Real World

By Amy Jo Cousins

When talking fails, it’s time to break out the big guns.

Five years ago, Tom Worthington busted his ass to overcome the fear and paranoia that led him to withdraw from the world and nearly lose his boyfriend. He never thought he’d find himself right back there, shutting Reese out, keeping secrets again.

Reese Anders is ready to try anything to get Tom to talk: if he can’t seduce his boyfriend with food, he’ll get Tom to open up in bed. But even Tom’s confession that his dad is getting out of prison soon doesn’t clear the air between them. And as the holidays approach, intensive mentoring from a new British boss creates more distractions, until Reese is keeping secrets of his own.

At a company Christmas party, it only takes Tom one look at Reese’s new boss to figure out how much danger their relationship is in. But he’s not about to let the connection that started all those years ago at Carlisle come to an end. It’s time to deal with their problems like adults. Face to face. Or back to front. Starting in the bedroom.

Warning: This book contains two adorable guys with way too many secrets, conciliatory rigatoni, a bedroom lesson on the power of multitasking, and indisputable evidence on what makes the perfect holiday HEA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Jo Cousins
• Release date: Mar 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370137398

Amy Jo Cousins

A.J. Cousins knows one thing for sure: the people who read and write romance novels are the smartest, funniest, kindest, and most optimistic souls on the planet and finding a place in this community has been like coming home. She lives in Chicago, where she writes contemporary romance, tweets more than she ought, and sometimes runs way too far. She loves her boy and the Cubs, who taught her that being awesome doesn't necessarily have anything to do with winning. Please visit her online!

Book preview

1

Those jerks next door stole our newspaper again. Assholes, Reese muttered over his coffee mug as he stood at the sink and glared out the window at the house next door, no doubt plotting his revenge. Tom knew from personal experience just how creative his boyfriend could get—although when Reese’s creativity was turned on Tom, as it was on a regular basis, it made him shiver and his dick get hard—and felt bad in advance for the neighbor’s

imminent

doom

.

Maybe it wasn’t them. Better to avoid conflict. Especially in

this

case

.

Oh please. Reese turned and leaned against the counter. "You know they’re still pissed I called the gas company

on

them

."

"I apologized

for

that

."

You shouldn’t have. It was their own fault, a stench like that. Reese was halfway convinced they were living next door to a meth lab, and kept telling Tom it was just a matter of time until they were both killed in a fiery explosion.

Tom thought the couple next door—half hipster, half hippie, all lesbian—were a little too crunchy-granola to be masterminding a criminal drug lab. Reese remained suspicious.

Maybe there’s a problem with our subscription. It was an affectation anyway, getting the Sunday paper delivered. Reese had signed them up for a subscription when they’d moved into their first apartment after graduation, because he’d had this idea that’s what grown-ups in a relationship did on Sundays—lounge around reading the paper and eating breakfast

in

bed

.

Tom had a whole lot of other things he preferred to do with Reese in a bed than read the paper. Especially when the news was full of landmines and hand grenades.

Like

now

.

For the past month, just the sight of that folded-up U of newsprint in its cheap plastic sack would set the acid in his stomach churning.

I guess. I can call and check on it later today.

I’ll do it, Tom volunteered, disbelief washing over him at the level of subterfuge to which he was willing to sink. He was going to have to tell Reese eventually. The news would filter in sooner or later, and then Tom would be busted.

Even someone as careless of staying on top of current events as Reese would hear Tom’s father was getting sprung from prison on an early-release program for nonviolent offenders making restitution to the community.

Minimal prison time was apparently one of the perks of being a rich white dude who had only destroyed lives by breaking people financially. Tom didn’t understand why his father should get off any lighter than someone who had killed people in a drunk-driving accident. Especially since his father hadn’t been drunk. He’d known exactly what he was doing the entire time, and didn’t regret a damn thing.

Of course, in Thomas Worthington II’s head, he hadn’t actually done anything wrong at all. He’d simply been unlucky, and if no one had panicked, all his father’s investors would have made out like bandits in

the

end

.

Tom wasn’t sure how it was possible to run a massive Ponzi scheme, defrauding thousands of investors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, without acknowledging that was what you were doing, but he’d seen his father’s face. The times he’d gone to visit him in the federal detention center before the trial.

He’d seen no guilt. No remorse. Just a self-righteous outrage that anyone would doubt him. His father had leaned toward him over the metal table bolted to the floor in the family visiting room at the jail where he’d been held as a flight risk before his trial.

Hey, kiddo. This is all a shakedown racket. You know I’m going to take care of you when the Feds finally get their heads out of their asses, right?

Tom hadn’t asked what his father meant. He didn’t want to know. He’d sat there silent, a mute audience for the show his father put on like a carnie barker reeling in the marks for a rigged game. The words had washed over him, the excuses and explanations of the many, many ways in which his father was misunderstood and persecuted and the victim of circumstance. He’d seen a man who repainted the world in his own image, and Tom had known he never wanted anything to do with that man, ever again.

Walking away from his father had been incredibly easy. So easy, the ghost of it had followed him everywhere he’d gone since.

Tom had taken to waking up extra early for his morning run. He ran farther than ever these mornings, until his legs and his lungs burned, and when he stopped, the struggle not to throw up in the gutter at the end of their driveway helped keep him distracted even longer.

He worried someone would spot him throwing the paper in the neighbor’s recycling bin, but at least he knew it wouldn’t be Reese, who believed waking up before it was absolutely necessary because of work, hunger or the need to piss was a sign of an uptight asshole.

Tom almost laughed, except he knew Reese would ask him what was funny.

One uptight asshole, coming

right

up

.

I’ll take care of it, he repeated.

"

S

omething’s

up

."

What?

I don’t know. But Tom’s being all withdrawn and secretive, and it sucks.

Holy shit. Do you think he’s…? Steph paused with her hand shoved in the paper sack holding her three different baos. She could never settle on her favorite flavor of the

steamed

buns

.

What? Cheating on me? Fuck no. Reese waved his hand in the air. He’d gone for the dramatic and overexaggerated. We go through this pretty regularly.

The silent martyr returns?

They’d all lived through Tom’s idea of handling his own shit in college. It hadn’t been pretty. And it had almost cost him his relationship with Reese.

Reese snorted. That was one way to put it. Yeah. But I can usually snap him out of it pretty quick if I just sit him down and remind him that the not-talking thing? Doesn’t work for us. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it when it starts, I think. Just reverts to old patterns.

That does suck. Sauce leaked out of her bao and Steph swiped it off her finger with

a

lick

.

It really, really did suck. A sharp pain lanced deep behind his temple, threatening to set up shop there. He’d gotten used to the stress headaches that came with managing Tom’s withdrawal phases. Didn’t mean he liked it. "Yeah, I kinda wish we could wave a magic wand and get past that, but I guess twenty years of being raised by a glib asshole doesn’t wash

off

easy

."

God, I bet it doesn’t help to know he could be seeing that asshole any day now either?

Reese froze with his fork halfway to his

mouth

. "

What

?"

His dad gets out of prison in a couple of weeks. The look of shock on his face must have been damn hard to miss, because Steph scrunched up her eyebrows and stuffed the last piece of bao into her mouth, chewing quickly before continuing. I know Tom doesn’t talk to him, but I’m surprised you guys haven’t seen the news. It’s been all over the place.

We’ve been having issues with our newspaper delivery, Reese muttered, sawing with his plastic knife at the last bit of spicy peanut chicken—this storefront Asian fusion café always served pieces too big to pick up with his chopsticks—until he’d dug through the Styrofoam container and was grinding at the tabletop. Damn you, Tom. Your ass is so much grass tonight.

Throwing the knife down, he swept the remains of his lunch into the paper sack in which it had been handed to him and stood.

Steph stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "Hey, I didn’t mean to deliver

bad

news

."

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. You didn’t. Don’t worry. Lunch on Friday?

Meet you here. The best thing about his best friend and Tom’s best friend reconnecting and morphing from fuck buddies to love bunnies was Cash moving back to Boston for a job and Steph coming

with

him

.

And Sunday dinner. Even better than lazy Sunday mornings, with or without the Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Newspaper, were Sunday-night dinners, when he and Tom made big, simple meals for their friends, who had standing invitations to show up with drinks or desserts.

"We’re so there. We need to brace ourselves for next week’s family gatherings, when we’ll get to spend the weekend explaining, again, how we don’t want my in-laws to buy us a house for a wedding gift. Also, how we’re not even talking about marriage

yet

.

Ugh

."

At Steph’s scowl, Reese raised his hands in the air. "Don’t look at me. You know I’m on Cash’s side in

this

one

."

Steph was never going to be the one who pushed to get married in that relationship. Cash had admitted to Reese that he’d pretty much started casually bringing the idea up in conversation as soon as he and Steph had started packing their respective apartments in Chicago to move back to Boston.

I figure I gotta give her five or six years to get used to the idea, before I can wear her down enough to say yes, Cash had told him. Heteronormative relationship rituals were so not Steph’s thing. "It’s a campaign of

attrition

,

dude

."

Traitor. She threw a balled-up napkin at him and Reese ducked, but Steph must not have been trying too hard because the paper wad missed him by a mile and her aim was wicked sharp. He’s always teased her that she’d make a fabulous first baseman for a lesbian softball team. "I’m starting to cave, I think. About the house, at least. Although I don’t suppose I can get away with taking the house without the fucking

wedding

too

."

Really? Shock and awe didn’t capture the breadth of his surprise at

this

news

.

Yeah. I had to kill a mouse last week. I’m being worn down by vermin. She bussed his cheek and waved goodbye as she headed back to the LGBTQ senior center where she worked, making him promise to let her pick Friday’s lunch venue, which meant she had a new food truck she wanted

to

try

.

---

Back at the office, Reese had barely slung his backpack under the desk when Niall from Marketing popped up at the edge of his reception desk. The British guy was tall and wiry and never wore anything even vaguely resembling a suit. Creative geniuses who could also manage to produce data-verified, effective marketing campaigns got a lot of leeway from the bosses.

Hey, what are you up to? Niall asked as he cracked open a can of Diet Mountain Dew. Niall’s most notable personality trait involved being an absolute fiend for caffeine.

Reese grinned at him. Something about that posh accent coming out of a mouth with a lip piercing cheered him up every time. The Never Mind the Bollocks Sex Pistols T-shirt didn’t hurt either.

Just getting back from lunch. Got some office supplies to inventory for Brenda.

"Can

it

wait

?"

Sure. Why? Nothing in Reese’s very, very boring job was ever important enough that it couldn’t wait. He’d been at Mode Seven for a year because the benefits were fantastic, especially compared to the restaurant job he’d had before this one. But he was supposed to be figuring out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and Reese had spent twelve months spinning his wheels and wondering if a waiter-slash-receptionist could apply for a spy job at

the

CIA

.

"I’m stealing you for a special project. You’re mine for the next six weeks, or however long it takes to come up with some new stuff for our sekrit client."

Everyone who worked at M7 said the words like that. Although they were known for their cheap and funky clothing design and manufacturing, M7’s private-label business was a growing part of their annual sales.

No one ever said the name of their main private-label client out loud, though. Some kind of company tradition. The one time Reese had slipped up and asked a question using the client’s name in a conversation, everyone had laughed as they’d hissed at him to hush, but they’d definitely hissed.

Me? Really? In his experience, the higher-ups at this place barely registered his presence. They certainly didn’t ask him to do anything other than sort mail, sign for packages, greet clients and answer the phone. At one point, he’d offered to help one of the financial analysts with a competitive analysis, and that had been interesting for as long as it lasted. But the director of Finance was extremely uptight about proprietary information and she’d put the kibosh on his participation almost immediately.

Why, are you too busy? Niall’s eyebrows were pointed like the devil’s, and one flew up skeptically now. You’re smart and you look bored. Don’t you want to do something more interesting than answer the phones and keep us all in pencils and copy paper?

Reese eyed his bare desk and the silent phone with a sigh. He’d taken on any spare task in his effort to make this job more than a time killer while he figured out what the hell he was going to do with his life, but M7 was a small company and mostly he sat around playing solitaire on the computer. I’m so bored. But what about…? He waved at the phone.

There’s this magical new technology we’ve supplied you with. It’s called call forwarding, Niall said, smiling and tipping his head toward