2016 Top Ten Gay Romance Read online

  “Max,” Owen said after a while, “Did you want to come back to work at the firm again? I could get you your job back.”

  “No,” Max said. “I definitely don’t fit there. And…” He looked into Owen’s face. “If I worked there, then this won’t happen again, will it? I mean, I don’t know if you want it to. But I do, so…”

  “I definitely want it to happen again. And you’re quite right. If you worked there, it couldn’t.”

  “Then I guess I start sending out my CV.”

  “I have a lot of contacts. May I ask around, see if anyone’s got anything for someone with your brand of refreshing honesty?”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I’m not saying I’ll get you a job, but I’ll bet I can put you in touch with the right people. That’s what contacts are for.”

  “Okay, great,” Max said. “That’s good of you, thank you. What about at the firm, though? Not for me, what about Noah and Penny?”

  “We may have the senior partners over a barrel. If I seize the moment, I bet I can get both of them taken on when they qualify.”

  “But you know there’s more to it. Changes have to be made.”

  “And I’m the one in the position to make them, yes.” He stroked Max’s face. “Ah, you’re not going to let me get away with anything, are you?”

  “I bet you get away with a lot, and always have.” It was only partly teasing.

  And Owen responded with a serious nod. “You’re right. I have. I have to use that to the good, don’t I?”

  “Yes.” Max grinned. “I promise you many and various rewards if you do.”

  Owen laughed and pulled him closer for a kiss, held onto him until the room started to dim as the afternoon wore on, and Max drifted off to sleep.

  * * * *

  Max went into the kitchen. Noah was messing around at the stove, the radio playing. It was almost 6:30. He gave Max a brilliant smile, interrupting himself singing along to the radio.

  “Was starting to think you’d sleep right through until morning. I’m making a spag bol.”

  Max knew that because the delicious scent of softening onions had woken him. He’d been alone in his bed, but it still held traces of Owen’s cologne. He’d taken a quick shower and put on sweats before joining Noah in the kitchen.

  “Could you set the table?” Noah asked.

  Max started setting out the plates and cutlery on the kitchen table.

  “Are we having wine?” he asked.

  “Definitely. Grab a bottle of red there.”

  They bustled about the kitchen, until at last they were sitting at the table. Noah picked up the bottle of red and filled Max’s glass then his own. He lifted his up, as if making a toast.

  “To Max and his big mouth.”

  “Oh, no,” Max moaned.

  “Oh, yes. This time I can’t condemn you for getting sacked again over it. Thank you, Max, for what you said. For standing up for me.”

  “Returning the favour, you know that.”

  He clinked his glass to Noah’s. They drank and started on their dinner. After they finished the food, they lingered over wine, discussing the fallout from the day’s events. Max didn’t mention his own particular fallout, though was sure Noah had guessed at it—he and Owen both disappear from the office and when Noah comes home, Max is fast asleep in bed at teatime. Doesn’t take a genius to work that out.

  When Noah went to fetch them some ice cream from the freezer, Max checked his phone, which he’d heard buzz with a message a little while ago. A text from Owen. Max grinned at it.

  If you’re free tomorrow night, want to see dinner and eat a movie?

  He was never, ever living that one down.

  THE END

  Captive by T.A. Creech

  This one is all on Robbie and Pam.

  “Proximity Alert. Unknown Spatial Anomaly. Twenty thousand kilometers to port.”

  As the cool, androgynous voice of the computer mindlessly spat out its warning, Justin rolled his chair over to the navigation console, cut off the blaring emergency signal and keyed up a visual of the jewel-like solar system he stumbled into hours before. The blazing, blue, twin stars serenely danced together in the velvet blackness to the starboard side, along with the first three barren gems of planets. To port were the other three, a bright emerald beauty of a world and two bright gas giants beyond that. Nothing else, especially an object big enough to be an anomaly. Then again, Justin wasn’t an astrophysicist by any stretch of the imagination, so how would he know?

  The instruments weren’t telling him anything he could decipher either. Only that his ship, the Nitti, was caught in some kind of gravity sink and was being pulled towards it, and the fourth planet incidentally. The rest of the information scrolling across his screen controlled by the outdated sensor array looked like a whole bunch of science techno-jargon he did not understand. So Justin did what he did best and fell back to standard operating procedure.

  Well, at least emergency protocol wasn’t rocket science. “Okay, computer. Let’s try a full stop first.”

  “Executing full stop.”

  A lurching grind as the thrusters cut out was the first clue that something was seriously wrong, the second was his ship still moving, drifting port side and down. That was a bit disconcerting, but he clamped down on his urge to panic like some green recruit. “Why didn’t we stop?”

  “Gravitational pull increased. Eighteen thousand kilometers to anomaly and closing.”

  That wasn’t an outcome he was expecting. Shit. He was starting to think that maybe he should have stayed a soldier. This exploring nonsense wasn’t going to end well for him, he could feel it. “Full reverse, full power.”

  The computer complied, and the ship gave a jerk, pulling against the thing that had his ship trapped with no success. The sudden blare of the warning klaxon was deafening.

  “Warning. Hull compromised. Venting oxygen. Ten minutes until oxygen levels reach critical low.”

  “So let’s try something else.” Of course, the computer didn’t answer Justin, not that he wanted it to. Stupid machine. Wracking his brain, he finally latched on to another possibility. “Let’s try full power to thrusters and break out going forward, on my mark.”

  “Warning. Possibility of further entanglement with anomaly’s gravitational pull.”

  “Gotta take that risk. Directional controls to console.” The control panel lit up like an electrical storm, neon blues and greens adding to the bright lights of the blue suns coming from the view screen. Sweat starting to bead along his forehead and dampened his dark brown hair. If this didn’t work, he would become a grease stain on the atmosphere of the stunning world he was starting to hurtle toward, if he was lucky. “Full power in three, two, one. Mark!”

  The sudden surge of speed pinned Justin to his chair for half a heartbeat.

  “Spatial anomaly fifteen thousand meters and closing. Imminent collision in five minutes, forty seconds. Oxygen levels continuing to decline. Six minutes of air remaining.”

  Damn, that was bad. “If this works, how long will it take to break free of the anomaly?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Great.” Just what he needed. Another thing to fuck things up. He started to very slowly direct the Nitti, aiming for the northern pole of the planet the anomaly seemed closest to. Hopefully he could pass over it and use it as a shield while he patched up the hull.

  A sudden jump in acceleration had Justin gritting his teeth, trying not to let his fear swamp him. He continued his course correction, banking just a little harder and trying to coax his suddenly leveling ship to nose just a little higher. “Why are we are going faster?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Well, something had to cause it!” Yelling at the computer wasn’t going to help matters, but it sure did give him some outlet for his stress. He just wished he dared to move a hand off the control panel so he could punch the damn thing. “Do a sensor sweep and see if anything else is boosting the pull
of the anomaly.”

  “Unknown.”

  Justin was quickly losing patience and his calm. “Did you even complete the sensor sweep?”

  “Unknown.”

  An icy trickle of fear broke through his control and made its way down Justin’s spine. It was nothing short of a miracle, and probably his military training, that this part of procedure he remembered perfectly. “Diagnostic of ship’s systems.”

  “Unknown.”

  Justin moved fast, pushed over to the other end of the panel, and input his override code into the computer. It was a matter of seconds before Justin was manually patched into the entire system, bypassing the suddenly malfunctioning standard interface. Fingers dancing over the keys, Justin brought up the ship’s status.

  His heart started racing.

  Warning: Auxiliary power failure

  Warning: Sensors failing

  Warning: Engine failing

  Warning: Oxygen depletion imminent

  Warning: Main computer failure

  Warning: Hull compromised

  Justin looked away from the litany of death scrolling across the console screen. Naturally, his eyes were drawn to the glowing jewel of a world and the mint-colored clouds that swirled in its atmosphere.

  Inspiration struck him like a lightning strike, because only potentially habitable worlds had air currents if he remembered his science right. Justin pulled up the sensor program and ran it, hoping the stupid thing worked enough to at least tell him what kind of atmosphere it might have.

  The ship bucked again, doing a strange shimmy, and then picked up more speed just as the sensors relayed back the planet’s information. Justin cursed his luck and gave the data display a quick glance before sliding back over to the directional controls. Class M. He could breathe on that green ball of salvation.

  It was a slim hope to hold on to.

  The neon lights of the directional controls flickered erratically for a couple of precious seconds but stayed lit and functional, which was a miracle in and of itself. Justin acted quickly, nosing his ship down, trying his damnedest to aim for the planet peacefully floating in space below him and locking in the route. Without the computer to guide him, it was a crapshoot.

  When he was sure there was nothing else he could do, Justin sat back in the chair and buckled in.

  Justin watched the stunning planet grow larger in the slowly dimming view screen intently and prayed to the Gods he hoped were really watching over people like him. The Nitti hit the outer atmosphere like it was a slab of concert, but somehow the ship managed to hold together.

  The quick deceleration made him light-headed. Seconds later and the deafening impact with the ground was the last thing he heard as the darkness consumed him.

  * * * *

  Justin grimaced as he hefted the med kit out from under the upturned navigation panel. His hands still shook with adrenaline. He’d woken up with a start, Gods know how long after impact. He was still feeling slightly buzzed with the threat of death, his mind on autopilot. He was sure the shock would come later.

  The console next to him sparked bright, too close to his face. He took that as his cue and slid the kit across the battered floor, managing to get it pretty close to the half-shattered exit hatch. The minor scuffs, bruises, and sprains that littered his body could wait. Justin scrambled to his feet and ducked around the hanging bits of his ship’s command cabin. With more energy than Justin really wanted to use, he shouldered the hydraulic door to the sleeping quarters open.

  Most of his belongings were flung everywhere. Clothes spilled out of the compartments, boots and tools scattered across the deck, what few personal treasures he owned were in pieces all over the place. Only the bedding seemed where he left it. Justin grit his teeth at the mess and got to work.

  He snatched up the first duffel bag he stumbled across and started stuffing clothes haphazardly in it. The other two bags were similarly packed and Justin dropped all three just outside the forced door before turning back to the rest of the mess. The couple of holographs he had of his old squad were done for and so was the miniature Rilexan harp Justin loved to play. He bypassed all that and went for the secure cubbyhole hidden behind the wall panel between a couple of shelves. The nearly invisible pressure lock gave way as soon as he poked it, the door swinging open on silent hinges.

  It was a squeeze to get his hand in, but Justin managed it faster than normal, the memory of sparking wires spurring him on. When his hand closed around nothing up shattered glass, Justin cursed quietly. Without the subcutaneous tracker, Justin would be impossible to find on this world, if by some miracle the world itself could be found. Damn thing didn’t work if it wasn’t implanted and the glass injector housing it to keep it sterile busted in the crash, he assumed. Another thing to look into if he ever got off this rock. And if the syringe was broken, that meant suspension fluid in it had soaked his translator tech sitting underneath it. Shit.

  The lights surged for a heartbeat before settling and Justin abandoned everything else for the moment. Once he had a camp set up, he’d be back to salvage what he could and see if the Nitti could be fixed.

  Justin hustled back to flight control and pulled open another wall panel, triggered the manual override, and punched the button to shut down the ship. He wasn’t going anywhere near the consoles again until they were powered down. The six hours that it took for the full power down would be plenty of time to find a secured spot to hole up.

  Finally, Justin picked up two of the big duffels and popped the hatch with an elbow, breathing a sigh of relief when the damned door opened with no problem. With the way he felt, Justin knew he that muscling the heavy hatch door open was something he wasn’t up for. He dropped the bags out the door to land on the startlingly lavender-colored grass a handful of feet below. Giving one last glance around his damaged ship, Justin grabbed the last duffel and the kit, throwing the first out of the opening and then hopped out himself, kit in hand. No reason to risk breaking the fragile medical supplies too.

  Landing with a hiss of discomfort, Justin lurched upright and grabbed the closest bag. Damn thing seemed heavier than a minute ago. He glanced around before deciding to take shelter in the trees to the left of his ship. Looked to be the densest clump of forest around.

  It took a while to drag the duffels under the shelter of the tree line, but he managed it before his energy ran out. Barely. Wasn’t until Justin started rummaging around through his packs that he noticed the glaring error. Annoyed, Justin kicked at his bags.

  Forgot to grab his damned rations.

  A groan escaped Justin as he stood up. Damn it, he was tired. Better to get his rations out of the ship now though, as opposed to trying tomorrow when he would be too sore to navigate the wreck safely. Still needed to find a secure place to bed down, in case there were predator animals on the planet. Then sleep. Justin could sleep for ages at this point.

  He hobbled his way back and strained getting up into his ship. The ramp was jammed in its slot, so Justin forced himself to jump and scramble in. Galley was a wreck, but the emergency rations were still intact. Justin snatched up the whole box, just in case. Same shit getting the box out and Justin swore he was going to refit his ship with a manual ramp control for next time.

  As he was straightening up with, thankfully, his last load, he stopped abruptly, face to face with a ruby-eyed creature whose skin was the color of steel and a riot of dusky brown fur. He dropped the box, surprised, when the being spoke.

  “Sah,” and a tumble of sounds spilled out of the faintly pronounced mouth. When it brandished a spear in his face, Justin careful raised his hands before dropping to his knees, his eyes automatically lowering to the grass. Best to seem as harmless as possible.

  The alien in front of him moved away, but stayed well within spear reach. From his peripheral vision, it came off as the posture Justin himself would take for questioning an unknown, but apparently non-hostile, person. Without the being blocking his line of sight, Justin chanced it
and glanced up, got a good look at how truly, probably, fucked he was. A semi-circle of a dozen spear-wielding aliens had trapped him. Massive beings, the shortest two standing as tall as Justin and the tallest one well over seven feet, the rest falling somewhere in between.

  All were solidly built, arms and legs corded and long. Their short, sleek pelts ranged in a wild variety of colors, covering their bodies everywhere except the thick chests and hard bellies where the skin colors contrasted severely. All wore some sort of wrap around the hips, the boldly colored fabrics secured with clasp at the side and the cloth came all the way down to the strangely backward-bending knees. The aliens stood on the balls of their lightly furred feet, toes splayed wide for balance.

  A quieter voice spoke more unintelligible words, and Justin looked up towards the speaker. Silver eyes caught him fast. This one, not as big as some, but carrying an authoritative air, started gesturing at him in a universal order to stand. Justin did so, and the rest of the being’s facial details started filtering into his awareness. The long and glossy mane of black hair tumbling around the alien’s face, parting high on either side of the large skull to make way for the tall and velvety pointed ears. High-slanting cheekbones and strangely triangular nose gave the creature an almost canine appearance, but the lush mouth and square jaw looked damned human. The black fur was absent from the alien face, revealing skin as pale as true ivory. Silver Eyes, as he privately named the being, issued what seemed to be an abrupt command, flashing very sharp teeth in the process.

  Steel Skin grabbed him before Silver Eyes finished talking, wrenched Justin’s arms behind his back, and bound them together with a coarse rope. That was as rough as any of them got with him. A gentle nudge to the shoulder had Justin moving quietly along, the aliens coming around to encircle him with Steel Skin bringing up the rear. Resigned to it for the moment, Justin instead focused on the predatory grace with which Silver Eyes, walking in front of him, moved. The soldier in him appreciated the quick lightness of Silver Eyes’ walk, alert but steady. The human in him was a little unnerved by the long, black, sleek tail.