The Pride of Garnet Run: Garnet Run, #2.5, page 1
THE PRIDE OF GARNET RUN
GARNET RUN, #2.5
ROAN PARRISH
MONSTER PRESS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Pride of Garnet Run is a novella that takes place in between the events of Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run #2) and those of The Lights on Knockbridge Lane (Garnet Run #3). It can be read as a standalone romance, but it’s much richer when understood in the context of the wider Garnet Run universe.
I hope you enjoy Cameron and Henry’s romance!
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Series Reading Order
Better Than People (Garnet Run #1)
Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run #2)
The Pride of Garnet Run (Garnet Run #2.5)
The Lights on Knockbridge Lane (Garnet Run #3)
The Rivals of Casper Road (Garnet Run #4)
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
© 2022 by Roan Parrish
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved worldwide, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. Support artists; don’t pirate!
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Cover Art and inside art © 2022 Timmi Meskers
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First published serially on Harlequin.com
First Edition, September 2022
Published by Monster Press
ISBN: 978-1-949749-15-1
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Middle of Somewhere series
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CONTENTS
1. Cameron
2. Henry
3. Cameron
4. Henry
5. Henry
6. Cameron
7. Henry
8. Cameron
Dear Reader,
Also by Roan Parrish
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About Roan Parrish
1
CAMERON
October
* * *
Cameron Autry was in a hell of his own making, and that hell was called caffeine withdrawal.
His shift began at the ungodly hour of six, when he dragged his sleep-dull carcass downtown to The Crystal Bean Coffee Shop on Main Street. Usually, the first thing he did was make himself a quad shot and drink it with a day-old croissant, allowing the caffeine and butter to soak into his brain and slowly bring him to life as he put out the morning mugs and stocked the pastry case.
Today, though, he couldn’t have a quad shot. He couldn’t have a single cup of coffee. Hell, not even a weak-ass caffeinated tea. And it was all his own fault.
Last night, his housemate Miriam had come out of her room to find him playing his keyboard at three in the morning. He’d been playing with the sound off, of course—he wasn’t an asshole—but she’d heard him anyway.
"Dude," she’d croaked out, pushing her sleep mask up just enough to reveal one eye. "It’s three in the morning."
"Can’t sleep," he’d said, playing an arpeggio with his right hand.
"Yeah. That’s super apparent. But I can, and I was. And now, you’ll notice, I am not."
"Shit," he muttered. "Sorry, Miri. I’m all …" He’d made a gesture that she, as his housemate of over a year, would surely recognize as meaning that his brain was very loud, and he needed to put thoughts into music to quiet them down.
"Cam, I know you don’t wanna hear this, but drinking twenty coffees a day screws your circadian rhythms to hell. Of course your thoughts are loud. They’re caffeinated."
He’d snorted. He had worked in coffee shops on and off since he was fifteen. It was the main reason Miriam and her mom had hired him to work at The Crystal Bean when he moved back to Garnet Run. He could drink espresso like water if he wanted. Caffeine sensitivity was for wimps.
"I’ll keep it down," he told her. "Okay?"
Then the sleep mask was fully off, and Miriam fixed him with her trademark penetrating gaze. It was the gaze that had extracted every secret he possessed in high school, from his prank on Mr. Harrington, the math teacher who had mocked Miriam’s hair, to his queerness, and it was no less effective now.
"You need to take better care of yourself, Cam. If you need—"
"Nope, thanks, I’m good," he’d interrupted, knowing what was coming and dreading it.
Miriam had narrowed her eyes, penetrating gaze getting penetrating-er. Then her expression changed, and she surveyed him coolly.
"Okay, if you wanna be a total cliché."
He frowned. Cliché? That rankled.
"You’re a barista who’s addicted to caffeine. You couldn’t quit if you wanted to."
"Am not," was all he found to say.
Miriam snorted and raised an eyebrow. He could practically hear the Are too that she was too mature to say.
"Wanna bet?" she said. "I’ll do Muffin’s morning walks for a month if you can give up caffeine for a month."
Muffin was the dog who had found her way to their back door the first week he’d moved in and then never left. Much like Cameron himself.
"A winter month?" he clarified.
She rolled her eyes.
"A month of your choosing," she allowed, and he could hear the subtext: You’ll never make it, so I don’t consider it much of a risk. "Come on, I dare you."
Cameron was well aware that it was a childish taunt, but he had never been able to resist a dare. Once he’d climbed the tree over Casper River after a week of rain and fallen into the churning water below because Gregory Martens had bet—correctly—that he was scared to do it.
Apparently even at twenty-six he hadn’t learned his lesson.
"Deal," he said.
As they shook on it, she said, "Starting tomorrow."
"But it’s three in the morning," he protested.
A sphinxlike look.
"You’re cruel," he grumbled, and stood, hoping maybe he could catch a couple hours of sleep before work.
"Cruel to be kind, babe," she said with a wink.
And he had scoffed, because if there was one thing he’d learned in the twenty-six years he’d walked the earth, it was that kindness was very, very rare. But cruelty? Cruelty was everywhere.
* * *
So, because he didn’t have anyone to blame but himself, he focused the entire force of his scorn on his slightly stale croissant, and that’s how Nova found him when she came in a few minutes later.
Nova was the manager, and she chose to work the opening shift because she actually, dispositionally, enjoyed waking up when it was still the middle of the night.
"Find a razor blade in there or something?" He looked blankly at the croissant. "You look sick."
He shoved the rest of the croissant in his mouth and started prepping The Goddess, which was what they called the espresso machine.
"Gaveupcaffeine."
"I’m sorry, I must have misheard you."
"I’m giving up caffeine for a month. It’s a bet. With Miriam."
Nova opened her mouth and raised an eyebrow, but, kind person that she was, didn’t laugh in his face.
"Good luck with that," she said, clapped him on the back, and went to unlock the door of the café.
The first hour was bearable. The second borderline, and the third torment.
By the time Tracy showed up for the late-morning rush, Cameron’s head was throbbing so hard it felt like an enormous bruise.
"You’re giving up caffeine?" she squawked when Nova explained. "You’re grumpy even with coffee. I can’t even imagine what you’ll be like going through withdrawal."
"Screw off," he said. Tracy was in high school and sometimes forgot that people don’t always enjoy hearing every single thought that crossed her mind.
"Oh, so, basically the same as usual, then," she said.
Cameron wanted to throw a coffee mug at her and knock the neon yellow beanie right off her head.
Every hiss of steam, clang of cash drawer, and clatter of china on glass tore through his skull and frayed his nerves. He’d read somewhere that it took a ton of muscles to form a smile—like, more muscles than any other expression—and his face couldn’t muster the coordination required to get those muscles on board.
The thing about living in a town like Garnet Run, Wyoming, though, was that most people knew each other, at least by sight, so you couldn’t get away with taking a bad mood out on people the way you could in New York or Chicago, where Cameron had also worked at coffee shops.
Nope, in Garnet Run, people responded to out-of-character grouchiness with comments like, "It must have been hard for you, coming home without making it in the music business," or "Is that how they act in the city? Your mother would be ashamed," or "I put diaper cream on your red ass, so you just can it with the attitude."
Not that any of that had happened to Cameron …
So he tried to infuse his eyes with warmth and spoke low and calm in the hopes of encouraging the same, and quietly, privately wished for death.
* * *
It was noon when a man Cameron didn’t recognize came through the door.
He wore gray trousers, a white button-down shirt, a tight black vest, and a beat-up black fedora, beneath which his hair gleamed red in the sun.
It looked like he’d come from another time, but the clothes didn’t appear to be a costume. When the man got closer, Cameron could see he even had a pocket watch with a gold chain.
He approached the counter slowly and sketched a wave.
"What can I get you?" Cameron asked.
"Hello, hi," the man said, squinting at the drinks board.
Cameron breathed deeply through his nose.
"How’s it going?" the man asked.
Cameron forced himself to smile and nod, hoping that took care of that.
"What would you like?" he managed.
"What would you suggest?" the guy asked.
"I don’t know what you like, man." Cameron tried to say it casually, but it came out a bit sharp.
The man looked startled, then flushed with embarrassment.
"Hey, Henry," Nova said, coming from the back.
The man sketched a wave at her. His gaze flicked to Cameron and he cringed, then examined his pocket watch, and backed out the door, looking like the white rabbit from Alice and Wonderland.
Shiiiiiit.
"Um," Cameron said casually. "Who was that?"
"Henry Finch. He’s restoring the old Odeon. He’s really nice. I wonder why he left without ordering?"
Cameron sighed.
"Because I’m an asshole," he said. "I’ll fix it."
2
HENRY
Henry Finch was trying to distract himself from his disastrous attempt at flirting with the hot barista. He’d retreated to the safety of his theater and applied himself to lovingly sanding the years of paint off the old ticket booth, while listening to Shadowcast, his favorite true crime podcast.
Mina and Lucy, the hosts of Shadowcast, were just getting to the climax of a particularly spooky New Orleans murder, when Henry saw something move in his periphery.
He jerked back and screamed, yanking his earbuds out and searching around for anything that could be a weapon. He didn’t have much hope for the sandpaper, unless his attacker was willing to stand very still for a very long time.
"Henry?"
Henry blinked and realized that the person who’d incited this rather embarrassing reaction from him had done so for the second time that day.
"What do you want?" Henry asked.
He had messy brown hair pulled back from his face, high cheekbones, and smoldering brown eyes. At least, that’s what Henry’d seen when he walked into The Crystal Bean Coffee Shop earlier. Now, though, without the veneer of the service industry, Henry also saw that his shoulders were stooped and there were dark circles under those magnetic eyes.
"I wanted to apologize for earlier," the barista said, raking a hand through his hair. A few locks fell around his face.
He held out a coffee to Henry.
"It’s a vanilla latte. Most people like them, but if you don’t I can get you something else. I’m really sorry about before. I was an asshole. I didn’t mean to be, but I was."
Henry took the coffee, noting that the man’s fingernails were bitten to the quick.
The intoxicating scent of vanilla and milk and coffee greeted him when he breathed in.
"Thank you."
They stood, facing off like cowboys in an old Western.
"I’m Cameron. I’m usually not such a horse’s ass, but I gave up caffeine. Starting today. And, uh. It’s kind of ruining me. My brain has been attempting to crawl out of my head and escape me all morning. Anyway, that’s why I was rude to you. I hope you can forgive me."
He laced his hands behind his back and stared at the floor, the picture of contrition.
Henry sighed. In truth, Cameron hadn’t been rude so much as brusque. He couldn’t have known that Cameron did not flirt, ordinarily, nor could he have known why he fled instead of just giving up and ordering a coffee.
"I can. Forgive you, I mean. Thanks for explaining."
"Yeah? Okay, good."
Cameron’s smile was edged with pure relief and it made Henry smile.
"So why did you give up caffeine?"
Henry groaned pitifully.
"My housemate bet me I couldn’t, and apparently I’m still twelve and can’t resist a dare."
Henry’s eyes got wide.
"Oh, gosh, that’s why I tried to flirt with you. A bet, I mean."
Cameron frowned.
"Flirt with me?"
Henry’s inner stooge banged itself on the head. Although maybe it was better that Cameron had just thought he was bad at ordering drinks rather than noticing he was flirting.
"Never mind," Henry said quickly. "Just kidding, haha."
But Cameron’s expression softened, and Henry cringed.
"Um, so, what are you doing here anyway?" Cameron indicated the theater. "My grandparents saw movies here as kids."
"Mine too."
"Are you from Garnet Run?”
"I lived here until I was eighteen, then I left town and my parents moved," Henry said. "But some of my family still lives here. And when this place closed and became property of the downtown historical preservation society, my great uncle told me because this is what I love."
The call from Clive Wayne had come when Henry was in upstate Michigan, consulting on the renovation of a long-shuttered theater in a town called Holiday. Henry had been thrilled to pack up his car and head back West again. Though he loved the atmosphere of New York, the architecture of Chicago, the music of New Orleans, and the town squares of Savannah, the wide-open landscapes of his native Wyoming calmed his spirit like nowhere else.
"This?"
"Yes, vintage movie theaters. Art deco theaters specifically. In the twenties and thirties, silent films transitioned to talkies, and the number of people who went to the movies skyrocketed. So many theaters were built—everything from huge, luxurious theaters like Radio City Music Hall in New York, Fox Theatre in Detroit, the Paramount in Oakland, to small town theaters like this one in towns all over the country. People didn’t have televisions, so going to the pictures was a huge source of entertainment for the whole family."
Henry pinched the skin on the inside of his wrist, realizing he was veering into full-on lecture mode.
"Um," he finished. "Anyway, I like them."
But Cameron didn’t look put off. He was peering around the lobby with interest.
"Is that why some theaters have an orchestra space and some don’t? Because the silent movies needed accompaniment, but the ones built after the films had sound didn’t?"
Henry nodded enthusiastically, heart singing at Cameron’s interest.
"Yes, mostly in big cities, small orchestras would accompany the silent films. In small towns, it was more likely to be a single organist."
"So, what exactly are you doing with this place?"
"You want to see?"
Henry saw the moment Cameron’s tense shoulders relaxed. He smiled and nodded, looking lighter than at any point before.
Henry grinned. Vanilla latte in hand, he led Cameron into the belly of the beast.
The theater had been shut down two years ago and sat empty for a year before Garnet Run’s historical preservation society extended its protection to the building. But there was never enough money to go around, so nothing had been done until Henry arrived and asked to take over the project.
