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    Something to Believe In
    Something to Believe In
    Something to Believe In
    Ebook67 pages59 minutes

    Something to Believe In

    By Sloan Parker

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    When some extra cash lands best friends Sean and Gavin alone in a hotel room until Christmas, they can no longer deny their feelings for each other. Even with no place to live and no job prospects, Sean is determined to not just show Gavin what a real home and holiday is like, but to keep them off the streets for good and build a future together.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSloan Parker
    Release dateDec 9, 2017
    ISBN9781942517955
    Something to Believe In
    Author

    Sloan Parker

    Award-winning author Sloan Parker writes passionate, dramatic stories about two men (or more) falling in love. She enjoys writing in the fictional world because in fiction you can be anything, do anything—even fall in love for the first time over and over again. Sloan lives in Ohio with her partner and their neurotic cats. Her greatest moments in life are spent with her family, her friends, and her characters. To contact Sloan, find out about her books that are available for purchase, and read free stories, visit: www.sloanparker.com. If you'd like to be notified of new releases and get exclusive sneak peeks, be sure to sign up to receive Sloan Parker's newsletter via her website.

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      Book preview

      Something to Believe In - Sloan Parker

      Copyright

      SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN

      Copyright (c) 2012 by Sloan Parker

      ISBN: 978-1942517955

      Cover design by Lou Harper (c) 2017

      All rights reserved. Other than excerpts for review purposes, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

      This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or incidents are coincidental. This work contains graphic language and explicit sexual content. Intended for adult audiences only.

      Published by

      Sloan Parker Press

      www.sloanparker.com

      E-book: 12.7.17.all

      Something to Believe In

      Sloan Parker

      Something to Believe In

      For all who are lost. May you find your way and know what it feels like to be loved.

      * * * *

      A GUST OF snow pelted my face as I rounded the corner of the former Madison Street Elementary School. Raising the collar of my thin fleece coat, I hurried for the front door. The new sign hanging overhead read Free Christmas Dinner. That had me stopped in my tracks, and the tips of my sneakers dug into the snow that had been piling up on the sidewalk for the past several hours.

      Christmas.

      I’d seen the holiday decorations lining the streets and storefronts for weeks now, but I hadn’t realized it was so close.

      Christmas was the one time of year when I couldn’t stop the memories.

      Sean Timothy Weber, if you walk out of here now and keep on being a disgusting little faggot, don’t you ever bother coming back.

      I shook off thoughts of her last words and moved for the shelter’s front entrance again.

      The man standing at the door smiled at me and held out a clear plastic bag containing a bar of soap, shaving cream, disposable razor, and condoms.

      The essentials for most folks. Luxury items for guys like me.

      Merry Christmas, he said.

      Reluctantly, because it meant taking my already freezing hand out of my pocket again, I accepted the bag and gave a nod of thanks. Another blast of icy snowfall smacked into me, knocking me off balance. Apparently I’d lost enough weight in the past few weeks, I couldn’t hold my own against a little wind.

      The guy with the plastic baggies of goodwill grabbed my arm and offered some support. When I was standing on steady feet again, he let go. We’re full up tonight, but come on inside and have something to eat. We’ve got a big spread, a real Christmas dinner.

      I shivered as I forced the words out. Today is C-C-Christmas?

      The out-of-place, ridiculously cheery grin faded from the man’s face. He looked at me with the kind of pity I didn’t get from too many people these days. You reach a certain point in both appearance and smell, and most folks pretend they don’t notice you at all.

      It’s Christmas Eve, he said.

      That meant…two years.

      Two years since I’d left home. The last four months of which I’d spent homeless and wandering the streets after I lost the job waiting tables and my roommates had kicked me out when I couldn’t make the rent.

      I’d taken on any work I could find until I looked—and smelled—like a guy no one wanted to hire, not even for an under-the-table job hand-packaging DVDs of pirated porn. When the last of my money had run out and my stomach had felt like it was eating itself, I’d made the decision that had me retching my guts out as I bent over a stained toilet bowl.

      It hadn’t been a planned event. I’d been taking a leak in the bathroom near the historical fiction shelves at the main branch of the city public library when some guy in his forties wearing a sports jacket with frayed cuffs and carrying a briefcase that looked like he’d had it since day one out of college, stood at the urinal beside me. He pulled his dick out and whispered, Twenty for a blow.

      It had taken me a minute to get his meaning.

      Twenty bucks.

      I could have something real to eat.

      After I’d answered with a nod, he tugged me to the stall at the end of the row behind us. When it was over and he’d left, I had stayed there bent over that toilet, clutching the twenty-dollar bill in my fist and dry-heaving for ten minutes.

      No matter how bad that moment had been, the food and drink filling my belly a half hour later convinced me I could do it again. And again. And again. Even with the knowledge that no one could survive forever the way I’d been living.

      But I wanted to survive. I wanted to feel alive again.

      The man with the clear bags of homeless holiday cheer held the door open for me. Go on in, get warm, and have something to eat.

      All I could manage was another nod. I went inside. The warmth of the still, dry air overwhelmed me with as much force as the icy, cold air had done outside.

      Then the smells hit me. Turkey and ham and

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