Without a doubt, p.1
Without a Doubt, page 1
WITHOUT A DOUBT
LOVE STARTS HERE BOOK ONE
E.M. LINDSEY
Without A Doubt
E.M. Lindsey
Copyright © 2023
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any events, places, or people portrayed in the book have been used in a manner of fiction and are not intended to represent reality. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Cover: Natasha Snow Designs
Editing: Editing by Rebecca
Content Warning: This book contains the pre-book death of a spouse from ALS, mentions of ableism and ableist language, and one instance of mild violence. Although this book is meant to be low-angst and light-hearted, please take care if any of these issues are triggering for you.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Acknowledgments
About the Author
“Who, being loved, is poor?”
-Oscar Wilde
1
Carter squinted at his phone screen, trying to blink past the fog in his eyes before he realized it was a smudge of grease from his taco. There was no point in trying to be in any way elegant at all, so he held up a finger at his best friend, then blew hot air on the screen before wiping it on his shirt.
‘Disgusting,’ Gabriel signed when Carter righted the phone.
With a sigh, he flopped back onto his bed and held his arm up in spite of the ache in his shoulder. He was disastrously out of shape after an entire month at his parents’, under a heavy quilt, doing nothing as he let himself feel all of his feelings.
It didn’t exactly take the edge off getting dumped, but it was better than wasting away in his own shitty little apartment in St. James where his only company were the moths that got in through the permanently open window in his bathroom. Dragging a hand down his face, he finally rolled onto his stomach and forced himself to face his friend.
“I don’t think I’m going to go on this date,” he said aloud.
Gabriel’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward almost like he could reach Carter through the phone. “Oh my god, Carter, please don’t start this again.”
“I’m just not ready for a new relationship this soon after Kit…” he muttered, trailing off.
Gabriel’s hand touched his forehead in a familiar sign—one he loved to use the moment he’d learned it in their ASL 101 class. ‘Idiot.’ When Carter didn’t answer, Gabriel dropped his hand. “Dude, you’re not going out to find a fucking boyfriend. You’re going out to get a hand-job or even a blow job. Maybe a tiny bit of touching butts…”
Carter gave him a flat look. “Stop.”
“I’m just saying. You’re not going out there to replace Kit. You’re going out there to make all those tender feelings go away. And bonus—to get off. I promise it helps.”
“It helps you,” Carter said, because Gabriel was nothing like him at all. They’d met their Sophomore year of high school—both out and unapologetic about it. Both of them the only two visible queers in their tiny little southern town. It was just north enough of the Bible Belt that they could be out and still survive all four years, but close enough to it that they were the only ones in their entire school.
And, of course, all of the students—and most of their families—assumed that simply being gay was enough for an epic romance between them. Half his yearbook signatures were requests for an invite to their gay New York wedding, and he never had the energy or time to explain to them that while he loved Gabriel, the boy wasn’t his type.
And he continued to not be his type, even after college and finally packing up and moving to the West Coast to make something of themselves.
Gabriel was the sort of man who wanted to experience everything. He wanted to feel heartbreak and loss and grief and happiness and euphoria. He wanted to jump out of planes and climb mountains and everything that scared the absolute shit out of Carter.
Gabriel didn’t want to be tied down by relationships or obligations—which was Carter’s idea of heaven. And while Carter didn’t sit and dream about a home and a white picket fence or dogs or kids—none of those typical hetero expectations had ever been appealing to him—he did want to feel like his boyfriend wasn’t on the verge of walking out at any given moment.
He wanted to be settled. He wanted to be loved. He wanted to matter to someone.
And well, Kit hadn’t been the man for that job. At least, not in the end.
When they first met, he seemed like everything Carter had been looking for. They had their little meet-cute at the community library looking for the same book. Kit thought it was hilarious and asked him if he wanted to grab a cup of coffee. Four hours passed, and neither of them noticed, and Kit held his hand when he walked Carter back to his car.
The date had been terrifyingly good. Better than Carter had been on in so long, and when he looked at Kit before driving off, he thought it might be something.
Kit texted before Carter even got home and asked him out for a real date. To dinner and a movie on a Friday night like a real adult. Carter had been terrified, but he wanted to give the man a chance to get to know Carter without all the assumptions people made when they first met him.
And to his credit, Kit wasn’t like anyone Carter had ever dated. He asked respectful questions about Carter’s cochlear implants and how much he could hear. And instead of doing that thing most hearing people did where they raised their voice really loud when he didn’t catch everything, he just repeated himself until he was sure Carter understood. He didn’t make Carter feel like a burden. Like he was anything other than an attractive, twenty-something guy who was interesting and fun and worth asking out.
It didn’t last, of course. Just until Carter dropped his guard.
One year and six months—just long enough that Carter told himself it was nothing when Kit was suddenly busy all the time. Or when he dodged Carter’s calls. Or when his texts would be two-word sentences.
Then Kit started getting mean. He started demanding that Carter drop all of his plans at any given moment—whenever Kit deemed him worthy of attention. And when Carter would tell him no—that he had work, or he had plans with Gabriel, suddenly he was the worst boyfriend on the planet.
“He’s trying to get you to break up with him,” Gabriel had said, right at the end when he and Carter had been a little drunk after Kit ghosted him for the third time that month.
“Is it because I’m a bad person?” Carter lamented, lying on his stomach with his face smashed into the sofa cushions.
Gabriel looked at him a long time, then dragged fingers through his hair. “No. It’s because he’s a fucking narcissistic asshole who has no goddamn idea what he’s losing.”
Carter breathed out and closed his eyes. “Do you think it’s worth…waiting a little bit longer? Maybe he’s just going through something. He…he wasn’t like this in the beginning.” His voice was small and vulnerable, and he hated himself for even asking. Especially because he knew Gabriel wouldn’t pull punches.
“I think you wouldn’t be you,” Gabriel said after a beat, “if you didn’t give him every opportunity in the world to be a better boyfriend. I just don’t think he’s capable of it.”
Carter didn’t want to believe it. And he wished he was more like Gabriel in that moment, just so he could have been the one to throw Kit to the metaphorical curb. Though, he supposed he got the moral high ground since Kit dumped him over a text, and he got the pleasure of not responding to it before blocking his number and calling it a day.
The weekend after the split, Gabriel came over and they removed every single item Kit had ever left in his apartment. It wasn’t much. In the living room, he found couple of decorative mugs, a set of coffee stir sticks, a stack of books, and a salt and pepper shaker set. In his dresser, he found six pairs of socks and three graphic t-shirts. And the only thing in the bathroom was an old toothbrush that hadn’t been touched in months.
The fucking toothbrush should have been the first sign, but Carter had been so damn willingly obtuse. So desperate to believe he was worth a little more than what Kit had given him.
By the end of the month with his parents, the time away had taken the edge off the ache, but coming back to his obnoxiously mundane job doing accounting for the sign printing shop was starting to weigh on him. He was pretty sure the company was going to go under by the end of the fiscal year, and he knew he had to start looking for something else. Something better. And not just to pay his rent, either.
The void he was feeling deep in his chest was from more than just the break-up.
Kit leaving was just a symptom of his life not being what he wanted it to be. He had done everything right. Graduated, wen t to college, got his MBA—even if it was from some shitty little online school. He was supposed to be doing more by now. He was supposed to have realized at least one of his big dreams. After all, he and Gabriel had packed up and set out to become something larger than the small town that had spit them out. Only…none of that happened. For either of them.
If one thing was going right in his life, he probably could have handled the break-up a little better. But his job was dead-end, all of the recent applications he’d sent out were getting no responses—he was pretty sure the one he sent to London Enterprise had been laughed out of the HR department—and the last time he tried to flirt with a guy at a bar, he’d choked on his swallow of beer and dribbled on himself. Gabriel had saved him from abject humiliation that night, but he knew his friend wasn’t going to be around forever.
Of course, that was also the night Gabriel decided to take the lead in Carter getting his shit back together—assuming it had been together in the first place. He’d gotten him just a little more drunk after they got back to his apartment, then he sat Carter down on the sofa and downloaded a hook-up app.
“It’s called MixMatch, and it’s going to get your dick sucked,” Gabriel said, handing over the phone after setting up Carter’s account. “Even if everything else is shit, at least you can have some orgasms on the regular.”
Carter didn’t have the heart to tell Gabriel that he didn’t think that was going to cut it. He loved his best friend, but Gabriel had never tried to understand what Carter wanted—what he needed—out of life. But for now, it was easier not to fight him. Besides, he’d never really tried it Gabriel’s way. Maybe his friend was on to something. His life was just as dead-end as Carter’s was, but he was a lot less miserable.
So, he posted some artsy selfie Gabriel had convinced him to take—standing under a lamp post with the yellow light illuminating his dark curls like a halo. He thought maybe it was a bit much, but a message came through less than ten minutes later from an account with a man whose abs were so sculpted, Carter was sure it had to be a catfish account.
LondonFog: that is the hottest pic ive ever seen.
Carter knew shouldn’t have been flattered by that—he shouldn’t have felt sexy because of that. It was an obvious line—one the guy probably sent to everyone. And it didn’t help that LondonFog was maybe one of the most beautiful men Carter had ever seen in his life. He had a close-up, shirtless photo of him with endless deep-sea eyes and full lips that looked soft and inviting and…
God, it had been too long. He knew then Gabriel had been right. He needed to get at least one out of his system before he even considered the idea of dating again, or he’d just make another mistake and end up with someone just like Kit.
And that was the last goddamn thing he wanted to deal with, so he replied back, was asked on a date, and he didn’t second guess himself when he said yes. Never mind the instant panic attack and questioning of his self-worth as he waited for the night to meet the mysterious online stranger.
Taking a breath, he turned his attention back to the phone call where Gabriel was being far too patient with his social freak out. “Sorry.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes and waved him off. “I get it, okay? I mean, I don’t get it, and I never want to because this is a fucking mess, and that’s not for me, bro. But I’ve also known you most of your life, so I understand.”
And of course, Carter believed him. Gabriel understood him better than most people. And it truly was a shame that they’d never really be good for each other in the way that led to happily ever after.
But for now, this was enough.
“I’d better start getting dressed,” he said, grunting as he pushed up from the bed. He stared down at the small pile of clothes Gabriel had given a thumbs up to, and he wrinkled his nose. None of it was particularly him. It was all tight shirts and skinny jeans and paired well with pompadours and carefully trimmed beards.
Carter had wild, untamed hair he kept long to cover the bulk of his processors, and adult acne on his neck, and couldn’t grow more than a few patches of wiry black strands on the sides of his cheeks. He would never be one of those gays—those pretty, thin, well-defined men who turned heads wherever he went.
The only thing he really had going for him were his eyes, which kind of looked molten gold in the right lighting.
The downside was that in the wrong lighting they were just…muddy brown. Like his hair. And his freckles. And the moles on his arms.
“I can see you panicking,” Gabriel said.
Carter sighed and reached up, fussing with his left processor. That ear was slightly less symmetrically shaped than his right, which meant the damn thing was always falling off, and that was the last thing he needed when he met LondonFog. He told himself to breathe as he adjusted his hair in the mirror. “I’m not panicking,” he lied. “I’ve got this.”
“I like that attitude. Just say it over and over until you believe it.”
Carter hung up on him with a small groan, then let out a heavy breath as he reached for the pair of leg-hugging jeans Gabriel had talked him into buying when he first got back into town. “I’ve got this,” he repeated. Then again, when he dropped his sweats and slid into his briefs. “I’ve got this,” he said one more time as he did up the zipper and tried not to stare at his middle which was not flat, not trimmed, and had no business trying to look sexy.
“I’ve got this,” he said one last time as he stared at himself in the mirror and tried to find a reflection that was worthy of someone’s attention.
Considering they hadn’t exchanged more than their screen names in the few texts they sent before the date, Carter had LondonFog meet him in front of the sports bar down the street from his apartment instead of at his building. If he had to make a run for it, there were plenty of alleyways to disappear through, and Carter knew the area well enough that he could probably make it back home without being murdered.
Gabriel had also given him the safe-anonymous-sex talk a few times, but Carter didn’t need his friend to remind him that he needed to be careful in that department. The last thing he needed to add to his list of shit going wrong was an STI treatment.
When Carter got to the bar though, he quickly realized the music on the speakers was loud enough to destroy any hope he had of hearing anything other than the rhythmic EDM bass. The noise was instantly overwhelming, and a headache started building at the base of his skull after just a few seconds. He wanted to turn his damn processors off to avoid the oncoming migraine, but he knew that was a disaster waiting to happen.
The guy was going to be there soon—in the flesh—and Carter wanted to be able to understand him without relying entirely on his crappy lipreading skills.
Of course, thinking about LondonFog’s lips made him think about the rest of him. Those incredible eyes and ridiculous abs. And he was starting to lose hope that LondonFog would still want to go out on the stupid date after he saw what Carter looked like in person.
Bile rose into his throat, and he swallowed it down before pulling out his phone. No new messages. If the guy wanted to ghost him, Carter would be the dumbass waiting an hour past their meeting time just in case. Which was starting to feel like the theme song of his entire life.
Just in case.
Stay with a guy who was a dick just in case.
Keep his crappy job he hated just in case.
Never be brave or take risks just in case.
He was inches away from abandoning the date and going back home when a car pulled up to the curb, and it took him a full thirty seconds to realize the driver was staring at him. And then panic really set in because it was a really fucking nice car.
