1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Myles

E very romanticized depiction of an author in the movies featured them feverishly typing out words and chugging coffee as some brilliant idea hit them.

The reality was nothing like that.

Although I had the coffee down, since Randy's Diner did free refills.

I stretched my arms, trying to crack my back out of the gremlin's hunch I'd been rocking for the past hour. My pants might be stuck to the booth vinyl, in which case I should accept my fate and become one with it.

The majority of my time here had been spent hoping no one looked over my shoulder as I researched alien dildos to figure out what my lead character's cock should be like. If I'd bookmarked some of them for purchase later, well, that was my business.

I scanned the diner, which had gotten more crowded since I'd arrived. Whenever I got in the ne with a project, the world melted away. I could get flashed, tasered, probably even fucked, and I wouldn't notice. Just me and the words. The filthy, filthy words.

The neon-pink lighting that trailed through the upper interior of the place glowed against the chrome trim. Between that and the white-and-light-blue checkerboard flooring, the place screamed vintage diner. Randy's Diner was a little queer-friendly oasis in South End, Boston, and they would have to drag my carcass out of here when I died in one of the booths due to the many, many years I'd spent here. Most of the booths were filled now, past the dinner rush but before the theater and club kids arrived in the wee hours.

My fingers twitched like they wanted to still be typing, but my brain had stalled out.

One of the servers, , approached, their silver-and-pink hair a dead giveaway. I pasted on a smile, but I was pretty sure I looked homicidal. Or tired. I prayed for the latter.

"Need a refill?" they asked, glancing to my empty coffee cup.

"You could just be nice and give me a whole carafe." I batted my lashes for emphasis, but they didn't bite.

Instead, they crossed their arms over their chest. "Myles Hemingway the Third."

I wrinkled my nose. "Ew, call me anyone but Hemingway. He was such a dickbag."

"Look, when you're here, I'm responsible for your caffeine intake. I can't have you getting a heart attack on the floor because I do not know CPR, and you will not be in good hands."

"It'll be the most action I've seen in years." Whoops, there went my filter. Truth be told, I'd misplaced that fucker years ago and had yet to find it again.

rolled their eyes. "I'll get you another cup of coffee. Not a carafe." With that, they marched back toward the kitchen.

Well, at least someone looked out for my health and well-being. I wasn't the best candidate, and my folks lived about an hour away in the suburbs, where we maintained a healthy level of minimal contact. Mostly because I didn't want to explain my career to them.

They still thought I wrote articles for a living, not monsterfucker romance. Considering Mom was a tenured professor of criminology and Dad was a dentist, neither of them would understand how their son had ended up in such an offbeat career.

Avoidance was clearly the best strategy.

made a beeline toward me with a carafe of coffee they should just be depositing right onto the table. Instead, they poured me a cup—lame—and then whisked away like they'd never been there in the first place. Fae must work here, or at least Randy had to be one. Most regulars had some story about Randy, but the elusive owner had reached cryptid status. I wouldn't be shocked if they said they were a mothman.

I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, flashes of the last scene I worked on tugging at my consciousness. I was about a chapter away from writing the fuckening between the leads, which I preferred to do at home. But I could at least finish this chapter here.

I leaned forward again, my limbs creaking with the motion as the computer screen glared at me.

A familiar face appeared at the opposite end of the diner. Graeme was one of the cluster of other writers who liked to sit here for word sprints, and considering his easygoing nature, I never minded his companionship. With his chestnut hair and soft bluish-gray eyes, he was a looker, but we were too similar to click in any way other than friends. And hell, I needed those. My reclusive life meant I had a motley assortment of inanimate objects as friends—like some Sorcerer's Apprentice shit—and a toad named Englebert Hopperdink that lived right outside my apartment.

"Hey, Myles." Grae did some cool side slide into the corner booth next to me and popped his laptop bag on the table. Far slicker than I was capable of. "What are you working on?"

I wrinkled my nose as I stared at my computer screen again. "Alienfucker romance. Think Mass Effect but a lot hornier."

Grae snorted. "Dunno, Mass Effect was pretty horny to begin with."

"So you can only imagine where I'm taking this." I stroked my beard. The reflex hadn't gotten old, like touching my chest to find it flat since the surgery. It had been a couple of years, but damn, every time I felt the changes, saw them, the endorphins sparkled through my veins. At this point, I was 90 percent glitter and loving it. "What about you?"

"That damned fantasy novel." Grae opened his laptop. No other words needed to be said—Grae had been chugging away at his opus for a while now. We tended to work in sync well, able to tune each other out and write with the occasional chatter. Several of us in the area appeared here randomly, not well coordinated enough to become a club but enough to be considered a cult. An overcaffeinated and constantly exhausted cult.

I sipped at my coffee and tore open another sugar packet because it needed some sweetness to stomach.

The comforting clack-clack-clack of typing began and then paused. "Did you ever decide if you were taking on a roommate?"

"Why, you interested?" I tried my coffee again. My nose wrinkled. Ugh. I tossed another sugar packet in. I didn't live well with people, and the idea of bringing on a roommate terrified me, but after I broke my arm last year from tripping over a crack in the sidewalk—hashtag, blessed—the medical bills combined with how bad it had set me back with my writing schedule pretty much confirmed the need.

"Nah, but I can ask around if you're looking." Grae's fingers hovered over their keyboard.

I rolled my shoulders, which were forever angry at me. "Couldn't hurt. I'm putting an ad on the corkboard up front too. I figure if they come here, they've got to be halfway decent."

"Are fae repelled by salt, or is that ghosts?" Grae asked.

"Fuck if I know." I scrunched my nose. "But it's your fantasy world, right? So do whatever you want. Unless you're talking real life, and then I can't help you there, my friend."

"Ugh, that means I have to think about it." Grae scrubbed his palms across his face.

"Research time?"

"Yeah," he muttered, ning in front of his laptop.

I took another sip of coffee and settled my focus back on my story. Thankfully, the spark still buzzed, the feeling of where I'd left off not an elusive thing I needed to chase. I set the coffee down and typed.

My fingers clacked at the keys as I lost myself in the rhythm, occasionally pausing to take a sip of coffee. Grae had seemed to fall into a research rabbit hole. The time dripped away, but my word count grew, so I called that a win. The glare of the screen began to make my eyes hurt, which meant I needed to take a break, but I was so damn close to the end of this chapter.

A loud bark of laughter drew my attention away from my laptop.

I blinked a few times, my eyes adjusting to looking elsewhere than my computer as the source of the noise manifested. A group wandered in and walked toward one of the bigger booths on the opposite side of the diner. Based on the black attire, heavy silver jewelry, and the overall Matrix vibes the crew was giving off, they'd come from the alternative club night. Fuck, was it that late? One glance at my stupid laptop confirmed I'd indeed lost track of time. Bully for me.

When I looked back up, my gaze landed on them .

I'd seen them around, sometimes dressed up femme, other times masc, and always so hot I couldn't stop staring.

Their glossy chestnut locks were swept to the side tonight, a silver choker lay around their neck, and their tight pale blue tank was a perfect contrast to their leather jacket and maroon slacks. They laughed again, and I wanted to bottle up the sheer exuberance of the sound. In a precious way, not a creepy one.

Their blue eyes twinkled, accented by thick eyeliner, and the wicked arc of their pink lips was addictive. I could stare at them for hours…and probably had. I didn't know shit about them apart from that they were gorgeous, and their presence lit up a room, but I was imagining the moment they'd notice me sitting here romantically serious in front of my laptop. And they'd approach and run some smooth line that wouldn't require me to respond and put my foot in my mouth, and then we'd make out, fuck like rabbits, and fall madly in love.

The reality was they hadn't looked my way once. And even if they had, I hunched over my laptop in gremlin-mode and had a coffee stain on my hoodie.

"When are you going to get the nerve to go say hi?" Grae asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Never. I wasn't installed with flirting functions." Which meant a lot of solo time for me because I went on stints of trying apps, only to get overwhelmed, and my hermetic lifestyle didn't lead to an overabundance of options. If only I had gotten lucky in high school or college with finding "the one," but I'd been twisted up back then before figuring out the reason the relationships weren't working out was me, not them.

Finding the right one was hard as hell when you weren't even in the right body.

Still hadn't found the right dating partner, but I was comfortable with myself at least.

The club hottie had settled into the booth, and watching them drink water was free porn, the way their throat bobbed, how their lips wrapped around the straw seductively. My heart thudded harder, and I couldn't pull my gaze away.

Grae flicked me in the side. "Stop staring. You need to get laid."

I heaved a sigh. "No, I need to go home. I've been here so long I'm pretty sure I'm taking root."

"Traitor. Leaving's for the weak."

I saved my document and shut down my laptop. The decision had been snap, but those always were. Either that, or I'd stay here until the sun rose, and would make me go home.

Plus, if club hottie lingered, I would become "that guy" because they were so damn pretty that my gaze kept snagging their way. Sort of like staring at stained glass lit up in cathedrals. But even beyond that, I couldn't help but find myself fascinated by how someone could be so full of life, exploding outward with it. I'd gotten so used to curling inward like a pillbug that the concept was foreign.

They laughed again, and I made myself not look this time. See? Progress. Back pats all around.

"See you when I see you," I said to Grae, grabbing the check Zo had lovingly dropped off at some time in my blurry typing sprees. When I tucked my laptop into my bag, I, by some miracle, remembered to pull the roommate wanted ad I'd printed out. Yes, the move was a bit old school, but I'd trust someone from Randy's light-years over a rando from Craigslist, so I was hoping for some bites.

When I reached the corkboard on the way to the front stand with the register, I paused and grabbed one of the spare pushpins and placed my "roommate wanted" ad up. Right smack between a reminder for the Pancakes and Pronouns munch at Randy's and a flyer for a regular D&D game here.

I cast one last glance back to the kids' table.

The hottie who'd captured my attention was talking to a gorgeous blonde beside them, leaning in so close their lips almost brushed her ear. Right, they were not only out of my league but also definitely not single.

My daydreams could shove it.

I yanked my gaze away and forced myself forward to go pay. Enough with the fantasies. I just needed a roommate.

And tonight, the only remaining plan was to shove an eight-inch dildo up my ass until I came before passing the fuck out.