Red, White, and a New Beginning

By Thomas Grant Bruso

It’s Independence Day, and the annual fireworks along Lake Champlain are set to begin.

Adam Rankin gets a telephone call from his former boyfriend, Dave Peterson, who’s back in town for the festivities. It’s been a year since they separated and parted ways. Dave has moved from their small upstate New York town to Albany, where he works as a paralegal. Adam stayed behind, working as a chef in a Greek restaurant and feeding the homeless on weekends at a local shelter.

The two men reconnect over the holiday and sparks fly. Can they rekindle the flames between them, or will their romance burn out? Will this be the start of a new beginning?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781634863315

Thomas Grant Bruso

Thomas Grant Bruso graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2004 with a Bachelor’s in theatre performance and English writing. He knew at an early age he wanted to be a writer. He has been a voracious reader of genre fiction since he was a kid. His literary inspirations are Dean Koontz, Karin Fossum, Jeffery Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Connolly. He loves animals, book-reading, writing fiction, and prefers Sudoku to crossword puzzles. He writes book reviews for his hometown newspaper, The Press Republican. He lives in Plattsburgh with his husband, Paul, and their miniature pincher diva, Riley. For more information, please visit facebook.com/thomasgrantbruso.

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Red, White, and a New Beginning

By Thomas Grant Bruso

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2017 Thomas Grant Bruso

ISBN 9781634863315

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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For Paul.

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Red, White, and a New Beginning

By Thomas Grant Bruso

July 4: Dave and I arrived at the annual fireworks event downtown by the water’s edge.

We came in separate cars.

I parked two blocks from the town hall monument on a narrow side street adjacent to the DMV building.

Breaking out in a feverish sweat, I navigated ninety-degree temperatures and congested streets with people who were heading to the same destination. This year had been the hottest summer to date in upstate New York. I didn’t know if I could bear seeing Dave—it’s been a year since we separated and went our own ways, our lines of communication severed. He moved from Oakville to Albany seeking work as a paralegal. He believed in the law, but not in us.

We need a break from each other, he had told me last year. To think. It was close to summer break when he asked for time to consider life without me.

A year passed like a century. Our split would never have happened it if had been up to me. I didn’t want Dave to leave, but I agreed that we needed to reevaluate our relationship.

I knuckled sweat off my brow with the back of my hand, thinking about Dave’s apple pie voice, sweet and homey, calling me at home last night to meet him tonight for fireworks. I need to see you, he had said. I smiled at his singsong voice, but it was short-lived. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into after being away from him for so long. The curiosity alone forced me out of my air-conditioned apartment to the sweltering streets to find out.

As I waited at the crosswalk with a large crowd of people gathering around me, parents with their small children and young and old couples holding hands, I felt alone, and not the first time in a long year.

The sticky heat of perspiration dripped down my neck, to my back, and pooled under my arms.

When the light changed, a swarm of warm, sweaty bodies rushed past me, stepping out into the hot, crammed street. Nervous energy swelled inside me as I jammed my palms into my shorts pockets and joined the tail end of the crowd, walking unhurriedly, as if I were an out-of-towner,