me for an article? Why me? Why not Chris?”
Owen tucked his hand away, wiping it subtly on his pant leg as he shrugged. He stood tall, taller than me by at least an inch. My height was nothing to brag about. Five ten, but my mother said I could still grow a few inches. I hoped so.
Owen swallowed once before answering.
“Quarterbacks often get all the attention. I wanted to show people there is more to a team than one player. Maybe highlight other positions, you know? Starting with yours.”
; “Okay. Sure.”
It sounded reasonable.
I would learn much later, Owen used interviews as an excuse to talk to me. He would learn later still, they weren’t necessary because I liked talking to him and he didn’t need an excuse.
But we didn’t know that on that spring Friday afternoon on the backfield of Port Huron Collegiate.
“How about we sit? I just have a few questions and you can take off. I’m sure you have better stuff to do with your Friday afternoon.”
I didn’t. Dad expected me at the clinic whenever I was done, but cleaning kennels and disinfecting exam rooms weren’t high on my list of fun activities.
We wandered to the bleachers and sat. Our knees bumped. We both shuffled away in surprise. Then we laughed. It was awkward and shy.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, dropping my helmet on the ground and running a hand through my sweat-damp hair. “So hit me. What did you want to know?”
Owen opened his binder and dislodged a pen from an inside pocket. He clicked the top and leafed through to a page that had a long list of numbered questions, all written in a neat cursive.
He cleared his throat and studied the form. His lips curled into his mouth as he thought, and his brows came together, creating a small divot in between.
I studied his features. Noted the small freckle beside his left eye, the tiny silver scar next to it that was no more than a half an inch long, and the thicker fuzz above his lips and on his chin that would someday contribute to his facial hair but hadn’t quite got to that stage yet. He smelled of tangerines and bubble gum. Combined, it caused a lick of warmth to coat my belly, something my sixteen-year-old self didn’t understand at the time.
His head came up, our eyes locked, and I tried to shake free from all that oddness again.
“Question one. What made you decide to play football?”
Better question: why was I tongue-tied and acting weird? Why did I want to touch that freckle and ask about that scar?
“Um . . . That’s easy, I guess. My dad and my Uncle Gary. Basically, all the men on that side of the family. They are football fanatics, and I grew up watching the game and learning the rules before I could even wrap my little hand around a ball. They told me it was in my blood. So, I guess when I got to high school, it was just a given that I would try out for the team.”
Owen scribbled notes as I talked, nodding along.
“Is football your future? Is that something you hope to develop a career in?”
I laughed. “No way. I’m not stupid. I’d never make the big leagues. It’s just high school fun, you know? I’m going to be a vet like my dad, except different. He specializes in your run of the mill domestic house pets. Cats, dogs, bunnies, whatever. I want to take care of big animals. Like in the zoo. Lions and tigers—”
“And bears?” He quirked a playful brow, and I cracked a smile.
“Oh my.”
Owen ducked his head and became flustered as he scribbled my answer on the form. He was fighting a smile and hiding his flushed cheeks. “That’s really cool.” He still wouldn’t lift his head. “Do you know where you want to study?”
“Michigan State.”
His gaze darted up, his eyes widening with his grin. “Me too.”
“What do you want to take?”
He tapped the binder with the end of his pen and shrugged, seeming shy about his confession. “Journalism.”
“Makes sense. Sports journalism?”
He winced. “No. I’m not that knowledgeable about sports, to be honest. Just the basics.”
Then why was he the one here interviewing me? I didn’t ask because he already looked uncomfortable.
“Next question,” he said, steering the conversation forward. “Do you have any rituals you perform before games. You know, stuff you do for good luck?”
I pinched my lips together and studied Owen’s face. He stared back, waiting. I did have one good luck charm I carried onto the field. But none of the guys knew about it or the silly story behind it. I wasn’t sure I wanted it broadcast in the school newspaper either. Shit like that got you teased.
“There’s something, isn’t there?”
Owen was observant.
“Maybe.”
He waited, expectantly. His unique, swirling eyes held my attention. I wasn’t sure what made me throw caution to the wind and tell him, but in that moment, I didn’t care what my teammates might say, I only cared about engaging Owen. Seeing him smile. Blush. Hearing him talk.
“When I was nine, my grandmother took me for a walk down by the water. It was just a regular day. Nothing exciting. She bought me ice cream. Rocky Road, if I remember right. Anyhow, as we wandered the riverside path, Grandma stopped abruptly and bent over. She picked up a penny off the ground.”
“Find a penny pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck.” Owen grinned, and I copied.
“Basically. Except my grandmother was a little odd. Superstitious. The kind of person who stacked those weird troll dolls around her bingo cards. You know the type?”
Owen nodded.
“She told me, a penny found was good luck and you should stick it in your shoe. But if that penny found was made the same year you were born, it was doubly good luck.”
“So the penny she found was printed the year you were born?” Owen leaned forward, eyes glowing, attention rapt.
Grinning, I hiked my left foot up over my knee and unlaced my cleat. “Brace yourself. This will not smell pretty. Mom doesn’t even let me bring them in the house.”
Owen shuffled back on the bench and held his body rigid in anticipation with the cutest damn nose wrinkle I’d ever seen.
And I refused to draw attention to the fact that I’d just thought of Owen as cute in my head.
I removed my cleat. My sock was damp, stained, and sticking to my foot like it did after every practice and game. The pungent odor of sweaty gym locker feet wafted into the air. Twelve-day-old garbage sitting out in the hot, midsummer day sun would have smelled better. I grimaced an apology.
I shook my shoe, hearing the familiar rattle, then extended my arm. “Give me your hand.”
Owen recoiled, his face souring. “I’d rather not.”
I laughed and upturned my shoe over the bench instead. The coin I kept tucked away inside clattered against the wood and fell flat, the faded face of Abraham Lincoln staring up at us.
“So,” I said. “According to Grandma. A found penny is lucky. A found penny with the year of your birth on it is doubly lucky.”
Owen bent down to look closer. I knew he was examining the date. 1986.
“But there is a third scenario.”
“Triple lucky?” Owen’s brows shot up as he eyed the coin again.
“Turn it over.”
Owen peered up at me through wondrous blue eyes, lips parted a fraction before dropping his gaze to the bench and the penny again. He set his pen on his binder and used those long, thin piano fingers to turn the coin.
I heard the tiny intake of air before his wide eyes sought mine again. “It’s double-headed.”
“An extraordinary phenomenon, according to my grandma. She tucked it into my palm and told me to never lose it because stuff like this didn’t happen. It was more than luck, she told me.”
“More than luck?” Owen was enthralled by the tale, such a silly story of when I was young. One every single one of my teammates would have laughed at and used as ammunition to tease.
Not Owen.
I shrugged and took the penny between my fingers, bringing it up to examine it again like I often did. “I don’t know. Some spiritual mumbo jumbo. I was a kid. I didn’t really listen. But I’d never seen a two-headed coin before, so it was cool as shit and I kept it.”
I slipped it back into my cleat and shoved my foot on top before tying the laces. “You do something enough times over and over, and even if you don’t believe in good luck or magic or spiritual stuff, you can’t stop. Because what if? What if the reason I made that touchdown was because of that penny? What if the reason I got eighty-seven on my chem test was because of triple luck?”
“Why test the fates?”
“Exactly.”
Owen nodded like he understood. “I get it.”
“Are you gonna print all that?”
He smirked and took up his pen again. “We’ll see.”
And I didn’t care. He could write it all and I would square my shoulders and take the razzing a hundred times over because I’d made him smile. I’d brought wonder to his eyes. And he looked at me in a way I didn’t understand at the time.
