Book Title: Year of the Jackal
Author and Publisher: Abby Kaitz
Release Date: February 10, 2023
Genre: Contemporary MM romance; Romantic Comedy; New Adult
Tropes: Enemies to lovers, opposites attract
Themes: Taking risks, friendship, multicultural romance
Heat Rating: 2 flames
Length: 73 000 words/ 292 pages
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
“Before you kill me, can I get a kiss?”
Blurb
It’s Silicon Valley meets the Ivy League in this new adult romantic comedy starring a computer hacker moonlighting as a prankster, an angry basketball player who just wants his underwear back, and a small college town full of oversized personalities.
Max Trellis-Tan’s List of Things to Do Before Graduation:
- Find investors for his VR startup
- Curb his pranking habit
- Get Bramburgh University’s star basketball player to fall in love with him
It wasn’t Max’s fault that Aaron Scudder couldn’t take a prank. But when Max accidentally gets Aaron kicked off the basketball team, he quickly becomes Public Enemy Number One.
No matter how hard Aaron tries to have Max teleported to another planet, the two keep finding themselves tangled in increasingly amusing and bizarre situations around campus. Most bizarre of all is when their animosity turns into attraction.
Everything changes when Max gets accepted to a prestigious startup incubator.
Soon he’ll have to make a choice:
- Chase his dreams in Silicon Valley?
- Or take a chance on his growing feelings for Aaron?
Max checked his watch. 11:39 p.m. A few more seconds and…
Something squeaked. The door to the laundry room opened and Max saw the guy’s butt before anything else. It hid behind a pair of wrinkled cargo shorts, which did nothing to conceal the fact that this guy had an awesome rear end. Too bad the closest Max would get to touching it was rummaging through its owner’s dirty laundry.
Aaron Scudder nodded at Max as he lugged his basket towards the other side of the room. No smile. Just one of those completely perfunctory dude-nods. Max flashed his cutest smile anyway and said, “Pretty late to be doing laundry.”
“It’s quieter this way.” Aaron plopped a pod of detergent into the washer.
“So you’re an octopus.”
“Excuse me?”
Max jumped off the washer and came to stand beside Bramburgh University’s most prized athlete. Aaron Scudder was a good half foot taller than Max’s five-eleven. Mr. Eagle Scout had a biscuit-beige scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to halfway up his temple. Probably got it trying to save Little Timmy from a bear. Or a group of schoolchildren from a flaming bus.
“Octopuses prefer solitude,” Max said. “If they’re taking a stroll through the ocean and see another octopus, they get territorial and attack.”
“Okay…” Aaron lifted a shirt from his basket and laid it carefully in the washer. Unlike Max, who simply stuffed as many clothes as he could fit into the machine, Aaron treated the chore of doing laundry as if he were preparing to baptize a baby: every article of clothing handled gently and laid to rest in the cradle of a stainless-steel drum.
Max pulled himself atop the washer next to Aaron’s. His heels thudded against the side of the machine. “It’s kind of like basketball, right?”
“What?”
“You’re guarding your net against the other team. Sports are just an excuse to express our territorial instincts. Which makes me think that people who play sports are undiagnosed psychopaths.”
Aaron dropped his socks and turned to stare at him. “Are you drunk, man?”
“No. I’m here to meet a cute guy.” Max flashed another smile.
“You’re in the wrong place, then.”
“Nope.” He watched as Aaron continued to fill the washer. Something white and green—neon green—peeked out from the bottom of the laundry basket. “I’m right where I belong.”
Aaron gave him a funny look, but not before Max caught the faintest hint of a smile. He had never flirted with someone of Aaron’s caliber before. Bramburgh was populated by nerds of all stripes—even the craziest frat guys regularly made the dean’s list—but Max tended to stick with his comfort flirts: other engineering majors, the ubiquitous liberal arts majors, and the occasional grad student going through some form of academic crisis.
He paced around the room, peeking in the empty dryers for lost treasure. Once, he’d found a crumpled fifty-dollar bill in the lint filter; another time, a pair of earbuds that still worked. Tonight yielded nothing valuable—unless he counted the way Aaron kept stealing glances at him from across the room. He straightened up and closed the door to the last dryer. “Have you ever found a condom in here?”
The way Aaron’s face turned red gave Max the confidence to continue: “I lived in Bailey last year. You’d think a dorm full of STEM majors would be pretty tame, right? But I found a bunch of condoms in the dryer one time. They were still sealed. So I used them to make floating night lights. All you really need is a lithium coin battery.”
Aaron had stopped emptying his basket. “How did you make them float?”
“By blowing into them.” Max winked. “Probably couldn’t do that in the olden times. Did you know that they used to make condoms using animal intestines?”
“That’s kind of…cool?”
“What’s the weirdest fact you know?”
“Oh, um…” Aaron turned red again. The target underwear was now in full view. It looked like a droopy rag covered in bright green slashes and swirls, as if a child had taken a highlighter to it. This was the lucky underwear that got Bramburgh all the way to the Sweet Sixteen last spring? More like something you’d find in an abandoned geriatric hospital.
“I think I read somewhere that crows can remember people’s faces,” Aaron said.
“Huh. So do you think you’re like a crow?”
“What?”
“Would you remember my face?” Max smiled and walked towards the door. He gave one last wink before closing it behind him.
Gay romance for readers who enjoy sweet with heat, smart humor, and an ensemble cast of colorful characters.
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