Noble, Nevada (Noble Dimensions 1)

By Erin O'Quinn

Drifter Rick Hendrickson has a secret, one he’s tried to keep even from himself as he moves along the spine of California’s great midsection, working as a migrant field hand. Unconsciously running from memories of his youth, Rick has left California for Nevada, where he thinks he’ll find work.

Tony Grazzo has just graduated from Nevada U with a Poli Sci degree. A would-be law student, he suddenly finds himself back in his hometown of Noble, Nevada to attend his mom’s funeral and to look after his grief-filled father. He’s gladly left behind a smothering girlfriend who’s become dependent on him, all the while she’s shut out every friend Tony has tried to keep.

One night in a seedy bar, Rick and Tony meet.

Their affair is fast and unrestrained, in spite of Tony’s awkward naivete and Rick’s shrouded history. Both men begin to plan a future together. But their pasts return to shatter their dreams. How can these two men find happiness, when steel bars and the prison of anguished memories separate them?

If love hurt this bad, can it also heal?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erin O'Quinn
• Release date: May 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310551086

Erin O'Quinn

Erin O’Quinn sprang from the high desert hills of Nevada, from a tiny town which no longer exists. A truant officer dragged her kicking and screaming to grade school, too late to attend kindergarten; and since that time her best education has come from the ground she’s walked and the people she's met.Erin has her own publishing venue, New Dawn Press. Her works cover the genres of M/M and M/F romance and also historical fantasy for all ages.

Book preview

Noble, Nevada

Noble Dimensions 1

Copyright 2016 © Erin O’Quinn

New Dawn Press

ISBN 9781310551086

Cover Art © 2018 Erin O’Quinn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

You are reading a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author ’ s imagination or are used fictitiously; and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

WARNING: This writing contains explicit sexual descriptions and is intended for a mature audience over the age of 18.

Note: This novel was first published by another press which is no longer in business. The present volume contains a new cover and writing updates by the author.

Dedication

In loving memory of my father.

Foreword:

Noble Dimensions

The Noble Dimensions series comprises three works: two novels, only loosely connected by the setting with a few overlapping characters; and a novella titled A Hard Place . These books are meshed by their universe—a fictitious area of Nevada, based on O’Quinn’s former Eastern Nevada turf.

Turf is important.

The hick town is a fitting backdrop for plain-spoken characters with complex emotions. The clapboard house, the seedy bar, the fly-speck of a motel room—these places in Noble, Nevada serve as a kind of contrast to the people who fill those spaces.

Readers who go on to follow The Chase will see a different environment—a two-acre ranch, a grandiose town home. They’ll also see that some of the characters make an encore appearance, notably Roy Grayson, Chase’s dad; and importantly, Brew’s gay-hating father.

The novella A Hard Place flies off in a different direction…into the rugged Paiute Mountain range some fifty miles from Noble, where a game warden encounters two poachers. One is a falconer with feral eyes who’s out to seduce him. The other is out to kill him.

Noble, Nevada

Love hurts…

Rick Hendrickson is a drifter who stops in the hick town of Noble, Nevada, looking for a job. One night in a bar his delft-blue eyes reach out and snag young Tony Grazzo like barbed wire.

Hometown boy Tony, home from college, is ducking a suffocating relationship with a girl. When he and Rick find themselves in a dumpy roadside motel room, on a swaybacked bed …blue eyes and tight Levi’s come together.

Their affair is fast and unrestrained, in spite of Tony’s awkward naivete and Rick’s shrouded history. Each begins to think life is pretty damn good. But the past of both men fractures their present life together. What happens to put one behind bars, while the other runs? And if love hurts this bad, can it also heal?

Excerpt

…Tony drained his beer can. That was good. Yeah, for a generic, pretty good.

Rick was closer to him than when he had first crawled to the head of the bed. His face seemed to be only inches from his own.

How ’bout one more?

Um, later. Tony was beginning to feel buzzed and his cock was starting to stir in his jeans. What the hell? Rick’s mouth was somehow very close to his own.

I like your mustache.

Tony giggled. I grew it because someone else didn’t like it.

Tell me.

My girl Lotte. We haven’t slept together in forever. Maybe because I put up this mustache as a barrier. Like a border wall between Mexico and Texas. He began to laugh again, wondering why he was telling Rick things he didn’t even want to think about.

Well, Tone, I think it’s sexy as hell. Rick’s voice was very low, and Tony leaned forward a little to hear him.

When he leaned, he was surprised to find Rick’s mouth right there, right next to his. Then he felt a most curious sensation from his balls to the tip of his prick as Rick’s tongue flicked out and traced his upper lip, all along the mustache.

Mmmnn, I like it. He licked again. A lot.

His cock engorged so fast his denims couldn’t hold him, throbbing and beating against the too-tight riveted crotch.

Tony knew this was either the beginning or the end of something. He could succumb right now to this heady feeling of arousal. Or he could jump up immediately and move away from Rick as if nothing had happened. His choice. The rest of his life sat on the fulcrum of this lumpy little bed…

CHAPTER 1

Tony Grazzo hunkered at the bar, hoping no one there knew him—or at least wouldn’t recognize him after four years’ absence. He fingered the new mustache and tried not to think too hard about the reason he tolerated the scratchy growth and the reason he’d cultivated it.

The Silver Spur was the only beer joint in Noble that still had a jukebox, a relic from the fifties that the bar owner still managed to stock with enough up-to-date songs to keep the patrons happy. Just now, Trace Thompson’s low, sorrow-laced voice filled the bar. The country singer’s signature tear-in-my-beer song was beginning to annoy him. Someone had played it at least three times this last half hour, and its whining repetition was grinding on his nerves.

"I’m gonna have me a long, hard cry

an’ wonder why

you left me.

I’m gonna have me a long, cold beer

an’ hold you near

in memory."

His eye flicked to a guy in his forties draped over his drink at the far end of the knotty pine U-shaped bar top. No doubt lovesick and lonely, nursing one more cold one. Tony thought the guy needed to grab a six-pack, go home, and cry himself to sleep.

If anyone needs to cry in his beer, it’s me. Sitting here in Noble, Nevada, a flyspeck on my rearview mirror, waiting for Dad to settle back into some kind of life after Mom’s passing.

He signaled the bartender. One more, then back to Dad’s. He figured his father would be asleep by now, holed up in the bedroom where he and Mom had slept his whole life, in the little house next to the gas station along the highway. Dad might be crying into his pillow, Tony thought, but he’d be goddamned if he’d let anyone know it. He hadn’t wanted Tony to sit around the house; he’d chased him out tonight. He wants me there, but he wants his alone time, too. Life sucks. Death sucks worse.

He was starting to think that beer had a mysterious lever that jerked at one’s tear ducts. With only one bottle under his belt, even he was beginning to feel weepy about his mom, his demanding girlfriend, his worthless diploma that would be forwarded to his father’s address.

Some good a pre-law diploma will do me here. Should have majored in Ag, like Dad wanted. Then I could start up a few acres of cow shit and chicken feed and stay with him ’til he gets used to being a lonely old man.

Oh, God, Dad, I cry for you…

He drained the twelve-ounce bottle and turned to leave.

Another beer for your thoughts.

Curious, he turned to his right. A man was standing at the bar, not bothering to sit on the stool. In one hand he held a worn black cowboy hat, while the other hand reached for his wallet. He had obviously signaled to the bartender and was waiting for his drink. Tony saw a man a few years older than himself, dressed in a snap-button country-style cotton shirt, slim bootleg Levi’s and worn cowboy boots. He wondered what kind of guy took his hat off in a dump like this.

Well, I really shouldn’t—

Why not? Gotta girl waiting?

The man’s voice was an easy drawl, not a Nevada accent, or any accent he had heard before. But the voice was interesting, and his face was nice. Not just nice—the guy’s fucking drop-dead handsome. I could stay for another beer. Why not?

No. He forced himself to grin a little. No girl. Mornings come early in Noble, Nevada.

That so? You a local or just passing through?

A little of both, I think.

Just then, the bartender set down his usual Bud and a draft for the man who had ordered them both.

The stranger lifted his glass, still foaming over onto the napkin on the polished bar. To Noble, then.

Tony thought the man was being a little presumptuous, taking it for granted he’d have another drink after he’d declined. But he thought it wouldn’t hurt to drink one more—slowly—so he could drive home with a clear head.

He lifted the bottle. Yeah. Noble.

He took a short swig and lowered the Budweiser. He still wasn’t used to the growth on his upper lip, and he swiped the excess beer with the back of his hand, wondering idly if he should’t just shave the damn thing off.

He didn’t really want to start a conversation. He’d successfully ducked every curious eye in the bar tonight. And now he was being pinned to his stool by a total stranger. He steadfastly refused to ask the man about himself, hoping he’d finish his drink and leave him alone.

The man bent next to him, his elbows resting on the bar. He was tall, Tony noticed. Tall enough that the act of leaning caused his butt to jut out, and his bent leg on the bar rail seemed to draw the jeans even tighter across his ass end. The stranger was quiet, just drinking and watching him.

He had blue eyes. Not just blue, Tony thought, but the amazing delft blue of his mother’s old china. A blue that hooked, then snagged and held fast.

Finally, Tony became uncomfortable with the silence and the stranger’s stare. Um, and you? Passing through?

Looking for work. The man offered no more than a few syllables and a steady, not unfriendly gaze.

Yeah, well, it’s not hard to find seasonal work here. A lot of folks come home from college every summer to earn some easy bucks to go back to school. The tourist trade keeps the town jumping—at least for a few months.

Tourists? What for?

Gambling. Whoring. Rodeo. Souvenirs. You know. Noble’s still kind of a raw town. Wild West and all that.

And you don’t come for summer work?

I…work for a professor. A glorified research assistant. So the short answer is no. I’m here for another reason…

The man straightened then and held out his hand. Name’s Charlie Hendrickson. Friends call me Rick.

Tony was stuck now. It would be rude to ignore the man. But he still didn’t want to invite any chumminess. He gripped Rick’s hand. Ah, Tony. Tony Grazzo.

Okay, Tony Grazzo. The man seemed careful to give his last name the true Italian accent. Can I call you Tone? You got a good grip. I like you.

Then Rick smiled for the first time, and Tony was won over. His smile was warm, the kind that invited a person to draw up a chair and set a while, as folks here liked to say. The kind of smile that went from his mouth straight to his eyes, so a person would know he was genuine.

Rick’s face was tanned, and not from a machine. His hair was either black or deeply brown, with dark brows to match. His hair sprang in half-curls from the sides of a high, rather square forehead. His chin had a dimple, the kind girls liked to put a little finger in while they angled up for a kiss.

Shit, yeah, I’m jealous. He has the kind of face that puts people on notice.

In spite of himself, he began to talk, while Rick listened, again leaning on the bar without sitting. Tony told him about his mom’s recent death—some kind of stroke—how Dad was going through every day in a dream-state, how he was almost taking over the gas station shop and the fill-ups, while his father wandered through the house putting Mom’s stuff in boxes.

So I figure it’ll take most of the summer, maybe longer, before Dad snaps out of his shock. I don’t think he ever planned for Mom to go first. She was always our leaning post. And now there’s nothing to lean on.

Except you.

Me? Ah, I don’t think Dad— He stopped. Maybe Dad was beginning to lean on him a little. He’d never admit to needing his son, taking pride in his ability to help Tony in any way, all through grade school and high school. When Tony had stood awkwardly at the bus depot on his way to college that first year, Dad had looked almost hurt, as though the family dog had run away and there was no longer a need to put out the kibble dish. It was Mom who’d hugged him firmly and told him he’d do fine, while Dad had turned away, almost angry at his departure, helpless to show his feeling of loss.

That hadn’t changed, anyway—his father’s inability to cope with loss. Tony wondered what he’d do after all the boxes were full of Mom’s things. Would he actually throw them away? Give them to the charity store? Or pile them in the tiny garage behind the house with the excuse he wasn’t quite finished?

Where’s your dad’s filling station?

Out on North 95, along the highway.

I’m near there, I think, Tone. The truck stop.

Tony realized that the Country Skillet Café and Truck Stop was only half a mile or so from where Dad had bought a Shell station some twenty-five years ago, before his pretty wife Darlene grew heavy with the child who would become Antonio Grazzo.

Yeah, it’s close. You staying at the motel? The six-unit motel had accommodations by the day, week or month, according to the sometimes-working sign near the café.

The Fly by Night? Yes. Rick chuckled. That’s what I feel like. A fly-by-night.

Where you coming from, Rick? Only a week in town, Tony thought ruefully, and he was already beginning to sound like a hick again.

Last place? Vegas. Before that? Fresno, I think. Or Bakersfield. I forget.

Tony looked more closely at him. From all indications, he was a carefree cowboy, though not a hick. Tony wondered why he seemed to migrate from place to place instead of