Anna Martin's Opposites Attract Box Set: Tattoos & Teacups - Something Wild - Rainbow Sprinkles Read online

  Anna Martin's Opposites Attract Box Set

  Tattoos & Teacups - Something Wild - Rainbow Sprinkles

  Anna Martin

  Copyright © 2020 Anna Martin

  Tattoos & Teacups by Anna Martin

  www.annamartin-fiction.com

  © 2020 Anna Martin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  First edition July 2012 (Dreamspinner Press)

  Second (revised) edition 2020

  Cover art by Shobana Appavu bob-artist.com

  Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Something Wild by Anna Martin

  www.annamartin-fiction.com

  © 2020 Anna Martin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  First edition October 2019 (Dreamspinner Press)

  Second (revised) edition April 2020

  Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any person depicted on the cover of this book is a model and is not affiliated with, nor do they endorse, this story.

  Rainbow Sprinkles by Anna Martin

  www.annamartin-fiction.com

  © 2020 Anna Martin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  First edition March 2017 (Dreamspinner Press)

  Second (revised) edition 2020

  Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any person depicted on the cover of this book is a model and is not affiliated with, nor do they endorse, this story.

  Tattoos & Teacups

  by Anna Martin

  Author’s Note

  Tattoos & Teacups was only the second full-length gay romance novel I ever wrote; it was actually my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project in November 2011. Reading and editing it again for re-release has almost felt like stepping into a time machine and going back nine years! So much has changed since I wrote this novel, both in my career and the LGBTQ+ community around the world, and though I’ve made some small tweaks to the language, this edition is pretty much the same book that was released back in 2012. I do hope that you enjoy reading this “classic” Anna Martin novel.

  To the fair city of Edinburgh, my summer home, thank you for the inspiration.

  Prologue

  Once, when I was on a trip to New York City, I stopped to watch a group of hip-hop dancers who were performing in the street. I was fascinated by the bold colours and thumping beat of the music, and the thrilling tricks and flips they performed with ease. Although I stood back in the crowd—there were two or three people in front of me—I couldn’t help but be both impressed and intimidated as one of the dancers walked right up to the person in the front row, throwing his arms wide out to his sides puffing up his chest, shouting, “Boom!” Right in the other man’s face!

  The sheer gall of the dancer made me smile, even as my stomach flipped at the idea of such confrontation. Much to my surprise, the spectator just laughed and made some funny noise in the back of his mouth, like he was rolling his Rs, and the dancer seemed to take this as encouragement to perform a backflip from standing, to the raucous approval of the assembled crowd.

  Chris made me feel like that. Intimidated, and a little impressed. He was the same as that dancer in so many ways: loud, colourful, swirling into my life with a loud “Boom!” and disappearing just as quickly. Like those hip-hop dancers, though, I was left with the simmering feeling that I’d experienced something completely new, and I was irrevocably changed for it.

  Chapter 1

  September on the Northeast coast was always a colourful affair. In private, I still say “colourful” (with the added “u”) as a way of reminding myself never to succumb to the Americanisms that plague my day-to-day life. Despite the months that had melted into years since I left my native Scotland, I liked to maintain a grip on my heritage and a certain amount of decorum when it came to correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It may sound dull, but I assure you, I am not. I just appreciate the correct use of the English language.

  I was sixteen, actually, when we left Edinburgh for New Hampshire. Sixteen years in Scotland, sixteen in America. The summer of my thirty-second year had made me feel itchy, like it was time to move again. Time to go somewhere new, do something different or find a new path for myself, maybe. The changing season only added to that feeling of impending change.

  It was increasingly unlikely that I’d do anything dramatic, though. My career was settled, and I was starting to be appreciated for my knowledge and expertise in my field. I was invited to events and conferences and lectures to talk about my research into the work of Rudyard Kipling and his impact on colonial society. I sometimes repeated these lectures to glassy-eyed third-year college students, although I doubted many of them appreciated what I was trying to impart. None of them ever submitted my suggested essays, anyway.

  The routine of life settled around me without me even really noticing; my apartment—my home, and my cat, and my car, and my work all had their allocated slots, and I was happy, so was there any point in changing anything? I was lonely, though. The cat did something to ease the heartache of coming home to an empty flat, but he wasn’t anything more than a tuna-stealing companion.

  On the love front, I was painfully bereft. And had been for longer than I would have ever, ever admitted. When we’d moved to America—Mum, Dad, me, and Jillian—I’d just completed my Highers, the qualification sat at age sixteen in Scotland that permits a child of that age to leave the education system if they so wish. I was essentially stuck in no-man’s-land, unable to do anything in the States without a high school education but having already finished my schooling according to my home country.

  Since Jilly would also be going to the local high school, I agreed to go on the pretence of being there as her moral support. In fact, Jilly was more than capable of taking care of herself and quickly took advantage of her years at gymnastics club back home and insinuated herself into the cheerleading squad. She fit in just fine. I never did. The other children at the school seemed to go through phases of either mocking my accent or revering me for it.

  In a world where fitting in was everything, coming out simply wasn’t a possibility.

  College was supposed to be my saving grace, a place where I could stand proud as a gay man and embrace love, life, and another man without fear of repercussions. The truth was something slightly different. Although there was a gay and lesbian society on campus (they had yet to add the B or T) it was headed by a frankly terrifying lesbian and the only men there seemed to be flamboyantly gay, and they scared me even more than the overtly macho men that surrounded me in my dorm.

  I kept promising myself that next year would be different. Next year you’ll find someone. But I never did. Jillian blamed it on me not getting out enough. So did my friends. The sad fact of the matter was, I’d labelled myself unlovable, a static, stoic bachelor, and myself and Flea, my scruffy cat, were doing quite well on our
own, thank you very much.

  And then? Boom.

  “For next week,” I called out over the sound of people grabbing bags and shoving hastily scrawled notes into them, “please read The Man Who Would Be King! We are leaving poetry behind for the time being.”

  My response was a general muttering, which I took to be acceptance. The required reading list for my course was adequately prepared well in advance to give my students ample time to become familiar with the material, but it was always worth reminding them.

  It was my last class of the day; a serendipitous glitch in the college’s lecture programming system meant that by 2:00 p.m. on a Friday, I was finished for the week and could start my weekend early. Not that I ever did. My position at the university allowed me to demand a nice office, and after three years they finally granted me one. I was young to hold such a prestigious position… but not above abusing it.

  The only downfall was the long trek across campus in between the Literature building, where I worked, and the History building, where my office was located. I could have moved into the Literature building, naturally, if I was prepared to give up my nice office. So I considered the walk good exercise.

  I kept the room decorated in a style Jillian referred to as “grumpy old man”, and it suited me down to the ground. One wall was dominated by a large bookcase, which I filled, delightedly, with second-hand books and copies of volumes I kept in my personal library at home. I had a lovely wingback leather chair kept behind an antique desk I’d found at a flea market and a long, comfortable sofa I rarely used except to nap on sometimes when I’d been at the campus from dusk ’til dawn.

  After dumping my briefcase and notes on an increasingly perilous pile of stuff on the corner of my desk, I settled back to start reading through the e-mails that had accumulated in my absence. They were filled with the usual rubbish: students pleading for extensions due to the death of their granny/ dog/ second cousin in Peru, an invitation from my mother to Sunday lunch, messages to the whole faculty asking for our cooperation in the “Clean Up The Campus” campaign, and one from my friend Adam with the question:

  The Boat or The Bird?

  I laughed and sent an e-mail back: The Boat, for sure.

  There was a pub that we liked just off campus called The Ship where they served good beer and better food. On campus there was a bigger bar that the students drank in too, called the Two Magpies. We’d nicknamed the bars in an attempt to hide from our students where we’d be drinking on any particular night. Unfortunately, someone overheard one of our conversations, and now the nicknames had entered the general student consciousness. I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or dismayed by this development.

  I worked solidly for a few hours, making progress through the pile of work on my desk, and looked up at the clock in surprise when Adam knocked on my door at five.

  “Hey,” he said, sticking his head around the door. “You ready to head out?”

  “Yeah, nearly. Come in a minute.” I gestured him inside.

  Adam flopped down on the couch, making himself at home while I saved everything and packed up all I’d need for the weekend.

  “This place is a dump,” Adam said.

  “It is not a dump. It’s organised chaos,” I corrected him.

  Adam snorted with laughter under his breath. Adam wasn’t a lecturer. He worked in the campus theatre as a working technician. From the bright lights of Broadway to the dusty spotlights of the college auditorium, his career had taken a bit of a downturn, but he’d wanted to move his young family out of the city and into the suburbs. I liked his laidback, easy-going nature, characterised by a lolloping gait caused by his six foot three frame.

  “Come on, beer’s waiting,” he huffed as I finally stuffed the last of my papers into my briefcase.

  “I’m coming.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Adam, don’t be crude.”

  He knew about my sexuality and occasionally made fun of me for it, not in a cruel way, just the way friends do. He asked me once if I found him attractive. I said no, I didn’t go in for redheads.

  My ancient, rusting Buick was something else that often caught the sharp end of his witty tongue. It was a remnant of my own college days, and I liked the familiarity of the heap of junk, even if it did cost me more to keep running than it was worth. I drove over to The Ship with the windows down, pretending to us all that there was warmth left in the air when in reality, autumn was creeping in fast.

  I had been persuaded, against all my better judgments, to stay at The Ship far longer than I had originally intended. Once we were past the point where I could reasonably drive home, it was actually embarrassingly easy to keep me there, teetering on a barstool as we debated the perils of American “football.”

  “Now rugby,” I said, slapping an emphatic hand down on the bar. “There’s a real man’s sport. None of this namby-pamby padding you Yanks all wear.”

  “Your accent comes out when you’re drunk, you know that?” Adam said.

  “Aye,” I agreed. “That it does.”

  “Aye,” he parroted.

  A light hand tapped me on the shoulder. I whirled around too quickly; the world blurred before my eyes before fixing on a young man with scruffy fair hair, arms full of tattoos, and a smirk that spoke of easy, smoky confidence.

  “Can I help you?” I asked him, trying to suppress the Scottish aggression in my voice.

  “Sorry,” he said, a slow, easy smirk spreading across his face. “Thought you were Gerard Butler there for a minute.”

  “Butler!” I exclaimed. “Bloody Gerard bloody Butler is the bane of my bloody existence!” My wild gesticulating had caused me to spill some of my pint down my shirt, a fact I was made aware of as the amber liquid seeped through to my skin. “And he’s about ten years older than me!”

  “Sorry about this,” Adam said, leaning over me, slurring his words. “He gets rowdy when he’s drunk.”

  “I can see that,” the boy said. He hopped up onto the barstool next to mine and gestured to the barmaid. “Do you have a name?”

  “My name,” I said, pulling myself up to my full (seated) height, “is Robert Andrew McKinnon. The second. Who the hell are you?”

  “Chris. Christopher Jacob Ford. The only. I like your accent.”

  Adam collapsed into giggles, and I took his hand to shake. His brightly coloured, vividly tattooed hand.

  “Ah, everyone likes my bloody accent,” I sighed into my pint glass as I took my hand back.

  “He says ‘bloody’ a lot when he’s drunk,” Adam helpfully supplied. “Hey, are you gay? Robert is, and he hasn’t gotten laid in ages.”

  “Adam!” I exclaimed and shoved his shoulder. He fell off the barstool.

  I didn’t apologise—he deserved it—but I did buy another round of drinks while he loped off to the bathroom. To the loo. To the bloody loo.

  “So,” I said to Christopher Jacob Ford, emboldened by my display of brute masculine force, “are you gay?”

  He smirked at me in a way I should have interpreted as “yes.” In a way, once upon a time, I would have interpreted it as “yes.”

  “If you wanna know,” he said, pushing a napkin across the bar to me, “call me.”

  I lifted napkin so I could read it better. It had ten numbers and the characters C.J.F. (1) printed on it in neat handwriting. I tucked it into my wallet for later.

  I woke up the following morning with a ball of fluff on my head and another one forming between my teeth. On trying to move I discovered two things: the ball of fluff on my head was Flea, who indignantly dug his claws into my scalp as I tried to dislodge him, and the ball of fluff between my teeth was certain imminent death.

  Hangovers enhanced my sense of melodrama.

  I crawled out of bed, where I’d sprawled to sleep, facedown, wearing one sock and my shirt and tie. Nothing else. Walking to the bathroom (I refused to crawl, even though that was clearly the better option), I tried to use the power of pos
itive thinking to will myself back into consciousness. It didn’t work, but the steaming-hot shower, painkillers, two glasses of water, and committing an act of self-love all went most of the way toward fixing it.

  Just after I’d finished shaving and dressing in my favourite blue jeans and plaid shirt, the intercom buzzed. I didn’t have time to comb my hair before answering it, which was extremely annoying.

  “Haven’t you done enough already?” I barked at Adam as his grainy, grey face appeared on the little screen.

  “Thought you might like to join me and the family for breakfast,” he said with a jovial smile. I huffed and buzzed him in.

  “I do have other friends, you know,” I said as he let himself in through the front door I’d apparently forgotten to lock the night before.

  “I know you do,” he countered. “But by my reckoning, you’ll be like a bear with a sore head this morning, and a good breakfast will go miles toward fixing it.”