Shared Revelations

By Andrew Grey

It’s the sixties, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to be different. Eddie Baronski spent his high school years looking out for his partially deaf friend, Jack Emmons. Now that they’ve graduated, they spend their free time at Green Bay’s newly renamed Lambeau Field, taking in the practices.

When Eddie’s crush, Johnny Grant, a new Packers team member, offers him a ride home, Eddie thinks it’s the start of a grand romance. But Johnny and Eddie may not be on the same page, and love—true love—sometimes comes from an unexpected quarter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Sep 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781613727584

Andrew Grey

Andrew Grey is the author of more than one hundred works of Contemporary Gay Romantic fiction. After twenty-seven years in corporate America, he has now settled down in Central Pennsylvania with his husband of more than twenty-five years, Dominic, and his laptop. An interesting ménage. Andrew grew up in western Michigan with a father who loved to tell stories and a mother who loved to read them. Since then he has lived throughout the country and traveled throughout the world. He is a recipient of the RWA Centennial Award, has a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and now writes full-time. Andrew’s hobbies include collecting antiques, gardening, and leaving his dirty dishes anywhere but in the sink (particularly when writing). He considers himself blessed with an accepting family, fantastic friends, and the world’s most supportive and loving partner. Andrew currently lives in beautiful, historic Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Email: [e-mail] Website: www.andrewgreybooks.com

Book preview

Chapter One

Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1966

EDDIE pedaled his bicycle as fast as he could across the bridge and out toward the south side of town, thankful to be away from the factory and out in the fresh air.

Hey, Baronski, you should get a car, one of his co-workers teased as he passed Eddie by, the rumble of the powerful engine almost enough to knock him off his bike.

Yeah, yeah, Eddie called as he continued pounding the pedals as fast as he could. He wished he could afford a car. He was saving for one, but he hadn’t had his job long enough that anyone would extend him the credit, at least not for the one he wanted, and he wasn’t going to buy someone else’s problems, not like his mom and dad always did. Pedaling on, Eddie continued down Military Avenue, and the stadium, his destination, appeared on the horizon.

The recently renamed Lambeau Field had been built a decade earlier, and it was the undoubted pride of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Eddie’s dad had even bought a few shares of stock in the Packers when they were offered for sale a few years earlier, and he’d given them to him because no one was a bigger Packer fan than Eddie.

Pulling into the largely empty lot, he glided through parking spaces that would be filled with Fords, Chevys, and even a few Edsels come game day. Eddie coasted across the acres of pavement until he got close to the gate. After jumping off his bike, he placed it in the rack and walked to where the guard lounged in his little booth.

Hey, George, Eddie called as he passed by. Am I too late?

Nope, they started practice ’bout an hour ago, George said with a wave as he let Eddie pass through. Eddie made his way along empty corridors and up vacant stairwells, then down toward the field, where three heads bobbed as they watched the team practice. Eddie walked down to them, stepping sideways down the row of seats before sinking into the one next to Skip.

Eddie’s best friends were Skip, Donny, and Jack. The four of them had met the first day of junior high, and they’d been friends ever since. How’s the world of toilet paper? Skip asked, the way he usually did. Eddie’s dad had gotten him a job in one of the town’s many paper mills, and he’d been placed on the line that made toilet tissue. So, yes, his job was to make the stuff everybody used to wipe their butts. Of the three of them, Skip was the one who really had it made. He worked in his dad’s furniture store, and everyone knew that someday he’d take it over. Skip was twenty, and he already had his entire working life laid out in front of him. Eddie did too, but his future was doing a job that made his head want to explode from sheer boredom.

Donny leaned forward in his seat, looking down the row toward him. You missed a great pass play, he told Eddie. I think they’re going to run it again. Eddie nodded and said thanks as Donny handed over a can of soda. Donny was Skip’s younger brother, by ten minutes, and Skip never let him forget it. Donny also worked in the store, but while Donny had a head for numbers and worked in the office, Skip worked as a salesman and got closer to his father’s heart every day. Not that Donny cared. He could make numbers sing and was truly wasted in a downtown Green Bay furniture store.

Shhh, Jack scolded, but he smiled as he said it.

Maybe he’d be better off deaf, Donny cracked in a soft voice, and Eddie reached behind Skip and smacked Donny lightly on the back of the head.

Jack was the unfortunate one in the group, even if his family had money. When they were kids, Jack had had a difficult time hearing, and as he’d gotten older, he’d been able to hear less and less. The other kids had picked on him mercilessly, but he never heard half of it anyway. He wore hearing aids that sometimes whistled, and in a group like this, he often turned them off because the ambient noise drove him totally crazy. Jack was also the closest person to a brother Eddie had. When the other kids had teased him, it was Eddie who’d taken them on. Sometimes he’d won and sometimes he hadn’t, but once they became friends, no one picked on Jack with impunity. And that