Cherry Picking: Red Line Series, #2.3

By TB Mann

Sometimes going with the flow can leave you questioning everything.

 

Not wanting to spend Christmas alone, Brad Scott, a professional hockey player travels to Calgary to visit his best friend, Stephen Johnson. Little does he know, Stephen has plans for him. Ones that leave him reeling. Can what happens in Calgary, stay in Calgary?

This is a fast burn MFM short that is the prequel to Brad and Stephen's story in Checking From Behind. Read their story and those of Brad's two other professional hockey playing brothers in the Red Line Series, books about sharing love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TB Mann
• Release date: Dec 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999486686

Book preview

Cherry Picking

Cherry Picking

A Red Line Series Novelette

TB Mann

Heart Sisters Publishing Inc

Copyright 2019 TB Mann

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN 978-1-9994866-8-6

ISBN (print)

Cover design by Amanda Walker

Edited by Bookends Editing

Printed in Canada

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Published by Heart Sisters Publishing Inc

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Disclaimer

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

To the city of Calgary where I spent my 25th wedding anniversary. If only I’d know about some of your secrets before I went…

Contents

Author’s note

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Preview Checking From Behind

About the Author

Also by TB Mann

Author’s note

This book is written in Canadian English which is a horse of a different colour. It isn’t American English, nor is it British English. Instead it is a mishmash of the two along with some French thrown in. What we spell in British English vs American English also changes on where you grew up in Canada and when. So sometimes it will be toward and sometimes it’s towards… whichever flows better off the tongue—there’s that French influence.

So enjoy the ride!

Cherry Picking

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When an offensive player stays near the opponents defensive zone in the hopes of receiving a breakaway pass.

Chapter One

Brad stepped out the cab into a puddle of slush. The cold water seeped over the edge of his brown leather dress shoe, wetting both the hem of steel blue dress pants and his socks. Fuck! What else will go wrong?

His eyes darted up and down the holiday decorated street as he stood into front of the pink hued nondescript building. It didn’t look a night club could be housed here, but both Stephen and the cab driver assured him that this was the building.

With a shrug to his shoulders, he climbed the steps to the door. Anything to get out of the biting cold wind that tore through his wool overcoat. The door handle froze the ends of his fingers as he pulled it open. It wasn’t the first time he’d wished he hadn’t forgotten his leather gloves in his hotel room. 

The fact that he had told the story of his mindset. He wasn’t a stranger to Canadian winters or even those in Colorado where he’d lived for the past nine years. And even if he hadn’t been familiar with winter in the northern climes, the fact that he spent a minimum of ten months of the year for the past twenty plus years in various ice rinks, should have made gloves a standard grab when going outside during the Christmas season.

Instead, he’d been lost in thought having