Summer Madness

By Ruby Moone

Ten years is a long time to have a crush.

Their high school reunion is Luke's chance for a shot at Alexander, whom he adored in high school. In training for the past eighteen months to shed the extra weight he'd always carried, he's ready to show Alexander he isn't the boy they called Podge anymore.

As the big day draws nearer and the summer days get hotter, Luke continues running with his next door neighbour Max to stay in shape. But everything is blown apart though when Luke almost faints in the heat, falls into Max's arms, and straight into 'no strings attached' sex.

Suddenly Luke is torn between the man who's there when he needs him and a man he liked years ago but knows very little about. Would it be madness to throw away what he has with Max for a chance with Alexander?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Aug 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781634861977

Ruby Moone

Ruby lives in the north west of England. In school she was told she would never get anywhere if she didn’t stop daydreaming. Eventually she started to write down the daydreams, and voilà! The beautiful men in her head came to life. Ruby writes Regency and contemporary gay romance. For more information, visit rubymoone.com.

Book preview

4

Chapter 1

As usual, the British summer took everyone by surprise. It went from wet and rainy one day, to blistering hot the next. After a day of looking at pale, sweaty people squeezed into last year’s summer clothes, Luke took himself off to buy some new cut-offs and T-shirts as none of his stuff fit him anymore. Come to think of it, he didn’t possess a pair of cut-offs. He’d never worn them. Smiling, he wandered into the kind of shop that he never imagined being able to walk into, let alone buy anything. He peered out of the changing room, checked there was no-one about and then sidled out to look at the new get-up in the full-length mirror. He turned this way and that. He didn’t look half bad. The smile became a grin. The pale khaki shorts were smart, and the white T-shirt showed off his broad shoulders and the muscle definition he had now in his arms thanks to months in the gym and the running. The sunbed had taken the worst of the white away and he actually looked…fit. No belly hanging over the waistband either. He ruffled his hair that had been styled into a short, trendy cut with longer floppy bits on top. He had been going to get contacts, but he had convinced himself that the new, slim, black rimmed specs were okay and as he didn’t need them all the time, he’d kept them.

Very nice.

Luke almost jumped through the roof. When he turned and found the shop assistant grinning at him he blushed. Um, yeah, cheers, he muttered at her and fled back into the changing room. In the end he picked two pairs of shorts, four T-shirts, a pair of flip-flops, and some natty looking trainers. The girl rang them up, and eyed him up at the same time. The blush stayed firmly in place as he took his card back and legged it.

It was roasting outside. He stuck his glasses, which had turned into sunnies, on and headed for the car. He flung his bags in the back and set off for home with the windows down and the radio on loud. As he held the steering wheel he looked at his hands. Even they looked thinner. Three stone. Forty-two pounds. Nineteen kilos. Whichever way you measured it, he was a shadow of his former self, thank God. The prospect of turning up for the ten-year school anniversary reunion looking just the same as when he had left turned him cold. He couldn’t face Alexander Conroy and still be the size of a barn. When the idea had been floated on Facebook, he had almost keeled over when Alexander had put his name down. It had given him eighteen months to get himself in shape. Eighteen months to give himself a fighting chance. He and Alexander had exchanged a few words on Facebook recently, and he had the impression that the man was single, so he