Blog Tour, Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway:
The Haunting Crush by Christie Gordon
Kai is pathetic.
Conner is perfect.
Things aren’t always what they seem.
Kai Nez is pathetic. At least that’s what his mother tells him after blaming him for his father’s death from a diabetic coma. He’s the poor, part native, part white, gay guy the bullies picked on in their small-town high school, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. The crush he has on the football quarterback, homecoming king, Conner Mitchell will always be that, a crush. And he’s fine with it. Until Conner corners Kai at his graduation party and gives Kai something to fantasize about, then disappears. Years later, Kai is bar tending at a local restaurant. He’s happy where he’s at and he’s good at his job. Then Conner Mitchell shows up at the restaurant and bulldozes back into Kai’s life. At the same time, weird things start happening in the duplex he shares with his best friend. Haunted house things.
Conner Mitchell lives the good life, born into wealth, perfect student, perfect athlete and dating the perfect girl. But perfection is over-rated and short lived. After college and landing a lucrative job as a pharmaceutical rep, he breaks up with his girlfriend and moves back to the small town he grew up in and finds Kai again. The brief moment they shared at his graduation party has always haunted him. And now Kai is dealing with a different kind of haunting and needs his help.
Kai is skeptical and fearful of both ghosts and Conner’s intentions. Conner isn’t going to let this chance pass him by. It’s time to show Kai who he really is and prove to Kai he’s not pathetic. He’s perfect.
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His heart warmed and a faint grin crept over his lips. Conner was surprising, and not just in bed. He strode to the guest bedroom door, on the other side of the kitchen, and knocked. “Hey, you awake yet?”
A groan snaked through the door. In a raspy voice, Bryce said, “Yeah.”
“You want me to heat you up some breakfast?” He chuckled.
“Sure.”
Kai made his way to the refrigerator, took out two white plates covered in tinfoil, then removed the tinfoil and heated them up in the microwave. He smirked. Conner had made them fried eggs, bacon, and hash browns. He brought the warmed food along with silverware to the dark-wood, round dinette table.
Bryce ambled from the guest bedroom to the table and took a seat in a green, upholstered chair. “Wow. Who made breakfast?” He raked a hand through his bangs and let them fall across his forehead.
“Conner,” he said. “What some juice?” He smiled.
“Yes.” Bryce picked up his silverware and cut into an egg. “Can you make coffee, too?”
Kai shook his head and smirked. “Yes.” As he made his way into the kitchen, he noticed a silver coffee carafe sitting on the counter. “Perfect.” Conner had thought of everything. He found the coffee cups, poured the coffees, then brought out cream and orange juice from the refrigerator. After putting cream and sugar into the coffee cups, he poured the orange juice into glasses and brought everything to the table.
“Damn, Kai, I don’t know how you balance all those glasses in your hand.” Bryce snickered.
“Practice.” He’d never do well at the bar if all he could carry was two glasses at a time. He sat down and picked up his fork. “How is it?” He shoveled hash browns into his mouth.
“Damn good. Conner can cook. Breakfast, at least.” Bryce sipped his coffee. “So, how are things going with you two?” He studied Kai.
Kai nodded. “Good.” Maybe more than good. He ate a bite of bacon.
“So, is he gay or bisexual or what?” Bryce lifted a forkful of hash browns to his mouth.
Kai furrowed his brows. That was a good question and not one he’d gotten a straight answer to. “I don’t know.” He drank some juice.
Bryce spat across his coffee. “What? How can you not know? Aren’t you guys fucking?”
He released a soft chuckle. “Jesus, that’s a bit personal, don’t you think?” He offered Bryce a mock glare.
“Come on, Kai. You’ve had a thing for Conner since…well, since you found out I wasn’t gay. How can you two be sleeping together and not be fucking?” He lifted his brows, and the hint of a grin quirked his lips.
Kai sipped his coffee. Should he talk to him? Bryce had a big mouth. He narrowed his eyes. But he was his best friend, and Conner was a little confusing. He focused on him. “Look, if I tell you what’s going on, you’ve got keep your mouth shut. You hear me?”
A wide smile grew over Bryce’s face and he leaned forward in his chair. “Sure. You can trust me, you know that.”
“I know I can trust you. It’s your little remarks you can’t keep in check.” Kai sighed. He glanced out the sliding glass doors at the mid-morning sun making long shadows from olive and palm trees on far-off grass in the park down the street. How much should I tell him? He looked back at to Bryce. “Just be careful. I think Conner isn’t all that open about his sexuality or something.” He thought back to last night’s questions. Why didn’t Conner want to answer him about his experiences with men?
Bryce widened his eyes. “This sounds good. Tell me.”
He pressed his lips together, then sipped his coffee, staring at the table. “I don’t know what he is. He doesn’t want to say.” He glanced at Bryce.
“Okay.” Bryce lifted his brows. “And?”
“And he’s obviously had sexual experiences with guys but doesn’t want to tell me anything about it.”
Bryce came back in his seat, rubbing his chin. “But he was with Paige until recently, right?”
“Remember his graduation party?” Kai raised his brows.
“Yeah…” Bryce dropped his mouth open. “Oh, shit. You think he’s into open relationships?”
“Open relationships?” Kai wrinkled his brows. God, I hope not. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“Maybe he and Paige had an open relationship back then and he was trying you out first, to see if he wanted to get you into bed with him and Paige?” Bryce waggled his brows, sipping coffee, then ate some eggs.
Kai’s heart pinched. How could Bryce say something like that to him and then go on eating breakfast? He knows how I feel about Conner. “Bryce.”
“What?” He looked up at him with a forkful of egg at his mouth.
“You don’t really think that do you? I mean, he seems pretty monogamous to me.” Kai stared at his plate of food, his forearms resting on the table, a bad feeling forming in the pit of his stomach.
Bryce shrugged and chewed the eggs, then looked him over. He stretched across the table and touched Kai’s forearm. “Maybe he wasn’t as into Paige as he is you. He seems to really like you.”
Kai drew his brows together. An open relationship was not something he would ever consider. “Yeah, I hope so.”
“Kai, it was just a suggestion. It doesn’t mean I’m right. I’m sure there’s some other reason why he did that and why he doesn’t want to tell you about certain things. Maybe it’s too soon for him.”
“Yeah.” Maybe it was too soon for Conner to talk about those things. He frowned. “What are you doing today?”
“I’m going to go and check out the wash and see if I can find anything weird in it.” Bryce drank some orange juice.
“Okay. I’m going for a run. Can you drop me off at my Blazer?” He ate some eggs.
“Sure.” Bryce chuckled, then slapped his arm. “Come on, I’m sure you two will work things out.”
“Yeah.”
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About the Author:
Christie Gordon started writing gay and M/M romance fiction after becoming preoccupied with anime and in particular, the boys love and yaoi genres. She’s always had stories in her head and always enjoyed writing, so she took up fiction writing classes at a local community college and published her first book with eXtasy Books back in 2009. Christie likes to write complicated characters with painful pasts that refuse to be ignored until the characters are forced to face them head on. Angst? Yes. Happily ever after? Always. It’s the struggle to get there that counts.
Christie’s day job is in the high-tech industry with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s in Business Administration. She currently lives in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area and enjoyed eight years in the Bay Area of California but grew up in Minnesota. She shares a home with her partner of twelve years, a musician by night and a coder by day, who is currently in three bands, giving her plenty of time to keep writing. She is also a mother of two sons, one currently in college for engineering and the other preparing for nursing college. Her one-eyed, rescue pug is always by her side, snoring the day away.
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