When We Were Strangers: One More Thing

By Finn Manning and F.N. Manning

Before One Little Word brought a sarcastic nerd and clueless jock together, they were strangers…

Ryan is a pretty interesting guy. He's smart, a decent baker, and other things too. But right now? He's on a busy farm in the middle of the day… and he's not wearing pants. Or any clothes at all. Plus, his nemesis, Luke the handsome jerk, is right over there, so he needs to take care of this situation. Fast. Without dying of embarrassment, if possible.

 

While Ryan goes on a quest for clothes, his friends have their own adventures. Like Zach crashing a wedding and trying to charm an older groomsman into loosening up. And Luke accidentally challenges Ryan to a heated battle of strength. What happens before these opposites attract, and will it hurt their chances of ever becoming something more?

 

Told in four short stories, When We Were Strangers is an M/M prequel that can be read as a standalone YA novel. If you like zany characters and humor, you'll enjoy this fun, adorable LGBT book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: F.N. Manning
• Release date: Jul 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393293538

Book preview

When We Were Strangers

F.N. Manning

Copyright © 2020 F.N. Manning

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes only. Content on the cover is used for illustrative purposes only and includes a model from a stock photo. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are either made up by the author or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, locales or events is entirely coincidental.

No part of this eBook may be 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 author except in the case of brief quotations.

Quick Note

Do you like free stories? The evidence says you do! There’s more free books here. Also, this story can be read before or after One Little Word, though it takes place before that novel because prequel.

Table of Contents

1. The Most Embarrassing Moment of Ryan Miller’s Life (so far)

2. The Princess of Darkness Makes a Friend

3. Something Old, Something New

4. Anything You Can Do

1. The Most Embarrassing Moment of Ryan Miller’s Life (so far)

Is the ‘so far’ really necessary? Yes, yes it was.

Ryan

Have you ever found yourself standing buck naked in a wheat field in broad daylight? Only there wasn’t any wheat. Or if there was, it was in seed form, so you were basically out in the open where anyone could see you. Has this ever happened to anyone else? Of course it has. It probably happened all the time and was so relatable.

Man, if only I could say it wasn’t every day I ended up locked out while wearing no clothes, but it occurred way more than I was comfortable with. Once. It happened once times. This time, in fact. And it was once more time than I ever wanted.

Ha-ha. Just kidding. I wasn’t naked. Nope. Not at all. Who was naked? Me?!?! No way. I wasn’t naked, you were naked! Oh my god, don’t panic. RYAN, STAY CALM. DON’T PANIC. PLEASE SAVE ME BATMAN, SUPERMAN, OR RYAN REYNOLDS. HEY, HE STOLE MY NAME. No, he had it first since he was older than me.

Ahem. Okay. As I wasn’t in the best headspace for narration, I would come back later. Hopefully when I was calmer and wearing pants.

* * *

The story of How Ryan Lost His Clothes, well, I would rather tell a different story where I seemed like less of a loser. Except I couldn’t recall a story fitting those parameters. Ugh. Fine, maybe the terrible situation I was trapped in went something like this:

While I was incredibly brilliant and mere mortals cowered at the sheer size of my brain, I hadn’t learned to drive yet. I was too busy being brilliant! Which meant my father would pick me up on his lunch break and drive me back to the farm where he worked. Katie Simpson and I met there before heading to our summer classes at the community college in Fairview. Fairview wasn’t here but wasn’t far from here.

Not sure if this mattered, but in an effort to stall, I mean, tell the whole story, I made Dad lunch on the days when I had my classes. Only one of the many ways I was a considerate son who knew how to stay on my dad’s good side. I usually didn’t stay on Dad’s good side, but I knew how, nonetheless.

Should I go back farther? Okay, I was born on a Thursday at—

Wait. 

When I fell into the water trough, the day was going great. Since most of my thoughts trended sarcastic, I should be clear. That wasn’t sarcasm, it was a true statement. Falling into barn animal water was excellent, because even as I heard the splash and my mouth flooded with gross water, I understood there were much worse things on this farm I could have fallen into.

Then some normal stuff happened. Like taking a shower to get clean. The owners of the farm had really fancy soap in their bathroom. My skin was so soft and smelled like daffodils! Not the manliest scent but a ton better than animal spit.

When putting on clothes after my shower, I ran into an unexpected obstacle... there weren’t any clothes where I was told there would be clothes. Then things got less normal and more terrible. I went to search for clothes, clad in only a towel, part of which was stuck in the bathroom door. I just didn’t know the last thing until I heard voices, the bathroom door wouldn’t open, and I ran to hide in the opposite direction of where the voices came from. During this, I lost the towel.

There was some panic, a lot of panic, and somehow I ended up outside. Who could say who was to blame for this development? I couldn’t say for certain it was my fault because I had no clue how I ended up here. It all happened so fast! The door I exited locked behind me. I planned to try a different door—

OH MY GOD. PEOPLE WERE COMING OUTSIDE. And then I was hiding in a barn.

Great, this wasn’t even the horse barn. It was the cow barn. Stupid cows. I had nothing against cows in general, but they weren’t being especially helpful in my hour of need.

Moo, said a cow. The cow wore white fur or whatever with black spots. You know, all cow-like. Me, what was I wearing? Shut up!

Moo, said the cow again.

Don’t judge me, I responded. You aren’t wearing clothes either!

Moo. Maybe that was the same cow or a different one, I wasn’t looking, as I peeked outside to see if the coast was clear. It wasn’t.

Moo.

Is that all you have to say?

Moo.

Of course.

* * *

Progress had been made! Sort of. I moved because stupid Luke Chambers came into the cow barn, so I had to flee. Now I was in a horse barn. I couldn’t stay here long because Butterscotch