Book Title: So Far Away
Author: Nell Iris
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs
Release Date: May 1, 2021
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Trope: Established couple
Themes: Illness, separation, pandemic (inspired by Covid, but not Covid)
Length: 14 567 words
It is a standalone story.
Buy Links
JMS Books | Amazon US | Amazon UK
So Close, Yet so Far Away
Blurb
Engaged couple Zakarias and Julian are convinced nothing can separate them…until a global pandemic hits. Zakarias catches the virus with mild symptoms and isolates in the couple’s guest house. The few meters dividing them might as well be the moon as he watches Julian, an ICU nurse, work himself to the bone, unable to support him the way he needs. Frustration and worry build as the weeks pass. Will Zakarias be declared healthy before Julian burns out?
While I’m waiting for Julian to return, I jump into the shower. Scrubbing my body, washing my hair, trying to tame the worst of the isolation scruff. When I’ve dried off, I put on my tightest T-shirt, the one that shows off my slim figure, that’s a bit too short and has a tendency to ride up and show some skin, the one that always makes Julian drool.
He has a thing for our size differences. He loves that he’s bigger and wider and a lot more muscled than I am. He loves looking at us side by side in the mirror, lingering on the contrasts. My smooth physique against his bunching muscles. The half head of height he has on me despite my six feet. His wide shoulders next to my narrow ones. And his big, wide clown feet next to my dainty ones, as I like to point out, making him laugh and lift me and carry me to bed.
He won’t be carrying me to bed this evening of course, but it doesn’t hurt having him drooling over me a little. Reminding him about some of the things he loves about me, making sure he’s got something to look forward to for when I’m finally out of my prison.
When the rumble of his SUV approaches, I flip open my laptop and log onto Skype. It doesn’t take him long to call, and I answer with a grin. “Hey, babe. I’ll just check the soup.”
I’ve already made sure my laptop camera is facing the kitchen so he’ll see me move around. And who’s to know if I stretch and bend a little more than necessary?
Julian groans. “I see you’re in a better mood.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, grin widening.
“Yeah, drop that innocent routine. It doesn’t work with me.”
“It doesn’t?” I wink and saunter to the cupboard, stretching and reaching for a glass on the top shelf. “I think I’m gonna drink water from a wineglass today. Makes it feel more special, you know,” I say over my shoulder, catching a quick glimpse of him on the monitor, eyes glued exactly where I want them. Score!
His microwave dings, but when I turn around a few seconds later, he’s still eating me up with his gaze.
“Your food’s ready,” I say.
“Mhm.” He nods slowly but makes no move to go get it. So I let him be for a while. Saunter around the small kitchen area, grabbing things I don’t need from high shelves to make sure my T-shirt rides up more. Stick out my ass whenever I can, swing my hips more than necessary, smile, and flirt while I chat about nothing in particular. When I can’t drag it out any longer, I ladle soup into a bowl and sit by the computer.
He meets my gaze. His mouth is upturned, his eyes shiny, and he shifts in his seat. “I guess I’ll go get dinner then,” he says, and when he stands there’s a noticeable tent in his pants.
I make a mental fist pump.
He quickly returns with his heated lasagna. We’re both hungry and devour our dinners without talking much. We put away the dirty dishes in companionable silence; doing everyday household chores together makes it seem a little more normal, even through a laptop screen.
When we’re done, he wanders to the couch, but I lie down on the bed, resting the laptop on my stomach.
“I have stuff I need to do,” he mutters. “Laundry. Or neither of us will have anything to wear soon.”
“That would be worse for you than me. I can always claim a bad Wi-Fi connection and leave my camera off for meetings. Work in the nude.”
That makes him chuckle. “You’re too proper for that. You’d be embarrassed and you’d worry your camera wasn’t properly turned off.”
“I could put duct tape over the camera.”
“We don’t have duct tape in the guesthouse.”
I scowl. “Why not? Duct tape is a necessity of life.”
“I know you think so,” Julian laughs, “and I know you keep some in your drawer at work for emergencies. But you do realize you’ve lived in the guesthouse for weeks now without noticing there isn’t any, not to mention needing it?”
We banter back and forth for a long time, and it does us both good. Julian relaxes more and more every minute and my anxiety level hasn’t been this low since I moved out here, maybe even since the pandemic started.
When we can’t put off real-life any longer—he needs to do the laundry and I need to clean this place, it’s getting filthy—we say goodbye and hang up. But instead, we text each other between chores.
Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bona fide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)
Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.
Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.
Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.
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