 by Lane Hayes.jpg)
Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Holden-
Ezra might be the most annoying roommate ever. He’s loud, obnoxious, and full of himself. So what if he’s a tall, muscular, tattooed jock? His tendency to strip to his boxers in the kitchen while helping himself to my food isn’t endearing in the slightest. Nope. Ezra has to go.
However, I have to admit, he’s the perfect fit to play the king for my historic reenactment event. Ezra in a royal robe…oh, this could be quite tantalizing indeed.
He won’t do it, though.
Unless I trick him into a history lesson.
Ezra-
Holden is the kind of dude who wears top hats and great coats while teaching astrophysics to brainiacs. Weird, right? But I gotta respect that level of commitment. And I respect him.
Sadly, Holden doesn’t feel the same way about me.
I guess I can’t blame him. Cranking his gears has been a highlight of my stint in geek land. I’ve never seen anyone get riled about yogurt like him. He makes me laugh. And think. And he makes me want things I’d never thought possible.
So yeah, I’ll take that history lesson. If it leads to something more, I’m in.
Love and History is a Bi-awakening geek/jock romance featuring a messy law student, a picky professor, and a lesson neither will forget!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
HOLDEN
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”—Shakespeare, Hamlet
“Where’s the coffee?”
I cradled my mug protectively, eyeing my underdressed and over-muscled roommate warily. “In the pantry. And good morning to you.”
Ezra grunted, slipping his fingers under the elastic of his black boxer briefs to scratch his ass as he meandered to the cupboard. He grabbed the box from the shelf and whirled to face me, shaking the contents.
“There’s only one left,” he growled accusingly.
I raised my mug in a mock toast. “Enjoy it. And…don’t forget to buy more on your way home from work, dear.”
Ezra glared at me, then stomped toward the coffee machine, inserted the last pod, and shoved a cup under the spout at the very last second…because that was how he rolled. I took a languid sip, willing my face not to give me away when he opened the fridge and—
“Where the fuck is the milk?”
I shamelessly stared at his fine rear view as he rummaged through the contents of the refrigerator.
Ezra Marsden might be a moldy rogue, but he had a very, very nice body. He was six four with dark-blond hair, brown eyes, broad shoulders, muscular biceps, chiseled abs, and powerful thighs. I’d never noticed anyone’s thighs in my life, but Ezra’s were…big.
He was big. Everything about the man was supersized. Including his ego and his warped sense of entitlement.
It had to be a jock thing. He’d played lacrosse for years and baseball too…I think. Nowadays, he was a law student, an intern with a prestigious LA firm, a gym rat, and yes…my rapscallion roommate. Ugh. Don’t ask.
Fine, I’ll tell you anyway.
It was a matter of desperate times calling for desperate measures. A few years ago, my best friend, Tommy, and I rented this ginormous five-bedroom house in Pasadena with three of our closest friends, Topher, George, and Asher. We’d been grad students at UCLA at the time with internships at NASA and Caltech, specializing in astrophysics and biomolecular physics. Some might call us nerds, and that was a-okay. We shared a love of science and a passion for learning.
Toph, George, and Ash went on to work for NASA full-time after graduation. They also moved in with their respective boyfriends, leaving Tommy and me to either find a smaller house or new roommates while we worked toward our PhDs and taught at Caltech. Staying put was the simpler choice. Our large two-story house in a quiet, centrally located neighborhood in Pasadena was a reasonable commute for young professionals who worked or went to school in LA. We didn’t think we’d have an issue finding two replacements—ideally grad students with backgrounds in science.
As the sports guys say…we struck out. There had to be thousands of worthy applicants in the area and yet, no one seemed interested. Asher’s boyfriend, Blake, suggested that our criteria were a tad too specific and that we might get lucky if we broadened our search. So we did. However, apparently it wasn’t broad enough. Other than Chet, a NASA Mars specialist who’d briefly rented Topher’s old room until moving down the street to live with his now-husband, Sam, we didn’t hear from anyone.
Well, no one suitable. The medical student from UCLA had three cats and a parrot. The engineer from Loyola was in a band. He’d asked if it was cool if he practiced drums in the garage. My allergy to cats and Tommy’s allergy to loud noises made those easy nos. It also made us desperate.
So when Blake said his buddies, Ezra and Cole, were looking for a place, we agreed to give them a try. Sure, they were jocks and not scientists, but Blake was a strong character reference. He was Asher’s significant other, and Asher had extremely high standards.
According to Blake, Ezra and Cole were “chill” dudes who were easy to get along with. Cough, cough. Yeah, right.
Blake failed to emphasize their level of “chill.” Or maybe it was a matter of differing definitions. Some people chill with a good book and a glass of vino at the end of the day; others binge a new cable series, play word games on their phones, or do puzzles for fun. Ezra and Cole drank a lot of beer and consumed an alarming amount of chips.
They also watched sports, listened to sports podcasts, and talked sports nonstop. Usually in their underwear.
Actually, that was Ezra.
Ezra was the issue. He was famous for stripping to his briefs within five minutes of announcing he was home. No kidding. He had no shame. It was a battle to get that man to keep his clothes on. And if he were…normal-looking, I might not mind, but Ezra was…distracting. He was tattooed and muscular, boisterous and noisy. Basically, he was a menace with a big mouth who had a bad habit of stealing food.
Cole wasn’t so bad. He respected boundaries and he didn’t hang around very often. Sadly, since Tommy met his boyfriend, he wasn’t around much either. Which left me with Ezra.