Chance at Trust (Chance at Life Trilogy, bk 1)

By Havan Fellows

An ex broke Em’s trust...Penn wants a chance to restore it

The strength to walk away from an abusive long-term relationship proves Em is a survivor. But surviving isn’t necessarily living, and Em has created a life on a plateau of his own making, not even entertaining the idea of a new boyfriend. When he shows interest in a very sexy barista, his best friend sees a chance to open Em’s eyes to the possibilities in life.

Penn couldn’t help his double and triple take when the sexy man walked into his mother’s coffee shop. Priding himself on always remaining calm and collected in all situations, Penn is surprised by the strength of his attraction for this stranger. When the stranger’s loud-mouthed friend proposes a way for Penn to see Em again, he takes it.

While Em comes with baggage—his eyes tell a story of pain and distrust—Penn isn’t one to shy away from a challenge, especially when his heart is so quickly getting tied up in the equation, and he’s prepared to break through Em’s walls and give him a chance to trust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Havan Fellows
• Release date: Apr 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311253316

Havan Fellows

I annoy, love, respect, scare, seduce, hurt, anger, infatuate, frustrate, flatter, envy, amuse and tolerate everyone. I just do it better in writing thanks to a little thing called...edits. Okay no, seriously...I'm a simple minded person who enjoys the escape from real life through a book. I write with the group Story Orgy and hope to continue doing so for a long time. I also am privileged to be with the Pulp Friction writers creating intermingling books in a world all our own. And just like every other red blooded human – I love hearing from people. So feel free to drop me a line – whether it's a comment on my blog, an email, a tweet or you track me down on FaceBook or Google + ... it's easy to catch someone who wants to be caught.

Book preview

The strength to walk away from an abusive long-term relationship proves Em is a survivor. But surviving isn’t necessarily living, and Em has created a life on a plateau of his own making, not even entertaining the idea of a new boyfriend. When he shows interest in a very sexy barista, his best friend sees a chance to open Em’s eyes to the possibilities in life.

Penn couldn’t help his double and triple take when the sexy man walked into his mother’s coffee shop. Priding himself on always remaining calm and collected in all situations, Penn is surprised by the strength of his attraction for this stranger. When the stranger’s loud-mouthed friend proposes a way for Penn to see Em again, he takes it.

While Em comes with baggage—his eyes tell a story of pain and distrust—Penn isn’t one to shy away from a challenge, especially when his heart is so quickly getting tied up in the equation, and he’s prepared to break through Em’s walls and give him a chance to trust.

Chance at Trust

Chance at Life Trilogy

Book One

by

Havan Fellows

Copyright © April 2015 by Havan Fellows

Acknowledgements

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, incidents and positions are completely and absolutely a part of the author's skewed imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or deceased, businesses, events or locales are entirely coincidental and maybe a little bit freaky.

Cover photograph © Rosario Rizzo

Cover by Laura Harner

Editing by Jae Ashley

Printed in the United States of America

All rights are reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, is forbidden without express written permission of the publisher/author. So please be good, good is fun.

Trademark Acknowledgements:

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Bowmore: Stanley P. Morrison Limited

Bose: Bose Corporation

Disney World: The Walt Disney Company

Dr. Pepper: Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc.

Facebook: Facebook, Inc.

LG: LG Corp.

Netflix: Netflix, Inc.

Oscars: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

PlayStation: Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment DBA Sony Computer

Yuengling: D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc.

And now…for your reading enjoyment…

Chance at Trust

Chapter One

Em Litten held the coffee house door open for Joss Hopkins, his best friend and local gossipmonger. Too bad the gossip he determined to spread that day was entirely about Em.

I'm just saying, dude, the monk lifestyle is getting old. Come on, it's been two years. Two years of nothing but self-gratification is a long time, and you're too damn cute to be going at it alone every single ni—

That's enough, Em hissed in Joss's ear.

After twenty years of being best friends, Em couldn't even feign surprise over the very loud lack of tact Joss showed, but what could he do? The same twenty years proved them to be more family than friends, and just like an annoying brother, no matter how much Em didn't like Joss right now, he still loved the damn infuriating man…that everyone in Bean There Drank That evidently heard and found amusing.

Oh, this proved promising.

People glanced over their mugs, or pastries, or newspapers to check the self-gratifier out, smirking and quickly averting their gazes when Em caught them peeping, as if they were privy to some deep dark hush-hush secret.

Come to think of it, they kind of were now—then again, on the flip side, the same event that let them in on the secret made it not a secret anymore. Semantics?

Either way, none of it mattered. If Em wanted people to know his celibacy state, he would've tattooed it across his forehead—but hey, who needs the pain and torture of a tattoo needle bumping against their skull when they had a Joss at their beck and call, all too willing to provide an even more deliberate pain and torture.

This conversation is officially over, Em again hissed in Joss's ear, an all too familiar action between the best friends. Uh uh uh… Em cut off any response Joss thought to come up with when his mouth opened. Over, Em reaffirmed as they continued to the counter.

Fine. Joss pouted.

And if you do anything to get us kicked out of here before I get my coffee, so help me god, I will tell your mother.

Joss's shocked look was an Oscar-worthy performance. When have I ever done anything so scandalous?

Em raised his eyebrow. Did Joss really try to play the innocent card? Oh, let's see…the skating rink on my thirteenth birthday. The mall when we went to get those boots you just had to have for your prom date with Troy. Creepy Guy Butler's house on Halloween. The Donut Shoppe every other morning on our walk to high school. Disney World during our vacation… He ticked off occasions on his fingers.

Running out of fingers, Em took a breath then switched hands to continue with his countdown, but Joss waved him to a halt.

Come on, we were kids! We're in our thirties now. I'm all growned up, my mommy even said so. It was almost cute how Joss puffed out his chest with pride.

"Disney was last year, and don't