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  Stupid Love

  Stumbling into Love Book One

  by

  RILEY HART

  Copyright © 2020 by Riley Hart

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Published by:

  Riley Hart

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All products/brand names/Trademarks mentioned are registered trademarks of their respective holders/companies.

  Cover Design by Sleepy Fox Studio

  Cover Photography by Bobby Augustine

  Edited by Keren Reed Editing

  Proofread by Judy’s Proofreading and Lyrical Lines Proofreading

  Blurb

  Elijah

  Out of all the apartments in Atlanta, I ended up with the worst neighbor. Shaw Hastings is a headache. He’s so full of himself it makes me crazy. Our official language is snarky banter—which I don’t enjoy, I swear. I’ve got eyes for my bestie Danny, anyway. I need to figure out if he feels the same, so I email an advice column written by a serial dater, who’s just as annoying as Shaw. Now, I’m asking myself why am I thinking less about Danny and having a blast virtually flirting with Anonymous?

  Shaw

  I don’t know why I like my adorable neighbor, Elijah Coleman. We’ve got nothing in common, yet somehow he’s both boring and kinda fun. He reminds me of this guy who emailed my advice column, so it shouldn’t be surprising that—oops—they’re the same person. Imagine me then offering to help Elijah get Danny in real life just because it means spending time with him. We go from angry neighbors, to frenemies taking dancing lessons together, to a flirtatious friendship where I enjoy making him happy.

  No matter how much we fight it, Elijah and I are stumbling toward the L word. It’s messy and scary, but then he smiles, strikes a beautiful dance pose, or kisses me, and suddenly it’s not so bad. He’s ruining me, and I sort of like it. Stupid love. Unfortunately, with my track record of running scared, I just might wreck the only real relationship I’ve ever had.

  Dedication

  To Meredith King. Thank you for coming up with the name, Charades & Sexcapades. I told you I’d dedicate the book to you!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Hundred Thousand Words

  Other Books by Riley Hart

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Shaw

  Charades & Sexcapades

  Advice & Thoughts on Love, Dating & Sex

  I’m a bisexual man with a plethora of experience in sex and dating. Lots of thoughts on love, one being that I want nothing to do with it for myself. I understand that others want to jump headfirst into misery (a.k.a. Love), so I anonymously give advice on that too.

  Dear Anonymous,

  I’m a twenty-nine-year-old gay man. I’ve been with the love of my life for three years. Lately, things have become a bit stale in the bedroom. It’s not that I don’t love him, because I do, but I’m not as sexually satisfied as I used to be. It’s nothing he’s done wrong. The sex hasn’t changed all that much, and maybe that’s part of the problem. I can’t help wondering if I’m not cut out for monogamy. This is my longest relationship. I’ve never been monogamous before him, which he knew when we got together. We figured it was because I’ve never been in love before. I’d like to reiterate that I do still love him. Madly. I don’t want to lose him, but I’m also a very sexual person, and my desires are weighing heavily on me. I’ve casually mentioned, more than once, the possibility of opening our relationship, or at least bringing in a third from time to time. Something to spice things up or break the monotony, but my boyfriend brushes it off. Do you have any advice?

  Sincerely, Craving More.

  Dear Craving More,

  I’m sorry you’ve found yourself in this situation. I’m sure it’s difficult for you both. If you’re a reader of this column, you know that even though I give love advice, love isn’t for me. I understand that there are people in the world who are searching for love, who want or need it, but I don’t happen to be one of those people. Do I enjoy dating? Sex? Hooking up? You betcha, but it’s with the understanding that commitment and monogamy aren’t in the cards for me or whoever I’m with at the time, because I’m not built that way.

  So, I think your first step is to search inside yourself to see if you are the type of man who isn’t monogamous. You need to figure out if you’re truly not built that way (without cheating because cheating makes one an asshole). Have you and your boyfriend tried different kinds of sex with each other? Role-playing or any other form of stepping out of the monotony you’re feeling? Have you sat him down and told him how you feel, or have you only beat around the bush? Because if you tell him, and then you both explore other kinds of sex together, your problem might be solved.

  If that doesn’t work and you decide that monogamy isn’t for you, again, you need to be completely honest with your man. As much as you have the right to not be built for monogamy, he has the right to be built for it. There’s no right or wrong answer. We all have to figure out who we are and what we want, on our own. Once you both have the answer to that question, you need to figure out if your needs align. The only people who can tell you what to do are, well, the two of you.

  If you want to be open and he’s firmly against it, you have to ask yourself if it’s worth losing the man you love, and he needs to ask himself the same question. Is playing worth losing him? Is not allowing you to play worth losing you?

  I know that’s a shitty non-answer, but this is the type of question I can’t answer for you. I understand your feelings, and I wish you both the best.

  This is one of the many reasons why I don’t do love .

  Anonymous

  CHAPTER ONE

  Elijah

  I pulled the lasagna out of the oven at the perfect moment. The cheese was to die for, just the right tone of golden brown. My stomach growled, spices and tomatoes and carbs filling my senses. Ugh. Why did carbs have to be so good? I was positive that one day they would be the death
of me.

  Carbs or Danny, which were totally two of my favorite things. Well, except for the whole be-the-death-of-me part. I was only twenty-three. I wasn’t ready to die, even if it would be a delicious death.

  Danny was my best friend, whom I was maybe a little bit in love with. Okay, a lot of bit in love with. I had been for a year now. It was strange, the moment it dawned on me. We were sitting on the couch, watching a movie like we’d done eleven thousand times in the past. It was a rom-com, and I’d been, well, I’d been slightly jealous that the love interests on the screen were getting their happily ever after because I was that rare breed of early twentysomething man who was ready for that.

  Danny’s head had fallen to my shoulder—again, like it had done numerous times before. Danny was a cuddler, and he had been for as long as I could remember. This time, he was asleep. Nothing new there either, but as I looked down at him, at the way his lashes fanned against his light, smoky-quartz skin…the way his onyx hair tickled my chin…it hit me, like this jolt of lightning straight to my chest. It fried my nerve endings and my neurons and whatever the hell else I had inside me. My heart had swelled, and I realized I was in love with my best friend; that I’d always been in love with my best friend. Danny was my movie ending dream come true. I’d just never let myself acknowledge it before.

  Now that I had, I couldn’t unacknowledge it. My feelings for him were in every thought about him and every night out, and it was making me a little crazy and stupid, because I was fairly certain there was some golden rule about falling in love with your best friend.

  It wasn’t a straight thing either, because Danny was as gay as me, and I was pretty fucking gay. The issue was, I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. If you asked me, there was nothing better than falling for a friend, but love complicated friendship and made me feel at risk of him running as far away from me as he could get. I didn’t have the best luck with guys, and well, Danny wasn’t the same rare breed of early twentysomething I was.

  The odds weren’t in my favor of Danny feeling the same. I mean, stranger things had happened, but Danny was the type who always said how he felt, and since he hadn’t said he felt some kind of way about me? Yeah, that led me to believe he didn’t.

  A quick knock came from behind me, followed by the sound of a key slipping into the lock. Danny had a key to my apartment, which was on the eighth floor of the Renaissance Palace Apartments in Midtown Atlanta.

  “What’s up, hermano?” Danny shook his wet hair out of his eyes and smiled. He sometimes called me brother, which I used to like, but now that I wanted to have sex with him, it was weird.

  “Hey, you.” We’d gone to the same high school. Danny had always been more “straight passing” than me. He could have gotten through school on the down-low if he’d wanted, where I…couldn’t. But Danny had been out, and fucking great at football, which meant he was still accepted when I hadn’t been. Society was shitty that way. Give a guy a ball, and that made you more acceptable. Forget that I was as good with balls as he was; it just wasn’t the right kind to make me popular with the dude-bros, unless it was our little secret and they wanted some head. Even my own community shamed fem guys sometimes, but I didn’t need to go there at the moment. The best thing about Danny had been that he’d never hidden our friendship, even when people could pretend he didn’t like cock as much as I did.

  “Damn, that smells good.” He closed the door behind him. The apartment was open concept, the kitchen off to the left of the door, the living room in front of us, with large windows looking out over the city. Dining room to the right, and a hallway on the left side of the living room.

  “Thanks.”

  Danny kissed my temple and said, “I brought wine. I think it’ll go well with Italian.”

  “Will you get me a glass?” I asked, then went to the fridge to take out the salad.

  “Yep.”

  We used to go back and forth between my place and his, having dinner every Tuesday. Whoever hosted, cooked. It was this cute bestie thing that I would basically die if I ever lost, which again, scared the crap out of me and kept me from telling him how I felt. Lately, we’d been at my place more than his, and on Danny’s weeks, he brought takeout. Whatever. It was still fun.

  I looked over the fridge as Danny grabbed the glasses. His hair was cut short, and messy, as always. He never combed it. He was bigger than me, his muscles larger and, you know, that was really hot. Not that I wasn’t proud of my body. I taught Pilates, and grew up in dance because I had the best mom in the world who’d always accepted me for who I was, but I was smaller-boned, and while my body was defined, it would always be littler than his. So essentially a twink, but I wore my twink badge proudly.

  “What?” Danny asked when he caught me staring at him.

  “You have a booger.” He covered his face just before a laugh tumbled out of my mouth, and he flipped me off.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I thought it was pretty funny.”

  Soon we were sitting at the table, drinking, eating, and chatting. Every few minutes, Danny kept looking at his phone.

  “I’m sorry. Am I boring you?” I teased.

  “My bad. It’s this guy I hooked up with the other night.”

  A boulder dropped into my gut. Not that Danny didn’t hook up with guys often. I mean, obviously he did. We both had our fun when we wanted, me less than him, but he didn’t typically chat with someone during BFF Tuesdays. “Is there something we need to talk about?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded calmer than I felt. My pulse was currently running a damn marathon, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Huh? No. It’s not serious. Just someone I had a good time with.”

  “Then I would tell me my lasagna is awesome.”

  Danny smiled. “Your lasagna is awesome.”

  He set his phone down, and we finished our meal. When it was over, we stacked the dishes in the kitchen and went to the couch to find something to watch. “A new show or a movie?” I asked. Sometimes we watched a show together, and if we did, we made a commitment not to watch episodes any other night of the week without each other. We were so fucking cute.

  “Eh, let’s go with a movie tonight.”

  “Or a true-crime documentary.” I was a bit obsessed with those.

  “Boring.” He nudged me.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  We settled on a horror flick, which were Danny’s favorite. His phone was glued to his hand the whole time. I’d hear the tap, tap, tap of his fingers across the screen, which would make me sigh, and then he’d set it down, only to pick it up again.

  Snatching the remote from the table, I hit Pause. “You’re clearly not into this tonight.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. He was just a really good lay. Can we do this another time?”

  Wait, what? That wasn’t supposed to be how he answered. He was supposed to put his phone down and say he could talk to that guy later. “Um…yeah?”

  “Thanks. You’re the best, Eli. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” Danny stood, bent over and kissed my forehead, and then he was out the door, while I sat there trying to figure out what in the hell just happened.

  It took a good few minutes for the shock to wear off, and the moment it did, I was jerking my phone off the arm of the couch and calling our friend Brooklyn.

  “Wait. Isn’t it BFF Tuesday?” she said instead of hello.

  “Yes, yes it is, but Danny left because of someone he’s fucking!” That wasn’t what Danny and I did. How did he suddenly not know that?

  “Oh…”

  “Exactly! What is going on here? I don’t understand.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. It’s different, obviously, but you know you and Danny are better off as friends, right? You’re not in love with him.”

  Anger spiked inside me, making my body flush with heat. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you know my feelings better than I do.”

  “I’m not trying to be an asshole, a
nd you know it. I think you feel a lot of things for Danny because his friendship made you feel okay socially about being who you are. And I think you’ve been best friends with him so long, you’ve blurred the lines of your relationship. And I also think that you’ve always been looking for love, and I think maybe your brain has played a trick on you.”

  “That’s a lot of thinks, Brook!” I shouted. From the moment I told her how I felt about Danny, this has been her reaction. “How much do I owe you for this session? And wait, when did you get your therapist license?”

  “Ha-ha, be nice to me. You’re the one who called me. I’m trying to be supportive.”

  I sighed, because I knew she was. Brooklyn lived two floors up from me, and outside of Danny, she was my best friend. “Can you like, be nice by coming down here, bringing ice cream, and telling me you understand rather than lecturing me on how I feel?”

  She chuckled softly. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll be right there.”

  Brooklyn came down. We watched a documentary, ate ice cream, and it helped. Maybe.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shaw

  “Hey, man. Can you go out tonight?” my buddy Will asked the moment I answered his call. It was a Friday night, and I spent the majority of those going out, oftentimes with him.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “Shaw, what the fuck, dude?”

  I laughed. “I’m kidding. Just a bit perplexed by your question. Don’t we always go out?”

  “Yeah, apparently a little too much,” he answered, and my smile suddenly turned the other direction.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’m over it. Whatever. We’ll talk tonight. I’ll be at your place at ten.”

  Okay… Will was being slightly weird, but he was known for being overdramatic sometimes, so I let it go. I hoped it didn’t have anything to do with Lisa, this new woman he’d been dating for a couple of months. It was obvious she didn’t like me, and maybe didn’t like Will as much when he was around me, and holy fuck, whatever was going on with Will was definitely about me and Lisa.