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    Checking Him Out For the Holidays
    Checking Him Out For the Holidays
    Checking Him Out For the Holidays
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    Checking Him Out For the Holidays

    By Debbie McGowan

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Freelance engineer Sol Brooks doesn't do the festive season. He thinks it's boring and overly sentimental. With the rest of the household laid up with 'the flu', Sol's planned on using the time to crack on with some work.

    His mother, however, has other ideas.

    And so does Sol's husband, Adam.

    A stand-alone holiday special featuring Sol and Adam from Checking Him Out.

    - - -

    WARNING: this story contains sex acts between consenting male adults.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBeaten Track Publishing
    Release dateDec 21, 2014
    ISBN9781910635254
    Checking Him Out For the Holidays
    Author

    Debbie McGowan

    Debbie McGowan is an award-winning author of contemporary fiction that celebrates life, love and relationships in all their diversity. Since the publication in 2004 of her debut novel, Champagne—based on a stage show co-written and co-produced with her husband—she has published many further works—novels, short stories and novellas—including two ongoing series: Hiding Behind The Couch (a literary ‘soap opera’ centring on the lives of nine long-term friends) and Checking Him Out (LGBTQ romance). Debbie has been a finalist in both the Rainbow Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards, and in 2016, she won the Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) for her novel, When Skies Have Fallen: a British historical romance spanning twenty-three years, from the end of WWII to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Through her independent publishing company, Debbie gives voices to other authors whose work would be deemed unprofitable by mainstream publishing houses.

    Read more from Debbie Mc Gowan

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    Reviews for Checking Him Out For the Holidays

    3.5/5

    16 ratings1 review

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    • 3/5
      This one was a bit of a surprise. From the beginning I never would have expected the full journey that's in store for the reader here. It's more than just Solomon and Adam coming together and Solomon coming to terms with the prospect of their relationship - it's the both of them overcoming everything that's held them back so they can figure out if it's possible for them to move forward together.

      That said, I do feel like the story is drawn out just a little, but it's still a good one and very enjoyable.

    Book preview

    Checking Him Out For the Holidays - Debbie McGowan

    Checking Him Out

    For The Holidays

    by

    Debbie McGowan

    SMASHWORDS EDITION

    * * * * *

    Copyright 2014 Debbie McGowan at Smashwords.

    https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/debbiemcgowan

    This book is available in print at most online retailers.

    http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Cover background image by Giovanni Dall’Orto - commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:G.dallorto

    Cover foreground image: licensed stock image - usage is not indicative of the model’s identity, activities or preferences.

    * * * * *

    This novella is a work of fiction and the characters and events in it exist only in its pages and in the author’s imagination.

    WARNING: this story contains sex acts between consenting male adults.

    * * * * *

    Freelance engineer Sol Brooks doesn’t do the festive season. He thinks it’s boring and overly sentimental. With the rest of the household laid up with ‘the flu’, Sol’s planned on using the time to crack on with some work.

    His mother, however, has other ideas.

    And so does Sol’s husband, Adam.

    A stand-alone holiday special featuring Sol and Adam from Checking Him Out.

    ***

    The Checking Him Out Series

    Checking Him Out (Book One)

    Checking Him Out For The Holidays (novella)

    Hiding Out (novella - A crossover featuring Matty and Noah, and Josh, George and Libby from Hiding Behind The Couch)

    Taking Him On (Book Two - A Noah and Matty novel)

    Checking In (Book Three)

    * * * * *

    Acknowledgements

    Many thanks to…

    Alexis Woods, for reading while this was a work in progress, and lending her vital expertise, tolerating daft questions from the author, and everything, really. :)

    K.C. Faelan, for the fastest and thorough-est beta-read THAT the world ever did see. ;)

    Nige, for reading everything I write and never complaining.

    Andrea, my editor and my friend. I could not do this without you. Thank you.

    * * * * *

    Table of Contents

    Chapter One

    Chapter Two

    Chapter Three

    Chapter Four

    Chapter Five

    Chapter Six

    Chapter Seven

    Chapter Eight

    Chapter Nine

    Chapter Ten

    Chapter Eleven

    About the Author

    Other Publications

    Beaten Track Publishing

    * * * * *

    Chapter One

    Damn, I love Sunday mornings in winter. Daylight that isn’t quite bright enough to pull you from sleep, the air outside of the bedcovers frigid and fresh, nothing to get up for, just a nice, lazy day ahead. Glorious.

    Or it was, until the phone started ringing.

    I waited. One ring. Two rings. Still waiting, ear tuned to see if Noah or Matty picked it up. Three rings. Four. I shifted a leg across the mattress, my toes connecting with the back of Adam’s calf. A grunt.

    Phone, I said.

    Huh, Adam replied, sleepy and unmoving.

    I held my breath, anticipating action. None was forthcoming. You gonna get it? I asked.

    A groan in the negative.

    I swore under my breath and threw the duvet back, making sure to uncover him, too. He grunted again and made a grab for it as I cursed and muttered my way into my bathrobe and all the way down the stairs. I wasn’t being cruel. I’d been on a tight deadline and worked half the night, every night, for the past week, while he sat around and watched TV. Whatever, I was up now. No point complaining. Ever.

    The phone had stopped ringing, but I wanted to know who was responsible for bringing an end to a perfectly splendid lie-in that would likely have culminated in a nice spot of Sunday rough ’n’ tumble with my significantly-still-in-bastard-bed other. I picked up the phone, checked the display for the last caller, all set to give them hell, deflated in an instant.

    Mum.

    Why’s she calling at this ungodly hour? I asked the dog, because, apparently, she was the only other life form unfortunate enough to be cognisant at…I had no idea what the time was. I bent sideways so I could see the kitchen clock. OK, so not that early. How had I slept in till a quarter to twelve? Whether I was burning the two a.m. oil or not, it really wasn’t like me, and not like Adam, either. Nor did it answer the question of why my mother had called.

    See, since she fully discovered the wonders of the ‘World Wide Web’—she always gave it its full accolade—she didn’t phone. She Skyped. And Facebooked. And Tweeted. Eldest son lives in the States for ten years and she ‘doesn’t understand all that new-fangled technical nonsense’, but youngest daughter goes to Dubai with her husband for twelve months, and all of a sudden she’s CyberMum.

    I put the phone back on its base and started toward the stairs, my intention to return to bed, shove Adam back onto his side and demand compensation for having been the one to deal with the disturbance.

    Don’t you dare! I yelled after Suky as she went tearing past.

    She paused at the top of the stairs to glance back at me, mouth open panting, tail wagging. The dog was laughing at me. She turned and scampered away on a path for the bedroom.

    I sighed and continued my ascent, or tried to. But with each step my curiosity—and concern—grew. Something must be wrong. I stopped, pondered a moment over whether to go and put socks on. Figuring a conversation with my mother, regardless of topic, would last less than a minute, I returned downstairs to the phone. It started ringing again as I picked it up, and I nearly dropped it in surprise. I hit the answer button.

    Hey, Mum.

    Ah, Solomon. Hello.

    Hi.

    Everything all right, darling? You sound out of breath?

    Do I? I didn’t feel out of breath. I hadn’t yet had much opportunity to do anything that would cause me to be out of breath, more’s the pity.

    Oh, you aren’t coming down with flu as well, are you?

    Why? Who’s got flu? Dad? After thirty-plus years on the rigs, my father had retired the previous spring, and he’d been sick ever since. I’m not even talking ‘man flu’ here because my dad isn’t a wimpy faker. The day after his retirement do, he’d come down with shingles, so the planned celebratory trip to New York was postponed until summer, at which point he developed acute appendicitis and was taken to hospital, where he picked up an MRSA infection and was kept in for four weeks. Eventually, he returned home only to end up with shingles again, followed by a gum abscess, followed by a urinary tract infection. In between the shingles and the appendicitis, he fractured his thumb while refitting the kitchen, and near sliced his foot off when he dropped a piece of glass reglazing the greenhouse. Last time we spoke, I felt it necessary to point out

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