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  John Inman

  Serenading Stanley

  “An incredible love story, nothing more, nothing less–just brilliant!”

  —5 Stars, Reviews by JesseWave

  “John Inman outdid himself with the characters in this book.”

  —5 Stars, Down Under Book Reviews

  “Oh this book is delightful! Such a sweet, sweet romance. It’ll make you laugh out loud and clutch your bosoms...”

  —5 Stars, Smut Book Club

  “My cheeks were hurting from all smiling I did throughout the story. Mr. Inman, I love your sense of humor, and I’m looking forward to reading more of your books.”

  —5 Stars, The Novel Approach

  “The romance was sweet and the characters were absurdly entertaining, which made Serenading Stanley an all-around great read.”

  —4 Stars, The Romance Reviews

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  By JOHN INMAN

  NOVELS

  A Hard Winter Rain

  Hobbled

  Jasper’s Mountain

  Loving Hector

  Paulie

  Serenading Stanley

  Spirit

  Shy

  NOVELLAS

  The Poodle Apocalypse

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Suite 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Spirit

  © 2014 John Inman.

  Cover Art

  © 2014 Reese Dante.

  http://www.reesedante.com

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

  ISBN: 978-1-62798-680-9

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-681-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  March 2014

  Dedication

  For John B., who has my heart.

  Chapter 1

  SALLY’S SUITCASE was dusty rose with little Alice-blue primroses on it. Very pretty. It was also big and bulky and weighed a fucking ton. I grunted like a caveman and broke out in a sweat simply hefting it into the trunk of the taxi. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I felt a couple of sinews in my back snap like rubber bands.

  “What do you have in here? A dead body?”

  “Oh, pooh,” Sally said, slapping my arm. “You gay guys gripe about everything. Just suck up the pain and try to be butch. Fake it if you have to.”

  Since butch doesn’t always work for me and since I was never very good at faking anything, including maturity, I stuck my tongue out at her instead. “Blow me, Sis.” Since I knew it irked her, I cast a critical eye at her ash-blonde hair. It was bleached to within an inch of its life, and it had been that way since high school. “And stop bleaching. One of these days you’re going to wake up bald.”

  She flipped her long hair back off her shoulder. “I don’t bleach, I tone.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Jason, you’re such a brat.” She smirked, sticking out her own tongue and waggling it around in midair, just as she had when she was nine and I was six and she was trying to freak me out. My sister could even now, at the ripe old age of thirty-one, touch the tip of her nose with her tongue. I had always admired that remarkable ability. Being a gay man, I’ve used my tongue extensively over the years in a number of scenarios, and in a number of dark moist places, but I still haven’t acquired that skill.

  “Bitch. Floozy. Slut,” I mumbled under my breath, making her smile.

  During this exchange, the cab driver stood way off to the side glowering, smoking a cigarette, and looking worried that someone was going to ask him to lift something. Since I had dealt with cab drivers before, I knew better than to ask.

  The driver was a stodgy old guy who peered out at the world through a perpetual squint, or maybe he was just trying to keep the smoke out of his eyes. In any case, he now made it a point to stare at his wristwatch and clear his throat as he stomped out his cigarette underfoot.

  “Time to roll,” he seemed to be saying. “Things to do, places to go.”

  Sally and I gave each other a perfunctory peck on the cheek, and only then did we gaze around, wondering where Timmy had gone. Mother of the year, and babysitter extraordinaire, we weren’t. I quickly realized I hadn’t seen the kid in over a minute. He could be in Texas by now.

  With a sigh of relief, I spotted my four-year-old nephew on his hands and knees by the foundation of the house, trying to peer through one of the tiny ground-level windows that looked into the basement. He had his little hands on the glass, with his face stuck in between them to shut out the glare, and he was talking to himself and snickering.

  “Look, Sally,” I intoned. “The kid’s insane already, and you’ve only had him four and a half years.”

  She slapped my arm again. “Oh, shut up.” Glancing at her wristwatch, she said, “Where the heck is Jack? He said he’d be here by now.”

  “Jack comes when Jack comes.” I rolled my eyes when I said it. I didn’t much care for Jack.

  Sally gave me a devilish grin. “Don’t get pornographic.”

  “What? I didn’t mean it that way!”

  But Sally wasn’t listening. We were already traipsing across my tiny front yard to fetch the kid. Since I got there first, I scooped Timmy into my arms. His hands and face were muddy brown where he had pressed them against the dirty window.

  Sally stuck her fists on her hips and scowled at him. “You look like a miner,” she said.

  “He is a minor,” I said. “He’s only four.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Sally said again.

  Timmy stuck his dirty finger up my nose and laughed. “You guys are funny.”

  Sally stared at the two of us as if wondering what she had been thinking, bringing us together like this. “You’re going to ruin him, aren’t you, Jason? When I get back in four weeks, I won’t know my son. He’ll be lost to me forever.”

  I shrugged and snapped and snarled and tried to bite Timmy’s hand off, which made him laugh even harder. “That’s the chance you take, Sis. Free babysitters don’t come cheap, you know.”

  Sally just shook her head and headed back to the cab, mumbling under her breath, “That makes a lot of sense.”

  A car horn in the distance snagged our attention. It was Jack, barreling down the street in his stupid MINI Cooper with the British flag on the roof. Jack was about as British as an Ethiopian famine. He gave a cheery wave out the window and pulled up to the curb with the warbling of a coloratura wailing from his tape deck. Jack liked opera. />
  I set Timmy on the lawn, and Sally and I watched as Jack jumped from the car, suitcase in hand. Sally was smiling. Remember when I said I didn’t like Jack? Well, Sally did.

  “Isn’t he gorgeous?” she asked the tree beside her. She couldn’t have been asking me. She knew perfectly well how I felt about the twit.

  Although I had to admit, Jack was immensely easy on the eyes, with his tall, hunky frame and broad shoulders and wavy black hair. I also suspected he was a homophobe, though, since he couldn’t say two words to me without making a snarky comment about my being gay.

  “Hey, Sally!” he called out to my sister. “Hey, Rosemary!” he called out to me.

  He thought that was funny. I merely turned and scooped a surprised Timmy off the ground and held him in my arms so I wouldn’t have to shake Jack’s hand.

  Did I mention I didn’t like Jack?

  Jack tossed his bag into the back of the cab beside Sally’s, overflexing a few muscles while he did it just to prove he could.

  He walked up to Timmy, who was firmly perched on my arm, and tweaked his nose. Me, he ignored.

  Timmy said, “Ppffthh!” and turned away from the guy. He didn’t like Jack either.

  Jack didn’t even notice. He gave Sally a smooch on the mouth and said, “Ready, babe?”

  The driver tucked himself in behind the wheel and started the engine, all the while making a big show of buckling his seatbelt and fiddling with the meter like he was the busiest guy on the planet. He hadn’t even closed the trunk, so while Sally and Dipshit climbed into the backseat, I set Timmy down on the edge of the lawn for the second time, laid a finger on his nose, and told him to stay put. In a brilliant flash of insight, I realized he wouldn’t do any such thing, so I immediately snatched him up in my arms again. Then I slammed the taxi’s trunk lid closed myself—one-handed, I might add, since Timmy was dangling from my other arm like a wiggling stalk of bananas.

  Jack’s hand came out of the window and pointed across the roof of the cab. He clicked his car keys at the MINI Cooper at the curb, which beeped in response and locked itself up tighter than a drum. Sort of like the Batmobile.

  “Don’t tip the driver,” I whispered, as Sally leaned out the other window to give me a final good-bye peck. Timmy laughed. He had his finger up my nose again.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” Sally said, stretching her neck out a little farther to give Timmy a good-bye kiss as well. Then she took one look at the kid’s filthy face and settled on a friendly pat atop his head instead. She wagged a finger in his face. “You be good. Obey your uncle while I’m gone.”

  Timmy really laughed at that. “Yeah, right.” He giggled and, squirming out of my arms, he took off running back to the basement window, where he once again dropped to his knees and peered inside.

  “Maybe he got my brat gene,” I said, not entirely joking.

  Sally didn’t even pretend to find that statement untrue. “No maybes about it,” she said, ruffling through her purse, making sure she had her money, her plane tickets, and whatever else women scramble around for in their purses when they’re trying to be efficient.

  I stepped away from the cab, molding my face to look trustworthy. “Don’t worry about the kid. I’ll lock him in the closet if I have to.”

  “Just don’t scar him emotionally. I spend enough money on my own therapy.”

  “Very funny.”

  Then Jack chimed in with, “Don’t turn him gay either. We can’t afford all the makeup you boys use.”

  I blushed. Had he noticed I’d used a cover stick on a zit that morning, or was he just talking out of his homophobic ass again?

  I couldn’t help myself. I leaned back in the window and crooned, “Don’t worry, Jacqueline. I’ll try to restrain myself. And we won’t listen to opera. I promise. I read that a lot of closeted gay guys listen to opera. Oh, and we won’t use napkins when we eat either, and we’ll blow our noses directly onto the ground just by pressing our thumb to the opposing nostril and blowing the crap out that way. Either that or we’ll wipe the snot on our shirtsleeves. You know. Like you do.”

  Sally giggled, Jack turned away unamused, and the driver gave the lot of us an odd look in the rearview mirror, which made me blush again. Sally didn’t give a crap what the driver thought, and Jack was too busy being a prick and trying to look important to notice. He was studiously ignoring me as he checked his airline tickets, plucking them out of his pocket, flipping them open, perusing the contents. They weren’t going to Mars after all. It was just a four-week vacation. After a week in New York to catch a few shows, enjoy a few restaurants, and gain a few pounds, they were then going to diddle up and down the Eastern Seaboard on a train. Several trains, in fact. Personally, I would rather set myself on fire than trap myself in a rumbling metal tube for three weeks with Dipshit; but hey, that’s just me.

  Sally reached out, patted my head like she had Timmy’s, then poked it back out of the window with the heel of her hand.

  “Stop causing trouble,” she said with a merry sparkle in her eyes. Then she turned to the driver and said, “Airport.”

  I heard him mumble, “Well, there’s a surprise,” as the cab backed out onto the street.

  I waved, watching the yellow cab hustle off into San Diego traffic, and when I turned to find Timmy, he was gone again.

  Holy crap! The kid was a gazelle. What had I gotten myself into?

  His disappearance was solved when I found him around the corner of the house in the backyard, peeking through a different basement window. Jeez, he was like Gollum, seeking out the world’s deepest, darkest places.

  When I scooped him into my arms, he sang out, “Daddy!”

  And I thought, Well isn’t that sweet.

  I HAD toddler-proofed the house as best I could. The basement door was securely latched so the kid couldn’t tumble headfirst down the flight of stairs leading into the bowels of the house, snapping a myriad of youthful bones along the way. Electrical wires were safely coiled and taped up and tucked under furniture in case Timmy got the inexplicable urge to chew on them. Electrical outlets were covered. All breakable knick-knacks were raised out of reach and all dangerous objects securely stashed away—switchblades, rolls of barbed wire, plastic explosives, bobby pins. (Just kidding about the bobby pins. I’m not that nelly.)

  My dog, Thumper, who was a mix of Chihuahua, dachshund, miniature poodle, and quite possibly a three-toed sloth, was no threat to Timmy at all. The poor thing was almost twenty years old and hardly had any teeth left. I hadn’t heard her bark in three years. She only moved off the sofa to eat and go potty, and once her business was done, she stood in front of the sofa looking up like the Queen Mother waiting for the carriage door to be opened until I scooped her off the floor and redeposited her among the cushions. Poor thing. (I mean me.) She lay there all day long watching TV: Channel 9, the Mexican channel. Don’t ask me why, but that was the only channel she would tolerate. Couldn’t live without it, in fact. The one benefit to this annoying habit of hers was that, while I didn’t understand my dog at all, I was pretty sure I was beginning to comprehend Spanish.

  Timmy was at that happy stage of child rearing where he could pull down his own pants and climb onto the commode without any help from squeamish gay uncles. He had brought an entourage of toys with him that would have kept an orphanage entertained. The first thing I did after finding a trail of little black skid marks on my new oak flooring was to confiscate his tricycle, allocating the thing to outdoor use only, which Timmy accepted with stoic resignation, although I did hear him mumble something about chicken poop and peckerheads. I’m not sure if his watered-down-obscenity-strewn mumbling was related to the tricycle announcement but fear it was. While the kid might have gotten my brat gene, there was also little doubt he had inherited my sister’s sarcastic-foulmouthed-snarky gene. God help his teachers when he started school.

  With his mother and his mother’s twit of a boyfriend safely out of the way, Timmy and I settled into a routin
e. The routine was this: he ran around like a cyclone, and I ran around behind him trying to keep him alive. It took my nephew a mere two hours to wear me out completely, and while I dozed for five minutes on the sofa to recoup my strength, using Thumper for a pillow (she did have a few uses), Timmy managed to find a screwdriver somewhere and proceeded to climb onto a chair in the kitchen and remove the back panel from the microwave. Don’t ask me why. What took him five minutes to take apart took me thirty minutes to put back together. I’m not handy with tools. Timmy, on the other hand, seemed quite proficient. If I hadn’t been afraid he might actually succeed, and consequently make me feel even dumber than I already did, I would have asked him to change the oil in my Toyota.

  In the middle of the afternoon, Timmy and I found ourselves in the backyard picking oranges off my orange tree for the next day’s breakfast. (Well, I was picking the oranges. Timmy was stuffing them down his shorts. Who knows why?) He was squealing happily and running around with oranges dropping out of his trouser legs and rolling merrily across the yard. I was busy trying to be masculine like a proper hunter/gatherer, climbing up into the orange tree to get that one beautiful orange on the tippy-top limb that I couldn’t quite reach to whap with the broom handle, when I was suddenly stunned by the sound of silence. God, it was lovely. Lovely and suspicious. I peeked through the foliage toward the ground and saw Timmy sprawled out like a dead thing, sound asleep in the grass.

  I could only assume it was naptime.

  Being the ever-conscientious uncle, I climbed quietly down the tree, gently scooped the kid into my arms, and carried him into the house. The moment I laid Timmy on the bed in the guest room upstairs—since Thumper was hogging the couch—Timmy popped his eyes open and stuck his finger up my nose again. In two seconds flat, he was wide-awake, tearing through the house and screaming like a banshee.

  Note to self. Next time the kid goes to sleep, no matter where it is, leave him there. Edge of a cliff? No problem. Middle of the street? Don’t worry about it. Just put up a couple of safety cones to redirect traffic and let him be.