A Piece of Ourselves

By Tray Ellis

Part of the "A Holiday to Remember 2017 Series"

Balancing holidays between two families can make cheerful celebrations into chores. Carson Benedetti's mom has overscheduled the Christmas holidays and she's more than insistent that boyfriend Tynan Harris come into the family fold. There's so much to do Tynan can't find time to bring Carson over to his own family and he feels like they are being left in the dust.

​After dating for nine months, and with their relationship becoming more serious, Tynan's patience is sorely tested by the multitude of Benedetti family traditions keeping them busy. Tynan needs to figure out how to find some breathing room, split their time more fairly, and make Christmas more than just tradition by rote.

A Holiday to Remember
Freddy MacKay - Watermelon Kisses
Foster Bridget Cassidy - But to Love More
Toni Griffin - Corey's Christmas Bundle
Angel Martinez - Safety Protocols for Human Holidays
Nicole Dennis - Secrets & Silk
Kassandra Lea - Winter Home
Jill Wexler - The Christmas Eve Craigslist Killer
Jayne Lockwood - New Beginnings
Tray Ellis - A Piece of Ourselves
J. Scott Coatsworth - I Only Want to Be With You
Siri Paulson - A New Year on Vega III

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mischief Corner Books
• Release date: Dec 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386781653

Book preview

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Cover Artist: Freddy MacKay

Editor: Jaymi E

First Edition

A Piece of Ourselves © 2017 Tray Ellis

All Rights Reserved.

Published in the United States of America.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: A Piece of Ourselves is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are fictionalized. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The story contains explicit sexual content and is intended for adult readers.

Any person depicted in the Licensed Art Material is a model and is being used solely for illustrative purposes.

PUBLISHER

Mischief Corner Books, LLC

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Dear Reader

About Tray Ellis

Also by Tray Ellis

About Mischief Corner Books

Chapter One

Tynan Harris realized there would be a serious problem concerning Christmas scheduling as he tipped down the gravy boat during Thanksgiving dinner and Carson's mom casually mentioned attending midnight mass.

Wait, Tynan said. What?

Carson's mom, Dodie, frowned at him. She had a round, chubby face that was usually full of smiles but at the moment looked particularly perplexed. You really like gravy, don't you?

Tynan looked down and realized he'd poured an overly thick puddle of gravy all over his potatoes. The gravy ran in rivulets down the potato mountain to leak in-between the green beans, like a marshy flood in spring. He liked gravy, but he'd emptied half the gravy boat's contents onto his plate. Eating all of it would be a bit much. Throwing it out after taking it would be worse. One option made him look like a glutton and the other like a wasteful fool.

Tynan wanted to stay in Carson's family's good graces. They'd been dating for nine months and things were getting serious. He'd met Dodie and Henry Benedetti, Carson's father, during the summer at a few barbeques and it had taken all summer for them to warm to him. This was the first meal they hadn't been politely reserved with Tynan and had actually opened up and joked around a little.

Your gravy is so good. I can't help myself, Tynan said. He would eat every last damn drop of gravy if he had to sop it up with half a loaf of bread to do it. Or spoon it straight into his mouth. Overenthusiastic sounded like a better label than glutton and Tynan would do his best to sell it hard.

Well, bless your heart, said Dodie. Tynan couldn't tell if the smile she flashed at him was sincere or fake.

Tynan set the nearly empty gravy bowl down on the table. I didn't quite hear what you'd said about Christmas? He made the statement into a question at the end.

Across the table, Carson looked like he wanted to slither down in his seat and hide beneath the tablecloth. Carson's right eyebrow noticeably twitched and he pressed a forefinger on it for a moment.

Oh, that's right, said Dodie. You haven't done a Christmas as part of the family yet. We have the most wonderful traditions. Her smile grew truly genuine. "The first two weekends after Thanksgiving are dedicated to cookie making. I freeze them so they'll stay fresh until the cookie swaps. There's a community singers concert on one of the weekends. My sister is a soprano in the group and I always make sure we go to support her. The weekend after that we all take a trip to the tree farm to pick out our Christmas tree and we stay up late into