Twelve Desserts of Summer

By Tinnean

Connor Murphy, the CFO of the family business, has given up his dream of becoming a chef in order to help the company. After all, family means the world to him, something his boyfriend learned at Christmas, much to his displeasure. This is why six months after that disastrous Christmas, Connor is sans boyfriend and buries himself in work to take his mind off his single status. Still, he enjoys baking desserts and bringing them to his beloved nanny. He also enjoys going to the Coffee Shoppe, exchanging glances with the man behind the counter. Until the man is suddenly gone.

While Murphy Doyle waits for a job in his preferred field, he helps out behind the counter at his family’s coffee shop. He might be a physical therapist, but he also loves to bake, especially desserts, which are a big hit at work. He’s been intrigued by the businessman who frequently comes into the shop, wearing a three-piece suit and always ordering the same thing. Murph would have loved to ask him out, but it’s against company policy, so they never speak, just gaze silently at each other, everything but their eyes hidden by the masks they wear due to the pandemic. And then he gets his dream job, and he’s afraid the opportunity is lost.

Are these two men destined to be ships passing in the night, or will family meddling somehow bring them together?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685501624

Tinnean

I’ve been writing since the 3rd grade. I was on the staff of my high school magazine, and then... I got married. There was a long interval when raising my kids took preference, although I would scribble sci fi, contemporary, or paranormal stories with very strong heroines. (This was before I discovered m/m. Don’t laugh, I led a very sheltered childhood.)It was with the advent of the family's second computer – the first intimidated everyone – that my writing took off. I discovered 1. Fanfiction; 2. m/m (yes, I know. Finally!); 3. the wonder that is copy and paste. Does anyone remember what typing up a manuscript on a manual typewriter was like? Okay then, nuff said.While I was involved in fandom, I was nominated for both Rerun and Light My Fire Awards. But even then, my original characters would come knocking, to the point I’ve left Jim and Blair, Rodney and John, and even Lyle and Mr. Taggart (Blazing Saddles) behind. I’ve been published by Nazca Plain, JMS Books, Dreamspinner, Wilde City Press, and Less Than Three Press, and now I’m taking the leap into the self-pubbing pool. My novel, Two Lips, Indifferent Red received honorable mention in the 2013 Rainbow Awards, and Home Before Sundown was a 2017 runner-up.Now I reside in SW Florida with my husband and three computers, but I’ll always be a Noo Yawk kinda gal.

Book preview

Prologue: Chocolate Pots de Crème

Connor Murphy put the finishing touches on the chocolate pots de crème, whipping together the heavy cream and powdered sugar while his boyfriend shaved the chocolate that was to garnish it. This made dessert number twelve.

Number eleven was keeping warm, and number ten was in the freezer.

It was the last day of summer, and over the past months they’d put together one chocolate dessert after another—because who didn’t love chocolate?

He glanced across the butcher block counter, unable to help gazing at the man who stood there, who gazed back at him with such love…

Who’d have thought?

Chapter 1: Double Chocolate Meringue Cookies

Even though it wasn’t quite nine A.M., Connor Murphy had already been at work for three hours. Why not? As the CFO of Dougherty, Murphy, and Family, the construction company his great-grandfathers had started, he could pretty much set his own hours, especially since he worked from home. After all, what else was there for him to do? Spend those early morning hours in bed with his boyfriend? He couldn’t help a bitter laugh. Not fucking likely. It seemed his relationship was one more casualty of this goddamned pandemic. Just before Valentine’s Day, Jordan had declared Connor too wrapped up in the family business to be any fun and had moved out.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Connor.

Of course, it hadn’t always been like that. Jordan hadn’t known him when he’d planned to be a chef. Back then, Connor and his friends would go clubbing on the weekends, while during the week, Connor would dine out at various restaurants in the Boston area, sampling their cuisine to see how he would do it…better.

That stopped after Aunt Brig, the company’s accountant, announced she was planning to retire, and none of the other cousins wanted to take over the financial aspect of the company. Connor had transferred to Harvard and switched to business administration—he’d taken some of those courses anyway, since he’d planned at one point to have his own restaurant. That was where he’d met Jordan. It hadn’t taken long for them to begin dating, and Connor had had hopes for them.

The thing was he and his family were a package deal—love him, love them, something Jordan seemed incapable of understanding. His boyfriend learned this on Christmas, when he’d made no effort to connect with the cousins and instead tried to monopolize Connor’s company. When that hadn’t succeeded, Jordan had retreated to a corner with his cellphone and refused to look up from the screen.

Connor had still hoped for the best, had even thought maybe putting a ring on it would help things work out…but they didn’t. Jordan broke up with him before Connor could propose.

He liked to visit the local coffee shops for a midmorning snack, and one shop in particular made fantastic pastries—well worth the twenty-minute drive to get there. The guy behind the counter had amazing green eyes…like in the song, they were always smiling. But because Connor had still been involved with Jordan at that time, he’d never done anything more than smile behind his mask, nod, and pay for the cream-filled Long John and coffee he’d ordered. It had reached the point Green Eyes called out his order before he had a chance to open his mouth.

Lately, the guy—name unknown since he didn’t wear a name tag and they’d never struck up a conversation due to the unending line of customers waiting to place their orders—hadn’t been there, and when Connor asked, the young woman who took his order simply said her brother’s job had taken him out of town.

Will he be coming back?

Depends. He’s got magic fingers, and a lot of people need his expertise.

Intrigued, Connor had been about to ask what that entailed when she glanced past his shoulder at the line of customers behind him. He signed the credit card slip, took his copy, his card, his coffee, and the box of pastries, and returned home.

Talk about ships passing in the night…

Well, no point in moaning about what ifs. He had a Zoom call with his personal assistant coming up in—

His cellphone began to play the theme from Halloween, the ringtone he’d assigned his mother—and okay, maybe that was cold, but he was the only one who heard it—and he wanted to groan. Instead, he pasted a grin on his face, hoping the expression would travel across the line. Good morning, Mother. How are you?

I’m well, and I trust you are also? Are you dating someone suitable?

No—

You disappoint me, Connor. She didn’t give