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    Leaning Into Love: Leaning Into Stories, #1
    Leaning Into Love: Leaning Into Stories, #1
    Leaning Into Love: Leaning Into Stories, #1
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Leaning Into Love: Leaning Into Stories, #1

    By Lane Hayes

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Eric

     

    I'm a successful guy. I have a supportive family and a great group of close friends. But something is missing. Or maybe my ex's wedding news has put me in a funk. It's time to move on.

     

    But I will not—I repeat—not fall for another friend.

     

    Zane

     

    Maybe I'm a little too laid-back and maybe Eric is out of my league, but I firmly believes there's a time and place for everything if you're willing to take a chance. But dating one of best friends...not so smart. Then again, why not lean into love and see what happens. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLane Hayes
    Release dateFeb 8, 2017
    ISBN9781386130017
    Leaning Into Love: Leaning Into Stories, #1
    Author

    Lane Hayes

    Lane Hayes is grateful to finally be doing what she loves best. Writing full-time! It’s no secret Lane loves a good romance novel. An avid reader from an early age, she has always been drawn to well-told love story with beautifully written characters. These days she prefers the leading roles to both be men. Lane discovered the M/M genre a few years ago and was instantly hooked. Her debut novel was a 2013 Rainbow Award finalist and subsequent books have received Honorable Mentions, and were winners in the 2016 Rainbow Awards. She loves red wine, chocolate and travel (in no particular order). Lane lives in Southern California with her amazing husband in an almost empty nest.

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      Book preview

      Leaning Into Love - Lane Hayes

      1

      F riendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

      ― Kahlil Gibran, The Collected Works

      Sunlight glittered like diamonds strewn across the Bay. The cool late afternoon temperature left the nearby beach mostly deserted. Anyone with a brain was at home or in front of a raging fire with a glass of wine, not trying to talk above the din of seagulls skimming the shoreline for a late snack. I sidestepped a particularly persistent one as I made my way to the sailboat tied to the end of the dock. I juggled my cell phone to my other ear and stopped when the connection got fuzzy.

      …I told you…bad idea. He…the one who…

      Josh, you’re breaking up. I need to get going anyway. And I don’t like where this conversation is going, I added in my head as I adjusted my dark sunglasses and the zipper on my pullover.

      We can talk later. Say hi to Zane for me. What are you two doing? Should I be jealous I didn’t get invited? he asked conversationally.

      No. In fact, please get your ass down here and take my place. This is what I get for challenging his knowledge about surf heroes from the 1960s, I groused. A fucking sailing lesson.

      You got off lightly, Eric. It could have been a surf lesson, Josh said with a laugh.

      True. But I’ll be trapped on a tin can with him pontificating the joys of the sea like a character from an Ernest Hemingway novel. I think that’s sufficient torture.

      No offense, but I feel worse for Zane.

      Hey!

      Hey, yourself. Just do us all a favor and stop spinning on Nick. You broke up two years ago. It’s over. He’s a heartless dick but for better or worse, he’s your business partner and your friend. Lisa may be the one with the ring on her finger, but let’s be real…Nick is no catch. Tell Z-man I said hi. Call me later if you feel like coming over to watch the game.

      Josh hung up before I could reply. It was just as well. He was right. I had no reason to be upset about my business partner-slash-ex’s engagement announcement. Nick and I had not been an ideal couple. We were friends from college who slept together after a drunken night out on the town and somehow fell into a relationship based on a mutual love of sex. Anytime and all the time.

      Actually, that wasn’t fair. Sex had only been part of the attraction. Nick Jorgensen was a genius and I had a thing for smart guys. When we met at Stanford in our junior year, he was about to file his first patent for a program he’d written when he was eighteen. I had no idea what it did but I’d loved watching him talk about it. He was so fucking enthusiastic and so in love with his work that I couldn’t help rooting for him. I’d had a crush on him throughout the rest of college, but I’d never acted on it. I’d thought he was straight and while I knew I wasn’t, I didn’t want to potentially alienate him with the burden of an unrequited crush. Being in Nick’s orbit had been sufficient.

      Get off your phone or I’m throwing it in the fucking Bay.

      And there went my daydream.

      I lowered my sunglasses diva-style and narrowed my gaze at Zane. I wasn’t on my phone, asshole.

      Good. Keep it that way. Are you getting on or did you expect me to roll out the red carpet first? he snarked.

      Golly Cap’n, that would be swell! I widened my eyes comically then batted my lashes to piss him off.

      He chuckled instead and held his hand out to help me aboard. I stuffed my cell in my back pocket but hesitated a moment before grasping the offered hand to clandestinely check him out. Zane Richards was a six-foot-one surfer dude with brilliant blue eyes and sharp-chiseled features. His wavy dark-blond hair was always in need of a trim. Today it skimmed the collar of his navy windbreaker. However, if anyone could pull off a cross between serious sailor and surf maestro, it was Zane.

      We were from the same beach town in Southern California. Technically, we’d known each other since we were fourteen, but we hung with a different crowd in those days. I was a serious student and member of the debate team and Zane was…well, he was trouble. He was a good-looking guy with the kind of charisma some lucky bastards were just born with. Zane was a smartass who rarely applied himself and loved to stir up shit. I made sure to steer clear of him.

      Of course, high school was when you assumed you knew things about people you’d never spoken to. Sometime in our junior year, the water polo coach took an interest and suggested Zane try out for the team. He did, and as he liked to say…the rest was history. The poor kid raised by a single mom in an affluent town went from being on the verge of becoming a sad statistic to earning a full scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Which happened to be where I was going.

      We ran into each other at orientation and ended up spending more time that afternoon talking than we had the entire four years we’d been in high school together. Perhaps our unlikely friendship was rooted in nerves and the fact that we didn’t know anyone else in Northern California. But twelve years later, Zane was one of my closest friends. We had a funny way of communicating that confounded most of the guys in our tight-knit group. He would tease me for being a persnickety geek while I purposefully baited him by pretending to be ignorant of what he called basic survival knowledge, like remembering the difference between port side and starboard. Our buddies would observe us with mild amusement, the way they might watch a tennis match that inexplicably became interesting after a couple sets. Josh was famous for tossing irreverent suggestions that Zane and I should just fuck and get it over with. He and Nick would laugh hysterically when one or both of us flipped him off.

      But back in college, I was the only out and proud gay in the group. Just hinting Zane should check out a hot guy’s ass would make him blush furiously before he smacked me upside the head for getting under his skin in the first place. He surprised the hell out of me when he came out as bi in his mid-twenties. I might have been more actively curious about what Zane was going through if I hadn’t been so engrossed with Nick at the time.

      Nick and I started seeing each other a couple years after graduation. We were too lazy or horny to hide that we were engaged in a relationship. Or more accurately, a nonstop fuckfest. We never used the word boyfriend. We’d decided the label was bad for the business we’d started the previous year. If we wanted investors to take EN Tech seriously, we had to give the impression we were college friends who were passionate about network security with high-speed solutions and services. Not lovers who couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves for more than ten minutes at a stretch.

      But that was years ago. Now Nick was engaged to a woman and I was left assuring our friends I was long over him.

      Earth to Eric. Get your ass on the boat already. You’re burning daylight, princess.

      I huffed indignantly, but took Zane’s offer for assistance and tripped my way onto his pristine sailboat. I took a seat on one of the plush

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