Grand Romance: An MM Gay Romance Read online

  Grand Romance

  Peter Styles

  Contents

  Attention

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Attention

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  1

  Alex was going to murder the new bookstore manager.

  Okay, so maybe murder was a strong choice. Maybe just punch. Or key his car. Or something.

  Ever since that guy had started working the bookstore at the visitors’ center at the Grand Canyon, he’d been making Alex’s life at least ten times more difficult than it had been before.

  Alex was a tour guide at the canyon, and a damn good one. In fact, he was in charge of the department at this point, which meant he didn’t get out into the canyon as much as he used to. He missed it, but he also liked being able to train new guides and make sure that visitors were all getting the experience that they deserved.

  He enjoyed his job, that’s why he’d been at it for so long. Why he’d stayed at the canyon despite living far away from his parents and brother.

  It was also why he hated that Logan was such a thorn in his side. Alex had to interact with the guy on a regular basis. He was making his job go from completely enjoyable to only half enjoyable. If he never had to actually talk to Logan, that might have been one thing. He could handle knowing that a jerk existed if he didn’t have to interact with said jerk.

  But as the bookstore manager in the visitors’ center, Alex ran into him all the time. And Logan, for some insane reason, had decided that he could help Alex do his job, that he was better at guiding than Alex was.

  And that wasn’t even counting their first run-in. They’d met when Alex had gone in to check out a book another guide had told him about. Instead of seeing Diana behind the counter, he’d laid eyes this gorgeous blond that he’d never met before.

  Alex didn’t usually make a policy of dating possible coworkers, even if that coworker was in a different department. That had been his policy back when he’d been a bit of a wild child, sleeping with guests who’d be gone in a week since he didn’t have to worry about commitment. Maybe he’d outgrown that rule for himself.

  Ever since his brother had married Kostas, Alex had been thinking about his own relationship status and finding something a little more permanent. So yeah, when he’d seen this tall, nerdy-in-a-cute-way blond with big blue eyes behind sexy glasses and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he’d been inspired to turn on the charm. He was a good-looking guy, always had been, although he’d personally always thought Ben was the better-looking brother when it came down to it. But dark hair, eyes, and stubble along with being six feet tall did a lot for him. He wasn’t hurting on the attractive scale.

  Yet when he’d given the guy his most charming smile, made sure to be seen checking him out, and asked for his name, the reaction had been more like Alex was a plague victim who’d walked in.

  “I’m Logan Parker,” the guy had said with his words. His tone had said, I’m wondering what cat dragged you in.

  Okay, so Alex had just come back from the canyon and he’d been a little dirty and sweaty. So what? Men loved that, it gave him a rugged charm. Or so he’d been told.

  “Logan.” Alex had drawn the word out, leaning against the counter. “Are you one of the summer staff?” They always hired more people in the summer.

  Logan had looked supremely unimpressed and had tapped his nametag. “I’m the new manager. Please stop leaning on the counter, you’re getting dirt everywhere.”

  Jesus Christ on a cracker.

  Alex had pulled back, trying to look a little less… like he’d just emerged from a canyon full of dust. “Right. I’m Alex, I’m the head of the guides.”

  “Are all of you going to stomp in here getting mud everywhere?” Logan had replied.

  “I don’t know,” Alex had snarked back, unable to help himself, “are all of your employees going to be cranky stuck up snots just like you?”

  That had taken Logan aback, his blue eyes going wide, but Alex had already had enough had turned to go. He’d pick up whatever book he was looking for later.

  Ever since then, Logan had been a goddamn pain in his side. It felt like every time Alex wanted to go to the bookstore Logan was there. He always had a look on his face like he’d just seen someone dropping a book on the floor. Or eating over an open book. Or some other book travesty.

  He never seemed to be in a good mood. Alex had come in all cleaned up once, even wearing a button up shirt because he’d had to go to some important event—he couldn’t remember what it was now—and Logan had just straight up ignored him.

  No, more than ignored him, he’d avoided him. Made sure he was on the opposite side of the shop from where Alex was.

  It was a real pisser, especially on a day, like today. He had talked about a book on one of his tours, so the tourists, understandably, wanted to find it when the tour ended. Naturally, he took them to the bookshop to point it out.

  “I see that everyone is following your recommendation,” Logan pointed out after a third person from Alex’s tour had bought the book. “You should work here.”

  Alex couldn’t have figured out Logan’s tone if he tried, so he wasn’t about to try. “Right.”

  “By the way, I noticed that the tour routes haven’t changed in the last five years,” Logan added. “I have some books around here somewhere that detail older paths that haven’t been used in a couple of decades that might—”

  …was this guy seriously trying to do Alex’s job for him now?

  “Thanks, but I think we’re good,” Alex replied. He tried hard to keep his tone from carrying the frustration he felt. Logan had spent the last month standing on the opposite side of the store from him and practically glaring at him. Now what, he wanted to make nice by telling Alex he’d become stale and needed to fix that by—by adopting trails that hadn’t been used in decades and probably for good reason? What the hell?

  “Are you sure?” Logan pressed. This was probably the most that he’d spoken to Alex since they’d met. Of course, it was to criticize him like this.

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “You should at least read the book. You’d find it interesting. It has some fascinating—”

  “I’ll think about it,” Alex cut in quickly. “I have to run to my office, but thanks for the recommendation.”

  He got out of that trap as fast as he could.

  What the hell?

  2

  “I’m not even kidding, Ben, this guy is the worst,” Alex groaned into the phone.

  “You say a lot of things are ‘the worst’,” Ben replied.

  Ben was a history professor and archeologist on top of being Alex’s older brother, which meant that he was the sort of person who had a compulsive need to be painstakingly right about everything.

  “Okay, yes, that’s true. But this guy—he’s been a pain in my ass since I met him and not the good kind, Ben, don’t you fucking laugh—”
r />   “I’m not laughing, that’s Kostas.”

  “You put me on speakerphone!?”

  “You finally found a guy who’s resistant to your charms, Alex, you had to go on speakerphone.”

  Alex groaned. He could hear Kostas laughing in the background. “It’s not funny, guys. It’s not that I’m attracted to him.” He had been, at first. He had eyes dammit. But who could be attracted to a stuck-up person like that? Someone who seemed so determined to be grumpy?

  “It’s that he’s so determined to not like me or any of the other guides, always looking panicked like I’m going to drip mud in his books or something, and today—today he acted like he knew how to do my job for me, talking about this book that had all these old guiding trails on it. I mean, seriously? What the hell right?”

  There was a long pause at the other end of the phone. Then Ben said, “Describe how he looks when you come into the bookstore.”

  “He looks… I don’t know. Do you want me to take a picture or something? His eyes get all wide or super narrow and he never says anything and stays on the opposite side of the store from me. Sometimes he stomps around a bit.”

  “And he never says anything?”

  “Not until today when he decided he knows more than I do. I’ve been a guide for years. I’m in charge of the department! And he thinks he can just… swoop in…” Alex growled in frustration.

  “This is going to sound weird,” Ben said, “but is it possible that he’s attracted to you?”

  “What?” Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It felt like his mind ground to a complete stop. “You’re serious.”

  “Well, he’s staring at you, and maybe his reason for not talking to you isn’t that he doesn’t like you. Maybe he’s nervous.”

  “I think you need to fly out here and see for yourself. Then you’ll see that I’m right, and this guy just has a stick up his butt.”

  “He could have been trying to make nice,” Kostas said, apparently having grabbed the phone. “You know, getting to know you by talking about a shared interest? Or offering you an olive branch of some kind?”

  “This guy isn’t like that, I swear. I must be explaining it wrong if you guys are hearing this, and coming to the conclusion that he fucking likes me.”

  “I think maybe we’re hearing what you’re refusing to hear in yourself,” Ben said.

  “And I think this conversation is over,” Alex groaned. “Go back to your stupid wedded bliss. I’ll just deal with this on my own.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” Ben replied gleefully.

  Alex hung up and tossed the phone aside.

  Logan, liking him? What kind of insanity… it had to be that Ben and Kostas just hadn’t seen Logan in action. What kind of man, when he liked a guy, avoided him and looked at him like he wanted him out of his shop as soon as possible, and then told him about a book that would…

  Alex paused.

  He didn’t agree with his brother that Logan liked him. But he could possibly see where Logan might have thought the book was an olive branch.

  Everyone knew Alex cared about his job, possibly more than anything. It might make sense to someone like Logan that offering a way for Alex to make the experience better for guests would be something positive.

  If it was true, if Logan had somehow seen the error of his ways and wanted to make amends, that wasn’t the way to go about it. But Alex could give him points for effort.

  Maybe next time he walked in, he’d wait and see what Logan did? Instead of jumping the gun?

  It was worth a shot, anyhow. Just to see.

  And then if Logan was a jerk again, Alex could rub it in his brother’s face at least.

  3

  Alex swore that Logan wasn’t flirting with him, but Ben’s words wouldn’t leave his mind as he walked into the bookstore a few days later. He might work in the park, but the canyon was large. He wasn’t even in the visitors’ center every single day, never mind having a need to stop by the store.

  But his curiosity wouldn’t let up and so he stopped by, stepping in tentatively.

  Logan didn’t see him at first, writing something on a piece of paper behind the counter at the back.

  Alex could admit to himself that Logan was as good looking now as he’d been when they’d first met. That was when Alex had made the mistake of flirting with him. Logan’s hair did that thing where it spiked up but still looked soft. Then the glasses emphasized his blue eyes, drew you into them. And finally, he might’ve been a bookstore manager, but he must have time to work out because he had a trim swimmer’s body, not as bulky as some but firm.

  Right now, with his brow furrowed a little and tongue caught between his lips, wearing his shirt and tie and the glasses… he looked like the personification of those hot librarian fantasies that everyone had but pretended they didn’t.

  If only the personality was as appealing as the looks.

  Alex walked over to one of the bookstands and picked up one about real-life tragedies in the Grand Canyon. Alex didn’t know why people would want to read a book all about how people had lost or nearly lost their lives. It seemed morbid and frankly unnecessary. Wouldn’t it just make people more scared to go down into the canyon?

  No accounting for taste, he supposed.

  Logan eventually finished his calculations, and Alex had to pretend like he hadn’t been creepily sort-of staring at the guy for the past five minutes while pretending to read a book.

  “Oh.” Logan sounded taken aback. He blinked, sort of like an owl. “Ah, um, Alex.”

  “That’s my name.” Alex walked up and tried not to get any dirt anywhere. Logan eyed him up and down. It seemed like he was inspecting Alex for mud or something else distasteful that would mean he had to get a mop to clean up the floor. “Any particular reason you wanted me to look at that book?”

  Logan blinked rapidly. “I—well I thought—that it might be helpful.”

  “Why? Have guests been complaining about the routes?”

  “No, no everyone seems to enjoy the hikes. I just—you always seem to want to make everything the best it can be, so I thought it might be helpful. You wouldn’t want to make new trails and hurt the environment more, but you could use old ones.”

  That was—surprisingly thoughtful. Not at all what he would have expected from Logan. But maybe that was Alex’s fault, at least partially. Maybe he’d misjudged the guy a little.

  “I… appreciate you thinking about that. You must have gone out of your way.”

  Logan shuffled some books around on the display at the counter. They didn’t look out of place to Alex. Possibly a nervous tick? “It wasn’t anything,” Logan told him. “No big deal, I mean.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Alex wanted to know when they’d gone from anger to awkwardness. At least on his part. “I don’t think I’ll be doing anything like that right now. But once we’re into the off-season with extra time to go over the trails, it’ll be something to think about.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Logan finished shuffling the books around and then ended up drumming his fingers on the desk.

  So maybe the guy wasn’t an asshole but just socially awkward? Had that been the problem this entire time?

  Alex wanted to say he’d thought that Logan didn’t liked him all that much, but that might make things even more awkward than they already were. Logan looked like he wanted to sprint for the exit. Alex wanted to know why the guy was working in such a customer-heavy job if he was this hopeless at holding a conversation.

  “Well, thanks,” Alex said finally. “I’d better get going.”

  “Right, of course.” Logan nodded. “You must have a lot to do. Being in charge of the trail department or whatever it’s called.”

  “…right.” And there he went, being arrogant again. But was it really arrogance? Or just nerves? Alex couldn’t tell anymore, and it threw him for a loop. “I’ll see you around, then?”

  “Of course,” Logan replied, as if it were obvious. As
if of course they would see each other, don’t be an idiot.

  “Okay.” Alex decided to exit before this could get any worse.

  “You know I’ve never been on a trail here,” Logan added, stumbling over his words like he was rushing to get them out before he could second guess them.

  That gave Alex pause. “You work at the Grand Canyon and you’ve never been on a trail?”

  Logan shrugged. “Other things always occupied my time.”

  “Well, bookworm, you should take one of our hikes sometime. Start with the beginning stuff, none of that six-hour shit.”

  Logan looked oddly disappointed at that. Alex decided it wasn’t worth trying to figure the guy out. “Have a good day.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  Well, that was awkward.

  But at least it seemed like Logan wasn’t trying to be rude. Just difficult with social interactions?

  Well, at least that problem was solved. He told Ben as much later that night.

  “He doesn’t have a crush on me, he’s just shit with people.”

  “He told you that he’s never done a trail before?”

  “Yeah?”

  Ben’s sigh made the phone fill with static for a moment. “Alex. You’re the head of the trail guides. He probably wanted you to offer to show him the trails yourself.”

  “If so then he would’ve just asked, wouldn’t he?”

  “You just said that he’s awkward. He was probably scared that you’d reject him, so he did it a little more… subtly.”

  “I think you’re crazy. You’re just assuming that he likes me when there’s no real evidence for it.”