Thanksgiving for Baby E-Book

Trina Solet

• Herausgeber: Trina Solet
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Cole is Alex's best friend and long time crush, and he just moved back to town with his baby girl. Alex is determined to give them both a great Thanksgiving, but can he set aside his feelings for Cole and just be friends with him?
Cole is wondering the same thing. After all he left town because he couldn't watch Alex dating anyone else. But then he missed Alex too much, and now he's back and ready to reconnect with him.
Will they finally come together, admit their feelings and have the best Thanksgiving ever?

Leseprobe

Thanksgiving for Baby (Gay Holiday Romance) By Trina Solet

Copyright © 2021 by Trina Solet

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales or actual events is entirely coincidental.

All sexual activity takes place between persons eighteen years of age or older.

This novel contains material intended for mature readers.

Cover image is only for illustrative purposes. Any person depicted is a model.

Thanksgiving for Baby

Gay Holiday Romance

Trina Solet

Chapter 1

"Oh my God, you're a crazy person," Nat told him while she lounged in his living room and he flitted around getting ready for his guests.

"I know. And I'm not," Alex told her in a totally sane way.

He didn't really blame her since she just saw him run into the kitchen then out then back in without actually doing anything because he couldn't remember why he went in there.

"The secret to being a good host is to relax so your guests can do the same, not to be a nervous wreck who makes everyone else tense," she lectured him.

"There's going to be a baby in my house. That's a lot of pressure," Alex told her. It was Cole's baby no less. He was Alex's friend and former crush. He had the baby with a surrogate only a few months ago, and this was their first visit since Cole moved back to town.

"Where's the pressure? The baby is going to drool and go to sleep. She won't care which napkins you put out," Nat said.

"Sleep? What?" Now Alex was panicking even more. "Where's she going to sleep? Oh God, I need to change the sheets on the guest bed. No, I need to buy new sheets for the guest bed." The sheets he had couldn't possibly be good enough for a baby.

"She's a baby," Nat told him and her voice clearly implied he was an idiot. "They sleep in their baby carriers, or Cole will just hold her."

"I'm not ready," Alex said. As he thought about everything he needed to do, the doorbell rang. "Oh my God, I'm not ready."

"And you never will be," Nat said. "You want me to open the door?"

"No. I'm the host, a bad host," he said and decisively went to the door.

"I think we're a little early," Cole said as he stood on his doorstep holding a tiny baby. "Hi, Alex. Hi, Nat." Cole smiled at him until Alex realized he needed to move out of the way and let them come in from the cold.

God, Cole was still so incredible. Damn it. He used to make Alex incoherent. More incoherent. With his strong build, his intense blue eyes on a face covered with a dark beard, he made Alex crazy.

"Is it the baby?" Cole asked him. "Did she make you speechless?"

"Am I speechless?" Alex asked.

"Those are the first words you said to me, so yes," Cole told him.

"Sorry. Hi. Welcome. Make yourself at home, I mean comfortable. Or both," Alex told him.

Smiling at him the way he always did when Alex was losing his head over him, Cole took the baby's little hand and made her wave. "Want to say hi to my friends? What do you say, Z?"

"Z? You actually call her that?" Alex said. "I thought you just did that in texts."

"No. I call her Z all the time," Cole said while the baby stared all around. "I think she likes your house."

"And how does she like your new place?" Nat asked Cole.

"No complaints. The best thing is that Paula, Z's new nanny, lives in our building," Cole said while still standing in the middle of the living room holding the baby plus her stuff.

Alex finally realized what he needed to do about that. "Where do you want to put all that stuff?" he asked.

"Anywhere you want. You can't step one foot out the door with a baby without all this," Cole said.

Showing him into the guest room, Alex hoped it wasn't too cheerless for the baby, too angular and modern. Of course it was. It was a terrible room. He needed to redecorate right now.

"We won't mess up the room too much," Cole assured him as he set up a few things.

"Mess it up all you want. I was just thinking it wasn't good enough for the baby," Alex confessed, and Cole laughed.

"You don't ever change, do you?" Cole said.

"You don't either."

"I have a baby. That's a pretty big change," Cole said.

"So you think becoming a dad has changed you? We'll see," Alex told him and Cole just grinned. He noticed that the baby was closing her eyes. "Is she sleepy already?"

"She might be, but I was going to feed her first. She looks like she can't stay awake for it," Cole said.

"Poor thing," Alex said and Cole chuckled.

"She's OK. She's only taking a nap," Cole told him.

"I should let you do what you need to do instead of hovering anxiously," Alex said.

"Z doesn't mind. And I'm here to spend time with you."

"And Nat," Alex added quickly as a reminder to himself that Cole wasn't here for some alone time with him.

"It's really good to see you guys," Cole said and put the baby down in a carrier. She made a complaining noise and Alex thought Cole would pick her up again, but he just said some soothing words to her and she settled down, closed and opened her eyes a few times and then went to sleep.

"Wow, you're like a baby whisperer," Alex said, in owe of his dad skills, but made sure to keep his voice down even though they were stepping out of there to let her sleep.

"She was halfway asleep. It's not always that easy," Cole said.

"And she's OK by herself in the dark?" Alex said as he looked back while following Cole into the living room.

"It's not that dark. She'll sleep better that way and the door is open," Cole told him like Alex was the anxious father who needed to be reassured.

"OK, sorry," Alex said with an apologetic smile. "I'm just not used to babies, and you're so at ease with this."

Cole burst out laughing. "I'm what? I'm a nervous wreck," he claimed, while Alex looked back toward the guest room to make sure Cole's loud laugh didn't wake the baby. As if to prove him right, Cole wasn't worried.

"But you're so good at this and so calm." Alex pointed at him, the picture of hunky, confident fatherhood.

"Not on the inside," Cole told him.

"He just doesn't wear his craziness on his sleeve like you do," Nat said as Cole sat on the opposite side of the couch from where she was lounging already armed with her glass of wine.

"Nat has been beating me up about being nervous about playing host," Alex explained.

"I'm sure that helped," Cole said and gave Nat a dirty look.

"Ooh, I remember this, Cole's protective side," she said.

"Huh," Alex said confused. What was Cole being protective about?

For dinner, Alex made a stuffed pork loin and roasted potatoes, carrots and squash. As they sat down to eat, he told Cole, "I remember you liking all kinds of roasted vegetables."

"True, and pork any way it can be made," Cole said as Alex loaded up his plate. "Looks so good. Thank you. I can't believe what a good cook you are."

"Can't believe it? Why?" Alex wondered while Nat shook her head at him.

Cole chuckled. "I just mean you didn't used to be."

"Oh right. I took a few classes," Alex said sheepishly because he did it while thinking of him and his big appetite.

"It paid off," Cole told him.

Alex was glad, but he hadn't thought he would ever get to cook for him much. Cole was just the only guy he could picture who made it seem worth it to try and better himself.

Realistically, he figured he'd find someone who was Cole's opposite, approachable, a little nerdy, maybe shy, maybe socially inept, but nice and hopefully cute too. Definitely not any brawny hunks like Cole, who would only remind him of what he couldn't have.

After dinner, they went back to the living room and Alex served dessert. "Did you want to try some of this peanut butter cheesecake?" he asked Cole. "I know you don't like anything sweet but I didn't want to deprive Nat."

"I could have some," Cole said. "Cheesecake is a dessert I could almost get around to liking."

"Most people don't have to try to like cheesecake," Nat told him like she took any slight against cheesecake personally. "They have working taste buds."

"Don't berate him," Alex told her.

"Cole is the last guy on earth who needs to be defended from me by you." Nat looked him up and down to remind him of his weight class.

"Alex is just being nice," Cole told her as he had a bite of the cheesecake. "And this is pretty good."

Alex was happy to hear that, even too happy. "The peanut butter isn't the sweet kind and it's dark chocolate on top."

"You deliberately made dessert that Cole might actually like," Nat accused him like that was a crime.

"I appreciate it," Cole told him. He was such a good guest.

Over dessert, Cole told them about his job managing a sports car and motorcycle rental place. Alex could picture him behind the wheel of those machines better than he could imagine him behind a desk.

Next they talked about how he was settling in. Alex wished he had been able to help him out with the move, but Cole had arranged for everything himself. He tried not to take that personally, but failed. But maybe they just weren't that close. It was true that they hadn't been in constant touch since college. They had drifted apart.

While Alex was lost in thought, Cole had gotten out his phone to show them some videos of the baby when he first got her home.

"Dude, a shirtless pic," Nat was saying and Alex made sure not to jump to have a look.

Cole was sitting next to Nat on the sofa while Alex leaned over so be could see. And there was a picture of a shirtless Cole holding a teeny-tiny baby.

Cole patted the space next to him. "Get over here so you can see better."

"Yeah, Cole is showing off his muscles. You don't want to miss that," Nat said.

"These are pictures of the baby," Cole insisted.

"Right, just ignore the boulder of a man holding her," Nat said.

"I'm not a boulder," Cole said then they heard the baby and he went to get her.

But this time Nat was right and Cole had no clue about the impression he made. Burly and manly and so hot while holding the tiny Z, he was a dream that would never come true for Alex. As Cole brought the baby over, she was fussing a little, and Alex had the urge to reassure her that he wasn't thinking anything dirty about her dad.

Nat left while Cole was changing Z, and Alex wondered if she did that deliberately to give them some time to themselves. Of course they weren't alone. Z was there.

Watching Cole with her, Alex wondered what it was like to hold her. Probably nice.

"Did you want to hold Z?" Cole said, guessing what he was thinking. "She's pretty mellow right now. Shouldn't give you any trouble."

"Can I be trusted to hold her?" Alex wondered half as a question to Cole and half to himself.

"As long as you don't drop her," Cole said.

The thought of that scared Alex away from even trying. "I better not. Let's leave her where she's safe, in Daddy's arms."

"OK," Cole said and Alex made an unhappy noise. "You want to hold her." This time Cole wasn't asking because it was obvious.

"I do but I'm too nervous," Alex admitted.

"You know what, sit on the couch and hold her then there won't be anywhere to drop her," Cole said and went over to the couch. "Right there. I'll hand her to you."

Alex agreed and sat down and then he was holding Z. "She's squishy and alive and oh, hi, Z. I won't drop you," Alex promised her.

"She's not worried. Want to try feeding her too?" Cole asked.

"Uh, maybe," Alex said, feeling more confident now that he had successfully held Z for all of two seconds.

Getting a bottle from the fridge, Cole sat next to him and showed him how to feed Z. It turned out that she did most of the work, he just had to keep the bottle tilted right.

"She's so good at this. She finished almost the whole thing," Alex said amazed.

"She's a good eater like her dad," Cole said and he beamed at her.

"She makes you smile a lot, doesn't she. I mean, before Z, I bet there wasn't one picture of you smiling," Alex said.

"There is at least one. And you know the one I mean. From when you spilled beer all over your shirt because you turned your head just as you were about to drink. You have this look on your face like a kid who just dropped his ice cream cone in the dirt."

"And you were laughing at me. I know that picture. That's not you smiling. That's you laughing your ass off at my expense," Alex accused him.

Cole shrugged. "Close enough."

"I was already drunk, that's why I didn't know how to drink," Alex said and looked down at Z. "She knows how to drink and she's almost asleep again."

Cole leaned over for a better look and Alex was reminded of how good he smelled. He could get drunk on just the manly scent of him. "Yes, she is. Let me hold her up in case she wants to burp."

"Is she really going to sleep already," Alex asked. He had already gotten addicted to holding her.

"Yeah and I should probably be going," Cole said and now Alex was crushed.

"Really?" Alex didn't hide his disappointment.

"Or I could put her back in her carrier, let her sleep and stick around," Cole said.

"You could, and we could watch something," Alex said that way he wouldn't start babbling just to keep the conversation going.

"Not one of those foreign films you pretended to like," Cole said.

"I didn't pretend. OK, sometimes I pretended." And sometimes he fell asleep and woke up with his head on Cole's shoulder or with him leaning on Cole's muscular arm.

Why did he have to think of that? It's not like that was going to happen again.

They didn't watch a boring foreign film, but somehow Cole ended up asleep with his head on Alex's shoulder. That used to happen sometimes too. Alex didn't want to disturb him, he even breathed softly so he wouldn't wake him, but Z wasn't that considerate. She was making complaining sounds so Alex nudged Cole. "I think Z wants something."

Cole blinked and looked around like he was reminding himself where he was. He then smiled at Alex and got up saying, "Just like old times."

Chapter 2

Even at his old job, Cole usually worked right through lunch. Since he was still new at Legends of the Road Rentals, he wanted to make sure he was on top of things so he had been having lunch in his office, eating at his desk as he checked over the books.

It reminded him of doing the bookkeeping at his uncle's mechanic's shop though he worked on cars too. He'd do the books late when everyone else had gone home and he was done with cleaning up.

Working on that ancient computer, alone in that dingy office, those weren't bad times. But he also remembered getting yelled at any time his uncle was in a bad mood and wanted to take it out on someone who couldn't afford to quit. He liked to call Cole a useless fucking burden no matter how much work he did for him, most of the time without getting paid.

That was because Cole's mother had shipped him off to his uncle when she got remarried. Since his dad had run off, she decided someone on his dad's side of the family should take responsibility for Cole. His uncle did it but not without beatings and yelling though the beatings stopped when Cole got big enough to fight back.

It was a relief to move out and quit and get himself to college on a scholarship though he still had to work to pay for living expenses. After years of getting yelled at, Alex was the first friend he made at college, and he was a whole new universe to Cole. Skinny, with his sandy hair always falling into his eyes, gentle and caring, a little skittish but never failing to make him smile, he was everything that Cole had been missing in his life until then.