PS

By Caraway Carter

Gus Mead's heart was broken somewhere over Ohio on his way to Vermont. Moving with a dream to transform a run-down train depot into a bookstore with his online boyfriend, he discovered that Sam wasn't real... or even a man. But when he hits it off with the sexy carpenter he hired for the remodel, he thinks he might be about to start a new romantic chapter.

James Boyer is between jobs and lovers. And he may have found the solution to both his problems when sparks ignite with the handsome new owner.
Unable to resist falling for the hot carpenter, Gus still can't imagine how anyone so gorgeous would want to be with him. And James knows his client is everything he wants, but he's terrified he'll move too fast and drive the wounded bookseller away.

A weekend getaway for books, a nude man, and miscommunication may be what they need to build a relationship based on humor, honesty, and hardbacks.

If you like small-town romances, witty dialogue, and happily ever afters, then you'll adore Caraway Carter's feel-good tale.

Buy PS to write a happy ending today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caraway Carter
• Release date: Dec 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393505457

Caraway Carter

Caraway Carter has worn numerous hats. He’s been a furniture salesman, a dresser, a costumer, an actor/waiter, a rabble-rouser, a poet and most recently a writer. He loves words and stringing them together, he loves sex and sexy men, and he writes relationship fiction that reminds you–it’s never too late for love. And he has lived his tagline. He married his husband on Halloween, at the age of forty-nine, and they are the loving parents of an adorable cat named Molly.

Book preview

I

The Depot

Chapter One

My theme song had become Stronger by Kelly Clarkson. I wanted to believe in the words that she belted in my ears, the song that had been playing on repeat since I stepped off the plane in Vermont. Somewhere over Ohio, all my plans were destroyed, and for a good long time all I could do was laugh.

Three hours later, I stood in front of the train station, a backpack at my feet and a coffee cup in my hand; the coffee had long gone cold. I stood there and said repeatedly, What the fuck am I doing here?

It was boarded up, looking exactly like the pictures the real estate agent had sent me. Didi even went to the trouble of Skyping with me about how far gone the building was. She told me about the deterioration of the brick along the tracks as well as the lack of privacy once the boards came off the windows. However, like every other intrepid restorer, I had a carpenter in my back pocket.

Sam had told me he wanted to restore something unique and repurpose it. We tossed around ideas like an old library, a bank building, a high school, but I put my foot down when he suggested a church. Somehow we ended up picking a train depot, because of the covered bridge that one would take to get there, but as I turned around in front of my defunct building, the bridge apparently had washed out. There were ways to get to the station, but not via the bridge that had been built in the thirties. And now that I’m here, I also do not have that proverbial carpenter in my back pocket.

Sam—the man I’d hoped would work on not only my wood, but that of the building—had finally admitted he was actually a she, and that she was a twenty-one-year-old creative writing student. She went on to explain that our entire relationship had been for her senior thesis. She’d never meant to lead me on. She’d said she didn’t believe a guy could be so lonely as to sell everything he owned so he could buy a train depot on the basis of emails, instant messages, and Skype.

I took a deep breath and asked the name of the man I had spent hours on Skype with. Who had it been? She’d said he was just some guy who needed a place to crash, an acting student who was hard up for food and a place to sleep.

I swear I walked up and down the aisle of that plane so many times it was like the flight attendants were playing tennis with me, sending me back to my seat after every serve of information from Sam. To stop me from going crazy, I started a journal, and for the rest of the flight, I wrote down everything that had happened to me.

What the fuck do I do with a train depot? I asked the rental car agent.

He smiled. Catch a train?

I threw my backpack on the front seat, switched on the GPS, and made my way to the one-of-a-million small towns scattered throughout the beautiful state of Vermont. I listened to the playlist I’d created on the flight. What Doesn’t Kill You would have to get me through my future.

I didn’t know what I was looking at; it had been a good twenty years since anyone had stepped foot in the building, at least, that was what Didi had told me. I studied my watch: it was time to do some serious thinking on where this was going to go. I reached into my backpack, pulled out a thick sharpie and wrote in thick large letters:

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PS

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The song had switched to Nikki Minaj, and I added an exclamation point to the name of the store, which, to me, would always stand for Post Sam. I decided, right then and there, I would go through with my original plans. Sam might have fucked over any chances I had for love in my life, but I would follow through. I would turn the depot into a bookstore and café, where I’d serve coffee and pastries. I’d have to take a look inside the place, see if I could get a café in there, or maybe just a couple coffee pots.

Pulling off the boards from the windows didn’t seem like the right thing to do at four o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. So, I got back in the SUV I’d rented and drove around for a motel. I was easy; I needed a base of operations until I could do something with the place.

I drove all around until I was pretty certain I was no longer in the area, and as the darkness fell, I was no closer to finding a place to rest for the night. Everything seemed so expensive. I just wanted a shitty little motel, someplace you’d discover a college professor meeting up with a student for a date. Hell, by that point I’d have happily crashed in a rest stop, but then I saw a sign for Jack & Barb’s Motor Inn—an odd little motel that looked out of place—like an oasis on the horizon.

I pulled in, and after filling in some paperwork and taking receipt of an orange-tabbed key, I made my way to the flaked green door of room 10. I picked up my backpack, locked the car…and stepped into the past. Burnt-orange shag carpet, avocado-green abstract-patterned bedspread of triangles and diamonds, two harvest-gold pillows leaning against a wooden swirled headboard. The walls were yellow-gray, either from paint or cigarette smoke, and the particleboard nightstands on each side of the queen-size bed were frat-boy furniture. The long, matching dresser had an old television on one end and a large, red leather bible on the other.

Under the window was a square table with a phone and a notepad beside it. The entire room reminded me of my Aunt Claire’s house—the only things missing were Aunt Claire in her purple polyester pant suit and that lamp with a statue of a naked lady surrounded by dripping oil. And I realized it was exactly what I needed. It had nothing to keep me there, but everything to tide me over until I had PS ready and could move in.

I reached into my backpack for a pen and my laptop. Initially, I had expected to spend this night in Sam’s arms, taking the first week together looking at each other’s faces, studying his body, all those places where I’d said my tongue would go…and actually go there.

Instead, it was me, alone in a run-down motel room, a pen, a notepad, and my laptop.

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TODO:

Remove window boards

Survey building

Contact electrician

Contact another carpenter

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It made me cackle how much needed to be done. Even with Sam beside me working, laughing, kissing me, and making me feel all around desired, it would have been hard. Well, I thought at least we’d both be hard, but the labor would have been full of love. Now, I thought, it’s just going to be labor, I don’t see love of anything. Right at that moment, I couldn’t even see the love in myself.

I just remembered her words—I never thought anyone would ever be lonely enough to sell everything they owned. I was lonely enough. This was the first time anyone had ever looked at me differently. Growing up, I’d always dreamed of having a big burly man sweep me off my feet. I’d wanted Paul Bunyan; I’d wanted the unattainable. I mean, honestly, I wasn’t God’s gift to anyone. I was a fat guy—the only thing going for me was my full, brown beard and my wavy, brown hair.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I used to follow Davey Beckman everywhere. He played football, but during basketball season, he played the contra-alto clarinet, and I’d come in playing the bass clarinet. He was my idol, a nerd like me, but built like a lineman. He had enormous lungs and a powerful body. My first experience was with Davey. We were roomies away at marching band camp. He snuck into my bed and held onto me. Nothing sexual, just holding each other. Those meet-ups lasted until he graduated, and when he left, I became my version of him.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d had lots of sex. I wasn’t a virgin—no one is ugly in a darkroom, or a large living room, or in a pool with a ton of bears—but I’d never had anyone who wanted to marry me or spend the rest of their life with me.

So, when Sam and I first started talking, I’d taken it slowly. We’d play World of Warcraft together; we’d run in parties where we’d usually die, because our role-playing chat was all we’d cared about.

I’d told him: I’m tired of dying and wasting our time on a game that neither of us even like playing. Then I’d suggested we start emailing each other instead, and it turned into IM’ing early into the morning. Because of Sam, I’d gone back to school and got a business degree. Because of him, I’d started the bookselling business, and my weekends had consisted of thrift-storing and estate sale trips around California.

My family once asked me to bring the object of my affection to Christmas. I told them I didn’t think it would be acceptable to bring the computer to the table. Soon after, we’d begun Skyping, and we’d spend hours just staring at each other. He’d spent one night explaining the wall behind him, which consisted of all his woodworking projects, and that devolved into laughter, with him talking about how he could handle my wood.

I kept kicking myself, because Sam was way too attractive for me. He was this burly, strong guy. Always well dressed, sexy, attractive—the kind of man I’d love to be seen holding hands with. Something I loved about him was that he’d always show up wearing two shirts—usually a T-shirt in a color from whatever plaid flannel long-sleeved shirt he wore over it, like some model from an old eighties GAP ad. And then I’d show up in a T-shirt and baggy shorts, like I didn’t have enough to buy anything, but the truth was it was always hot in my apartment.

Then we’d started talking about my moving to Vermont, and we’d spent the nights looking at Zillow, Trulia, and other real estate sites. It got serious when I noticed that my bank account had tripled in size during the four years we’d been talking.

Now it was about to get real.

Enough money to buy the train depot outright, with the little leftover, I could afford a one-way flight, car rental, and enough to pay off my credit cards.

Chapter Two

Having set my alarm for four a.m., I groggily hopped in the shower and toweled off. I spent a few minutes crying in the bathroom, looking at myself, before I pulled my old coveralls out of the duffel bag, tugged on a green Henley that had seen better days, and stepped into my old brown work boots. Laces tied, I grabbed my backpack and laptop and headed out to the car.

A drive around town revealed a coffee shop, where I stocked up on fuel. At nine, I stood in front of the local ACE hardware. Once inside, I picked up hammers, a flashlight, batteries, a mop, industrial cleaner, Windex, chamois, a crowbar, and an ACE hat and took them