Checking It Twice, page 1
CHECKING IT TWICE
V.L. LOCEY
Copyright
MM Romance
Checking it Twice (A Snowed Inn Romance)
Copyright © 2022 V.L. Locey
Cover design: Meredith Russell
Editor: Kathy Krick
All cover art and logo copyright © Meredith Russell
PUBLISHER: Perky Rooster Press
All Rights Reserved
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer-to-peer program, for free or for a fee. Such action is illegal and in violation of Copyright Law.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Contents
Dedication
Newsletter
‘Snowed Inn’ Winter Romance
Checking it Twice
Checking it Twice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
‘Snowed Inn’ Winter Romance
Also by V.L. Locey
Meet V.L. Locey
Dedication
Stick Taps
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To my family who accepts me and all my foibles and quirks. Even the plastic banana in my holster.
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To my alphas, betas, editors, and proofers who work incredibly hard to help me make my books the shiniest we can make them.
Newsletter
If you want to keep up with all the latest news about my upcoming MM releases, sign up for my newsletter by visiting my website:
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vllocey.com
‘Snowed Inn’ Winter Romance
Have you read all the stories in the collection?
Each book can be read as a standalone book and in any order, but the happily ever after wintery love stories are linked by the snowy mountain inn cut off by an avalanche. Get all of the stories from Amazon & in Kindle Unlimited here:
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RJ Scott - Stop the Wedding
H.L Day - Five Night Stand
V.L. Locey - Checking it Twice
LC Chase - Breakfast Included
Xenia Melzer - The Real Kaimana
Meredith Russell - Stuck With You
Eli Easton - A Changeling Christmas
Checking it Twice
Will confessing his deepest secret to his best friend ruin their friendship?
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Sutter Thompson has spent a goodly part of his life living a lie.
That lie led him to marry a woman he didn’t love as he should while he struggled to be all that his family wanted him to be. Finally, after the birth of his son Zachary, Sutter came to see that he needed to live a life of truth. Not just for himself, but for Zach as well. The truth included coming out at forty, getting divorced while his son was an infant, and trying to readjust to being who he was born to be.
Throughout all the turmoil, Sutter’s best friend, Watley McCutcheon, stood by his side. Watley understood how difficult breaking free could be. He had done it many years ago when they were still on the same college hockey team. Sutter always admired Wat’s bravery. He also admired his best friend for many other things…his smile, his laugh, his adoration of his son, Adam, and his caring heart. Now that Watley is single again, Sutter is hoping he can unlock the final secret he’s been carrying in his heart…he has and always will love Watley.
He’d not planned to do so at the youth hockey awards, but then again, he hadn’t expected an avalanche to strand him, Watley, their sons, and several of the boys’ teammates in a cozy Colorado inn either. Maybe it’s the romantic atmosphere or the sudden realization that life is too short to harbor such strong feelings forever, but he’s ready to declare his feelings to Watley. Can they step out of the friend zone and into a romance, or will Sutter’s heartfelt admission destroy years of brotherly affection?
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Checking it Twice is a friends-to-lovers gay romance with plenty of snow, a heaping helping of romance, snowball fights, terrible dad jokes, pop culture references out the wazoo, and a joyous happy ending.
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All the books in the Snowed Inn collection are standalone stories and can be read in any order.
Chapter One
“Are we there yet?”
I felt my left eye twitch. My co-pilot and best friend sniggered softly from the passenger seat. I gave Watley a look that could wither a forest. He snickered even harder while fiddling with the Bluetooth hookup in our rented van.
“No, Zachary, we are not there yet. We just left home an hour ago.”
My son huffed. Zach was not the most patient of children. He obviously got that trait from his mother since I was someone who could sit on something for so long it would petrify under my ass. Like one of those fossilized dinosaur eggs we’d seen at the American Museum of Natural History two summers ago when Zach and I had visited New York City. Yep, no chicken or dino could sit on something longer than Sutter Thompson.
“How long does it take to get to Colorado?” Adam, Watley’s son, asked.
I waved a hand at my buddy and associate coach of the Red Pines Pumas, a squirt summer league ice hockey team from scenic Red Pines, New Mexico, a mere thirty minutes from Albuquerque. The same small town that housed Red Pines University, where Watley and I worked. Me as the athletic director and Wat as the conditioning coach for all the teams plus cheerleaders on our tiny campus. The five players nominated for awards were with us. Zach a winger, Adam a D-man, Tigh Williams a forward with startingly red hair, Seth Mankowski who played right wing, and Matt Vigliano a center. We would have had six with us, but Millicent Davies, our goalie, had to fly south to spend the holidays with her grandparents in Florida. It crushed her she was going to miss the trip with her friends, but knowing she was going to Universal Theme Park kind of weighed things out. We have her short acceptance speech should she win Outstanding Goalie.
“About six hours give or take,” Wat replied just as The Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams” blared to life, effectively silencing the top 40 pop station that we’d been forced to endure for the past sixty minutes. My head instantly started bopping. “Sweet dreams are made of cheese, who am I to dis a brie,” Wat began crooning. All five boys in the back groaned. Whether at Wat’s silly pun or the song itself, who knew? Probably the song. I snorted at the moans from all the ten year olds.
“Finally, some good music,” I shouted, then tapped the volume button on the steering wheel.
“Ear buds stat!” Zach bellowed to his teammates. Within seconds, the bored whining disappeared as the boys jammed to their own tunes or queued up a movie to watch on their tablets and/or phones.
“Works every time,” Watley whispered with a wink. That wink always did something to me. As did his smile, his laugh, his walk, his way of standing, his curly brown hair that was now shot through with silver, his ass, his eyes, and about a million other things. I’d loved this man for over thirty years and had never uttered a word about the attraction. Yep. There sat Sutter on the lone fossilized egg from his sad, closeted past. I doubted it would ever hatch. “Remember when we were young?”
“Vaguely,” I remarked, lifting my takeout cup of coffee from the console as the song slid from Annie Lennox to A-Ha. God I loved this song. It brought back such memories.
Wat chortled. “I recall that time we were making the trip to Southern California to play in the Western semifinals. We were so bored we played punch buggy to pass the time.”
“Oh yeah, I used to play that with Donna all the time when we’d go to Boston to visit our grandparents. She still hits like Muhammad Ali.” My older sister had the boniest knuckles. “We’d also play ‘I Spy’ and ‘I’m going on a picnic’ a lot. That was before kids had their faces in phones twenty-four-seven.” I glanced in the back at my son, who had his face in his phone. No shocker there.
“Yeah, they don’t have to use their imaginations like we did back in the day.” Watley sighed then straightened out his left leg. His trick knee popped like a starter’s gun. “Ouch. Mother fudger.”
“Only five more hours to go, Gramps,” I teased and got a secretive middle finger.
That made me smile. Not that I had much to tease my friend about. My back would be a knotted mess by the time we arrived in Chester Lake, Colorado later today. Thankfully, we’d miss a lot of the holiday traffic by leaving on the twentieth, so we should make good time. We’d get to spend a few days at the lovely Retreat Inn, hopefully win some awards, play with the boys in the snow, then head home for Christmas. Fifty-two and road trips didn’t play well most of the time. My sciatica liked to flare up at the worst times and being in a vehicle for hours was killer. I did the cheek-to-cheek wobble every few miles. A rest stop would be needed at the next hour marker for back kink alleviation and old man bladder relief. And to let the boys run off some of that glorious energy I wished someone would bottle u p for the old guys like me and Watley.
Although, to be honest, I felt Wat had aged much better than I had. Perhaps that was just me being a nitpick. I tended to niggle at my faults endlessly, nipping at my imperfections like one does a hangnail. But Watley really had moved into his fifties with incredible grace and good looks. His divorce from Paul, his long-time husband, five years ago, hit him hard. I could relate to the devastation of a marriage falling apart at the seams brought. I’d gone through it myself when Zach was a baby, only I’d added coming out to the maelstrom of chaos. Talk about a one-two punch to the testes. If I would have had the guts, I would have come out in college as Wat had and lived my life proudly as a gay man. But my Catholic upbringing kept me in the closet for years, afraid to be who I was born to be, fearful of losing the love of my family and colleagues.
It was only after I gazed into the deep blue eyes of my baby son that I knew I had to stop living the lie. This long sought after child would rely on me to be honest with him. About everything. How could I lead a boy through life if I was being dishonest with the child as well as the whole world? I couldn’t. And so I’d told Kimberly I was gay two months after Zach was born. Looking back in retrospect, it probably was not the best time to do so, but if not then when? When Zach graduated from high school? College? At his wedding? At the birth of his children? When I was on my deathbed?
“You need me to take over?” Wat’s warm, deep voice broke through the fog of days long gone. I stared at him blankly for a second, then got my sight back on the road. “Toto’s “Africa” is playing and you’re not singing aloud.”
“Didn’t realize you missed my golden vocals.”
“No one can sing about wild dogs and Kilimanjaro like you, Sutter.”
“Wiseass.”
I broke loose, singing at the top of my lungs, my gaze flicking to Watley as I belted out the lines. We’d been close for more than half our lives. He’d moved after his divorce to take the job that I’d begged the dean to interview him for. Now his son and mine were close friends and teammates, and I had my best friend in my life on the daily. Wat laughed aloud as the boys begged us to quiet down. I sang even louder just to get another smile from the man on my right. I’d do just about anything to make Watley and my son happy. Shame I couldn’t say that about myself.
Chapter Two
Over six plus hours later, we finally pulled into the parking area for the four-story Retreat Inn. The boys were unbuckling their seatbelts before I’d shifted into park properly. I took a moment to simply admire the gorgeous rustic inn as it sat warm and welcoming, covered with a soft blanket of snow on the roof. Off to the left was a beautiful gazebo, ideal for the many weddings that were held here. To the right was a small pond, frozen solid, which would be a great place for a shinny game to help work off boyish energy. We all had our skates and sticks. The Colorado woods—thick with pines, cedars, and spruce—were snow coated, the setting sun glittering off the heavily weighted boughs. I fell in love instantly. Everything here was perfect, right down to the arched bridge crossing a small stream that had a thick glaze of ice. It reminded me of those sappy holiday movies that Kim watched every December. This hotel could have been a setting for one of those flicks. Romance was undoubtedly on the air as well as on the menu. My stomach rumbled at the thought of food. Dinner, some Advil for my lower lumbar, a hot shower, and a good book sounded like heaven to me.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Wat barked, turning in his seat to give the five hooligans in the back a firm look. “Slow down. We’re going to have a short talk before we go inside.”
“Daaaad,” Adam whined while the other boys huffed and sighed dramatically. They’d make faces but they wouldn’t vocally complain to Watley. Only his son would do that. Just like mine would scowl and/or roll his eyes but not Wat.
“I know it’s been a long ride.” Wat glanced at me as I rocked back and forth in my seat. Between my back and his knee, we’d be lucky not to need a wheelchair to get to our rooms. “I know we’re all in a hurry to get to all the great amenities this place has to offer as well as meeting up with the other award nominees, so I’ll make it short. You five are to be on your best behavior. You’re not only representing Red Pines and all the people who support our team back home, but we are asking you to keep in mind you’re also the faces of the Western United Youth Hockey Conference. Everyone in this hotel will be judging you and weighing youth hockey accordingly. Coach Thompson and I both know that this is a great locale with all kinds of fun activities, so to that end, always be polite, humble, and helpful. Got it?”
Wat’s dark brown gaze touched on every boy squirming in his seat.
“Yes, Coach McCutcheon,” they replied in unison.
“Good. Now we’re going to get out, get our bags, and walk calmly into the lobby to check in. No running, no shouting, and no roughhousing.” Wat looked at me. I hit the button to unlock the doors and free the wild ones. They fell over each other like rowdy puppies to get out of the van, squeals of excitement filling the frigid air. The first snowball would hit the air in three…two…and there it was. It slammed into the side of the rental with a thud.
“Forgot to add no throwing snowballs in the parking lot to the list.” Wat sighed as he hefted his stiff leg out of the van and shouted, “Cease fire!”, his voice rolling over the snowy grounds crisp and clear. The boys deflated, snowballs falling from their hands to the ground. I had to snicker at their sad little faces. You’d think we’d just benched them. Drama, thy name is preteen.
We herded the boys inside, shushing them all the way after letting them take a quick run to the pond while we tried to get the blood flowing to our lower halves.
The lobby of the inn was bustling. A crackling fire warmed the check-out area nicely. Off to the side were several lounges, as well as an atrium with a small bar. Visitors filled the seats, sipping hot coffee or chocolate that was available night and day at a small nook just off the hotel restaurant that was closed until dinner hour. Several people were availing themselves of the various thermoses. Many looked to be in ski gear, others in plain clothes, and a few in thick padded snowmobile suits.
“Dad.” I heard while checking out an activities board resting on an easel just inside the lobby. The inn looked to be hustling with several different gatherings listed for the next week. There was a wedding, an LGBTQ speed dating group, and of course the WUYHC hockey awards ceremony.
I glanced down at Zach. His cheeks were red as apples, his blue eyes bright. His light brown hair was damp and sticking to his face. No doubt from the lap the boys made down to the pond to inspect it while Wat and I had taken a moment to stretch out the kinks before we’d called them all back. “Can we have hot chocolate?”
The line for the register was rather long, so I nodded. “Just one cup each. And don’t cut in line. Leave your stick and bag here.”
“Thanks, Dad!” Zach dropped everything at my feet, then ran to the boys huddled by the fireplace. Within seconds, bags, sticks, and skates hit the floor around Watley. His dark eyes met mine, and I shrugged. He made a sour face that I found pretty comical and bent down to move hockey gear out of the way of a pair of older couples trying to get to the lounge.
By the time I was at the main desk, the boys were seated on a long bench beside a window, chatting softly, sipping cocoa like five little angels. Watley was guarding the gear, his smile serene as he looked at the kids. I adored how much he loved being a father. Fatherhood was one of the greatest joys of my life and the fact that he got it and we could share that was incredibly special to me. Just one of a million reasons I loved him.
