Hardwood
Four Bears Construction
By K.M.Neuhold
Synopsis
I’ve spent forty-four years of my life telling the world I’m a carpet man. Is it too late to admit to myself and everyone else that deep down I’m really all about the Hardwood?
It took me over thirty-five years to admit to myself that I’m gay, another seven to find the courage to say it out loud to anyone else, and exactly thirty seconds to develop a massive crush on my daughter’s music teacher. It’s really not my fault, have you even seen those cute bowties he wears?
After everything it’s taken to get here, am I going to work up the nerve to come out to my ex-wife and my best friends? Am I ready to shake up my comfortable, simple life and take a chance on Watson? Or am I going to throw a wrench in my own chance for happily ever after?
***Hardwood is a steamy, seriously so much delicious tension, single-dad, gay awakening, low angst story, which happens to be the third in the Four Bears Construction Series. It CAN be read as a stand-alone. There are NO shifters in this series, only the OTHER kind of bears.
Copyright
Hardwood© 2020 by K.M.Neuhold
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Book and Cover design by Natasha Snow Designs
Cover Image by Lindee Robinson Photography
Editor: Editing by Rebecca
Prologue
Everett
The parking lot is dark, only illuminated by a single light right near the entrance, all the rest having burnt out ages ago. If I remember correctly, the last one burnt out almost a year ago.
Fuck, has it been that long already?
My fingers twitch on the steering wheel impatiently, that insistent little voice in the back of my head telling me to grow some balls and get out of the car already. A breeze flutters in through my lowered car windows, the late summer air carrying the slightest hint of a fall chill. A few weeks from now all the bitching I’ve been doing about working in the hot sun will be in the past, and I’ll be pulling on a sweatshirt or flannel when I leave the house.
The bigger question is, will I have gotten up the courage to get out of the car and go inside the bar by then? Or will that mark another season gone without any forward movement in my life?
My heart lodges itself in my throat, and I reach for my seatbelt, the click of it disengaging echoes like a gunshot in the otherwise silent night. I’ve been living a lie my entire life, deluding myself along with the rest of the world, and all I have to do to set things right is to get out of the car and go inside. So why does that feel like the most impossible task in the world?
My phone vibrates in my cup holder.
“Hello,” I answer, my eyes still trained on the building in front of me.
“Hey, man. Where are you? I thought you were going to meet us at Wooley’s?” Cole, one of my business partners and best friends says on the other end, the din of our regular haunt loud in the background.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m not really up for it tonight.” I run my free hand against the grain of rough stubble on my cheek. The door of the bar opens, and a man steps out into the night. I watch as he makes his way through the parking lot to his car. He’s tall, probably about my height or maybe an inch taller, but instead of the hard muscles I have from years of labor, his body looks softer, a tad rounder, and…damn, it’s definitely doing it for me. I guess I can mark cuddly down as a type I had no clue I had until this exact second. It’s too dark to make out much else, but I bet if I went inside, there would be more where he came from.
“Ev?” Cole’s voice startles me, reminding me I have my phone pressed to my ear.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked if everything is okay,” he says. “Is it the gay bar thing? We drag you here too much, right?”
My eyes flicker to the rainbow flag in the window of this bar, the bar I can’t work up the nerve to go into, the bar I don’t have an excuse to go into because it’s not the one all my friends like to go to.
“Nah, it’s cool,” I assure him. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” He doesn’t sound certain, but he doesn’t press it anymore. We say our goodbyes and hang up.
I sit in my car for another half hour before I give up and accept the fact that tonight isn’t the night.
I buckle my seatbelt again and start my car, driving home with the weight of disappointment heavy in my chest.
Next weekend, I promise myself for the millionth time.
Chapter 1
One Month Later
Everett
My back is aching as I climb into my car at the end of a long fucking workday. I take off my hard hat and toss it onto the passenger seat, smiling for a brief second at the rainbow and unicorn stickers my daughter covered it with over the weekend. I grab my favorite black baseball cap and place it on my head to cover my sweaty hair.
“You look like you’re hurting, old man,” Stone, one of my business partners and closest friends teases from outside my car as I wince at the twinge in my muscles when I twist to pull my seatbelt across my body.
“Watch who you’re calling old. I’ve only got about two years on you,” I counter without much venom.
“Yeah, but I’m immature, which keeps me young.”
“I can’t argue with that.” I start my car, and Stone gets into his own, giving me a wave before I start backing out.
I glance at the clock, and I’m relieved to see I’m actually ahead of schedule for a change. There’s nothing worse than being the last parent to pick up their kid from a Girl Scout meeting. It’s happened more times than I like to admit, and every single time, poor Livi looks embarrassed, and the troop leader gives me a pitying look that says I know it’s not easy to be a single parent. But god dammit, it’s not like I’m the only single parent in the world, and most of them seem to do just fine. Besides, it’s been five years since Val and I split; I should have a hang of this parenting thing by now.
I take the familiar route to the house where the Girl Scouts meet and do a mental fist pump when I pull up to find several parents still lingering on the front porch, chatting with each other while their kids look bored and impatient to go home.
I get out of the car and the mothers who are chatting fall silent, turning their attention on me all at once like a herd of Velociraptors. I paste on a smile and try to forget that I reek of sweat and wood after a long day and that I’m not so desperate for a soak in the tub to relax my muscles I would literally murder someone for it. So, the last thing I want to do is make mindless small talk for twenty minutes.
“Everett, it’s so good to see you,” Judy coos. Or is it Jody? Julie?
“It’s nice to see you too,” I say politely, keeping my smile firmly in place but refusing to slow my gait, heading toward the front door with purpose.