Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73817 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73817 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Seany is tired of curling up on park benches. He hates stealing to survive. But it seems even in paradise, he struggles to find somewhere he belongs.
Cooper is the handsome yet humble owner of Easy Breezy, the local beachside bar where everyone comes to fill their glasses and spill their hearts. He knows everyone. He listens to their woes. He helps lost lovebirds find each other.
Yet something is missing from Cooper’s life. He’s reaching a certain age. He still lives alone. Can he really expect to fill the hole in his heart by helping everyone else fill theirs?
One evening when Seany dares to steal food from Cooper’s bar, a surprising series of events unfold – which lead the two straight into each other’s arms.
Is their paradise about to fall apart? Or can they become each other’s answer?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Foreword
With so many options of different amazing stories and authors to read, I’m honored you chose to spend some time with me in my fictional Texas beach town of Dreamwood Isle. Thank you. I hope you find something meaningful in this story that lives with you after flipping the final page, and that these characters touch your heart.
Note: A short version of just the beginning of this book was included in the “Dirty Daddies Pride Anthology” in 2022. What you are about to read is the definitive full version, which is over 46k words longer—three times the size. With an all-new beginning, heavy revisions, and over a dozen new chapters delving far deeper into the characters and expanding upon the story, this is the way Cooper and Seany’s romance was originally intended to be told.
It’s time to leave behind your stresses, pack a bag, and go on vacation with me for the next twenty chapters. Enjoy your stay, don’t forget your sunscreen, and happy reading, always!
XXOO
Daryl
Chapter 1 - Seany
The city of San Antonio spins away in the window.
And with it, memories of sleepless nights.
Sweat in my eyes.
Garbage bins.
Shopping carts that contain someone’s entire life.
The stench of wasteful tourists and rancid beer floating in the air like smoke.
Large cardboard boxes that once housed a shipment of deli napkins, now housing a whole human being, becoming a home with no real address.
Under a bridge where paranoid men sleep with stolen restaurant steak knives held by their sides.
I watch it all go away through the window of the bus.
Clenching a backpack to my chest—my own figurative shopping cart, containing everything I own in this world.
Everything I have left.
Plus the bus ticket pinched between my dirty fingers, the first legitimate thing I’ve bought in weeks, the thing I saved up actual money for, my ticket to somewhere else.
Somewhere better.
Somewhere far from here.
No one is seated next to me, nor behind me. I feel like a real human being again, even if it’s temporary, sitting on this air-conditioned bus among other human beings.
But it may not be a coincidence I’m sitting alone.
I probably smell like everything I hate.
And look worse.
It’s funny, how people will turn their nose up at you, even if it’s obvious you’re suffering, or down on your luck, or just in a bad place. As if poverty is a disease. As if a set of terrible circumstances is a virus you can catch.
I notice a woman across the aisle. She keeps sneaking glances at me—an older woman with curly white hair, like cotton balls, with papery, pale skin and tiny glasses. A total grandma. Next to her, an old man staring out the window, probably her husband, a total grandpa.
The woman smiles at me, her eyes twinkling.
I look away.
And squeeze my backpack tighter.
It’s a while later that the bus pulls into a small rest area off the highway. “Fifteen minutes and we’re back on the road, folks,” calls out the bus driver, hoarse and tired.
After a trip to the men’s room, I stop by an old vending machine next to a bench and stare at the ridiculous price of a fucking single Milky Way bar. Even a bottle of water is stupid expensive.
I peer down at the two crinkled dollars and couple of mismatched coins on my palm.
I can endure the hunger a little longer. Maybe I’ll score something when I get to my next place.
Wherever that is.
The elderly lady from the bus is sitting on the bench, waiting on her old fart of a husband. Her sweet, nice eyes are on me again. Two bottles of water sit next to her on the bench, beads of condensation running down their sides.
My throat puckers.
She lifts her eyebrows and faces me fully. “Sonny, you want one of these bottles? I really don’t like to drink too much. It’ll make me have to pee and Lord knows I can’t dream of using that cramped bus bathroom.”
My eyes are on that bottle like a starving dog to a bone.
“No, thanks,” I mumble before stuffing my cash away into a pocket and trudging back to the bus.
Another hour on the road, and I’m regretting my utter inability to trust anyone’s kindness. What am I so worried about? She offered me a free bottle of water. I should have taken it. I should take anything that’s given freely to me. It is literally how guys in situations like mine get by.
Something in me is hardening, though.
Like I need to prove something to myself. I gotta resist any instinct of mine that wants others’ help. I can’t rely on anyone or anything. Even this old lady is just in my life for a fleeting moment of time—one end of this bus ride to the other, then gone.
I shut my eyes and hug my backpack even tighter. The tighter I hug it, the less I can feel the growl in my stomach.