The Pride of Garnet Run (Garnet Run #2.5)

By Roan Parrish

Restoring his hometown’s historic art deco theater is a dream come true for Henry, while musician-turned-barista Cameron gave up on his own dreams a long time ago. A chance meeting that goes perfectly wrong might just be the beginning of something neither of them had dared to hope for.

A novella set between the events of Best Laid Plans and The Lights on Knockbridge Lane, The Pride of Garnet Run can be enjoyed as a standalone romance, but will be richer when experienced as part of the wider Garnet Run universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roan Parrish
• Release date: Sep 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781949749151

Roan Parrish

Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia, where she’s gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre. When not writing, she can be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through the city while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.

Book preview

1

CAMERON

October

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Cameron Autry was in a hell of his own making, and that hell was called caffeine withdrawal.

His shift began at the ungodly hour of six, when he dragged his sleep-dull carcass downtown to The Crystal Bean Coffee Shop on Main Street. Usually, the first thing he did was make himself a quad shot and drink it with a day-old croissant, allowing the caffeine and butter to soak into his brain and slowly bring him to life as he put out the morning mugs and stocked the pastry case.

Today, though, he couldn’t have a quad shot. He couldn’t have a single cup of coffee. Hell, not even a weak-ass caffeinated tea. And it was all his own fault.

Last night, his housemate Miriam had come out of her room to find him playing his keyboard at three in the morning. He’d been playing with the sound off, of course—he wasn’t an asshole—but she’d heard him anyway.

Dude, she’d croaked out, pushing her sleep mask up just enough to reveal one eye. It’s three in the morning.

Can’t sleep, he’d said, playing an arpeggio with his right hand.

"Yeah. That’s super apparent. But I can, and I was. And now, you’ll notice, I am not."

Shit, he muttered. Sorry, Miri. I’m all … He’d made a gesture that she, as his housemate of over a year, would surely recognize as meaning that his brain was very loud, and he needed to put thoughts into music to quiet them down.

Cam, I know you don’t wanna hear this, but drinking twenty coffees a day screws your circadian rhythms to hell. Of course your thoughts are loud. They’re caffeinated.

He’d snorted. He had worked in coffee shops on and off since he was fifteen. It was the main reason Miriam and her mom had hired him to work at The Crystal Bean when he moved back to Garnet Run. He could drink espresso like water if he wanted. Caffeine sensitivity was for wimps.

I’ll keep it down, he told her. Okay?

Then the sleep mask was fully off, and Miriam fixed him with her trademark penetrating gaze. It was the gaze that had extracted every secret he possessed in high school, from his prank on Mr. Harrington, the math teacher who had mocked Miriam’s hair, to his queerness, and it was no less effective now.

You need to take better care of yourself, Cam. If you need—

Nope, thanks, I’m good, he’d interrupted, knowing what was coming and dreading it.

Miriam had narrowed her eyes, penetrating gaze getting penetrating-er. Then her expression changed, and she surveyed him coolly.

Okay, if you wanna be a total cliché.

He frowned. Cliché? That rankled.

You’re a barista who’s addicted to caffeine. You couldn’t quit if you wanted to.

Am not, was all he found to say.

Miriam snorted and raised an eyebrow. He could practically hear the Are too that she was too mature to say.

Wanna bet? she said. I’ll do Muffin’s morning walks for a month if you can give up caffeine for a month.

Muffin was the dog who had found her way to their back door the first week he’d moved in and then never left. Much like Cameron himself.

A winter month? he clarified.

She rolled her eyes.

A month of your choosing, she allowed, and he could hear the subtext: You’ll never make it, so I don’t consider it much of a risk. Come on, I dare you.

Cameron was well aware that it was a childish taunt, but he had never been able to resist a dare. Once he’d climbed the tree over Casper River after a week of rain and fallen into the churning water below because Gregory Martens had bet—correctly—that he was scared to do it.

Apparently even at twenty-six he hadn’t learned his lesson.

Deal, he said.

As they shook on it, she said, Starting tomorrow.

But it’s three in the morning, he protested.

A sphinxlike look.

You’re cruel, he grumbled, and stood, hoping maybe he could catch a couple hours of sleep before work.

Cruel to be kind, babe, she said with a wink.

And he had scoffed, because if there was one thing he’d learned in the twenty-six years he’d walked the earth, it