Believe

  Praise for GARRETT LEIGH

  “Emotional and brilliant…”

  All About Romance

  “Tastefully erotic … more smart than smutty…”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Powerful and compelling…”

  Foreword Reviews

  BELIEVE

  A Skins Novel

  GARRETT LEIGH

  Copyright © 2018 by Garrett Leigh

  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.

  Cover Art: Garrett Leigh @ Black Jazz Design

  Editing: Posy Roberts @ Labyrinth Bound Press & Con Riley

  Proofing: Vanessa North, Annabelle Jacobs

  Contents

  Foreword

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  PATREON

  CROSSROADS - a SHORT excerpt

  DREAM - a SHORT excerpt

  WHISPER - a SHORT excerpt

  MISFITS - a SHORT excerpt

  ABOUT GARRETT LEIGH

  Also by GARRETT LEIGH

  Foreword

  Big thanks and love to Don, my sensitivity reader. Thank you for giving me authentic insight to your life as a British queer man of colour. Also to my own daughter for enlightening me to what it’s like to grow up as a young POC in a very white town. We love you to the moon.

  Believe in your dreams . . .

  One

  The beat in Lovato’s throbbed in time with Rhys Foster’s pulse. He glanced around the club, searching for a prospective partner . . . or two. Perhaps a couple willing to have him join their fun. Men, women, whatever; he was down for it all.

  An orgy in the corridor caught his attention—three girls and a dude. Yeah, I could dig that. But something made him walk on by, and it was a pattern that continued until he wound up back at the bar.

  Disconcerted, he threw himself onto a stool and ordered a beer, anxiety simmering in veins that usually thrummed with excitement when he came to the club. Damn. Was he broken? Or just out of practise? After all, it had been more than a month since he’d last come out to play. Fuck being a responsible adult if this is where it gets me.

  He drank his beer and a bottle of water, hoping the nagging sensation that he was in the wrong place would pass. But it didn’t. And the longer he sat there, the harder it became to ignore. Nonplussed, he drifted to the locker room and retrieved his phone. His sometimes regular fuck buddy, Dylan, was still at the top of his contact list, even though Rhys hadn’t seen him and his boyfriend in months. Was it bad manners to call someone up and moan about not feeling the vibe in a sex club?

  For anyone else, probably, but Dylan knew the lifestyle as well as Rhys—perhaps better. It was only Angelo’s ill health that kept them away from the club, and if anyone would understand Rhys’s anxious discontent, it was Dylan.

  Rhys bit the bullet and made the call. Dylan answered on the third ring. “Well, hello, you. Are your ears burning?”

  “Nope. Nothing’s burning. Cold as a wet fish over here, mate.”

  “Sure about that? Because it sounds like you’re in a club.”

  “I’m in the club, as it happens, but my assessment still stands.”

  Dylan laughed, and the warmth in his throaty chuckle went a little way towards lifting Rhys’s mood. He’d played with Dylan and Angelo more times than he could count, and it was moments like these that reminded him why. Acceptance and friendship combined with the hottest fucks ever, what more did a man need?

  Everything, dickhead.

  Rhys’s humour dropped as swiftly as it had risen. He pictured the last time he’d hooked up with Dylan and Angelo, recalled the absolute love in Angelo’s eyes as he’d fucked Dylan raw, and the answering glow in Dylan’s gaze as he’d stared past Rhys in response.

  Nice.

  Not. As beautiful as to had been to witness, and as hot as they were together, by the third go around, Rhys had begun to feel a little lonely. And three months later, nothing had changed. Even Rhys’s brother, Harry—who he’d always counted on to be as quietly miserable as him—was now disgustingly and nauseatingly happy.

  Fuck my life.

  “Um, hello?” Dylan sang. “Did you call me for a reason? Or just to creeper-breathe down the phone? ’Cause, to be honest, I can get that at work when I man the consultation lines.”

  “People call Romford Citizens Advice to get their rocks off?”

  “You’d be surprised. Or maybe not, given what you’ve told me about 999 call centres.”

  “True that.”

  “So . . . ” Dylan said. “Not that I don’t love you, but it’s a school night. What do you actually want?”

  Oops. Rhys hadn’t even considered the time. Why would he when he was at the start of a blissful week off work? “Crap. Sorry. I’ll let you go.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m clearly awake and I’m quite happy to shoot the shit, but you’ve got to give me something to work with here. Why are you calling me from Lovato’s? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” Rhys stared at his bare feet. “I’m just—um—not feeling it tonight.”

  “Not feeling what? The club? Hooking up?”

  “Both, I guess, though it’s nice to be out and about.”

  “The hooking up then,” Dylan said. “Slim pickings?”

  “Nope. It’s not that.” And it wasn’t. There were plenty of familiar faces around the club Rhys had enjoyed spending time with before. “I’m just . . . tired of it, I think.”

  “Sounds like you should’ve stayed in with a curry and a cuddle.”

  “Right. Who the fuck is gonna cuddle me? We haven’t all got an Angelo at home, you know.”

  “I do know, actually,” Dylan said. “Before I met him, I was lonely too. I’d been hooking up with my best mate and his missus, and I fell in love with them by mistake. Breaking away from that hurt like hell, and the club was going to be my refuge until Angelo came along. I never got the chance to see if it would’ve done me any good, but I don’t think it would have.”

  “How does you meeting your Italian stallion in a BDSM chamber help me?”

  “It doesn’t. My point is that if messing around in the club hasn’t made you happy yet, it probably isn’t going to. I love playing as much as the next fella, but sex can’t be a crutch, Rhys. People get hurt—you get hurt.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” But Dylan’s words hit home more than Rhys cared to admit. Playing in the club had always been an escape . . . from work, from life, but it had grown to more than that recently, to the point where he’d started looking for the same satisfaction in the outside world—pubs and bars—and found it hard to live with the disappointment when it didn’t match up. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Go home,” Dylan said. “You remember what you told me about taking LSD?”

  Rhys bit out a laugh. “What does me dropping acid when I was eighteen and raving have to do with anything?”

  “Everything. I’ve never been into class As, but the theory matches up. You told me one of the reasons people have bad trips was because they take those kind of drugs when they’re
in a bad frame of mind—so the drugs amplify that and give them the worst night of their lives. Perhaps hooking up in the club is the same. You can’t deny that it’s a high . . . for all of us, not just you.”

  Ugh. Rhys hated it when Dylan got all psycho-analytical and hated it even more when he was right. Rhys’s drunk-arse theory about popping tabs aside, anonymous hook-ups had become his drug of choice, and now it had stopped working.

  “Go home, mate,” Dylan said again.

  Rhys groaned. “But I’m so fucking horny.”

  “Not the right kind of horny if you’re having an anxiety attack in a sex club. Go home and have a wank.”

  The ridiculousness of the conversation hit Rhys all at once. He laughed and covered his face with a hand. “Shit. I’m such a disaster. Sorry for chucking it at you.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’d much rather you called me than you do something you don’t want to actually do. Club life is supposed to be fun. When it stops, it’s time to chip off home.”

  The agitation burning Rhys’s chest began to dissipate. He let Dylan go and got up from the bench to retrieve his clothes from his locker.

  Dressing without the damp residue of a shower felt odd—he’d never left the club with dry hair—but when he got outside, the cool night breeze blew through his mind, taking some of the chaos with it and leaving behind a certainty that Dylan’s musings had hit the mark. Since he and Angelo had taken an extended break from partying, Rhys’s choice of playmates had varied so much that he could barely remember them—orgies, gangbangs, glory hole adventures, but despite being a regular at the club, the anonymity had grown, eclipsing the affection Rhys had so desperately craved when he’d wandered into the club that very first time. He thought of Dylan and Angelo again, of Harry and the true love he’d found with Joe down in Cornwall.

  I want what they have.

  Shame he’d have to settle for a solitary pint on the way home.

  Jevon Campbell stared at the bottom of his third empty pint glass. Somehow, it seemed more interesting than the ones that had come before it, but that might’ve been because he hadn’t had a beer in months. The first one hadn’t touched the sides; the second had given him hiccups. And now? Well. Now he was that kind of tipsy that could send him to the moon or put him flat on his arse.

  Another beer was a sure-fire path to the latter, but he bought one anyway and went back to stealing furtive glances around the bar. The gay pub was his favourite haunt when he was in the country long enough to indulge his own queerness. Watching. Wishing. Wondering. Absorbing the vibe of men who were comfortable enough to touch and kiss at the bar. To tip each other a wink and leave together, sliding into a waiting cab, or worse, the grimy bathrooms at the back of the bar. Heat pooled in Jevon’s groin as he pictured what the latest departing couple would do once they were alone. Kissing, sucking, fucking. Damn it. His imagination was a live porn feed that didn’t match his proverbial balls.

  Deflated, he retied the scarf around his escaping dreads and pushed his half-finished pint away, prepared to abandon it in favour of claiming a bed on his cousin’s couch for the night. He had an early start in the morning, so another epic failure at picking up blokes was probably just as well.

  “Aw, don’t leave. You’re the only fella in here under fifty.”

  Jevon blinked. Somehow, lost in the haze of his own misery, he’d missed the stool beside him becoming occupied. Jesus. How did I miss him sitting down? Tall, with inky hair and dark stubble that was just thick enough to be called a beard, the man was gorgeous. Jevon reached blindly for his glass. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “Good.” The man’s smile made his eyes gleam. “Because I’ve had a shit day and I could use a pint with someone who isn’t cruising this place for a Grindr hook-up.”

  Grindr. Another arena that terrified and fascinated Jevon in equal parts. “I’m not cruising. Just having a beer, man.”

  The dark-eyed man nodded. “Awesome. I’ll get you another. I’m Rhys, by the way.”

  “Jevon.” They shook hands, Rhys’s white skin alabaster pale against Jevon’s own Brit-Caribbean complexion. Rhys’s palm was warm and rough, and the heat of his touch spread through Jevon like wildfire. Like they’d met before, and the current zipping through Jevon’s veins was a reconnection of something that had been there for years. What the fuck? Shocked, he shivered and knocked back the rest of his pint in a desperate swallow.

  Rhys didn’t appear to notice and turned away to attract the barman while Jevon inhaled a shaky breath and tried to get himself under control. Christ. It’s not like you’ve never talked to a bloke before.

  “IPA do you?” Rhys asked.

  Jevon nodded, and a fourth pint of ale appeared in front of him. He eyed it warily, already half cut, but the reckless side he rarely indulged won out for once, and Rhys slid the beer closer to him. “Thanks.”

  “Welcome.” Rhys clinked glasses with him and turned on his stool to face him, their knees a hairsbreadth from touching. “So . . . I haven’t seen you in here before.”

  “Come here often?”

  “Recently, yeah. I bought a flat up the road a few months ago.”

  “In Whitechapel?”

  “Nah. Brick Lane.”

  “Where did you live before?”

  “Romford.”

  Jevon nodded. “My uncle lives in Romford. Across the road from the sex club. Can’t remember its name.”

  Rhys coughed through a mouthful of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Lovato’s. Ever been?”

  Jevon covered his flush with a swig of his own drink. “Can’t say I have. So why did you move?”

  “Work mainly,” Rhys said with a shrug. “But other reasons too. I lived in Romford for fifteen years, man—since I was sixteen. That’s way too long for a shithole like that. Same faces, same fucks . . . it wasn’t doing me any good, you know? Habit draws me back there sometimes, but I’m getting better at fighting it.”

  Jevon ignored the comment about fucking—had to or he’d lose his damn mind—and did a quick calculation. Sixteen plus fifteen meant Rhys was thirty-one, older than he looked, and two years younger than Jevon. “I think sometimes we have to give life a kick to keep it moving.”

  “True that,” Rhys said. “It’s so easy to come home every night, be doing the same old shit, and not realise that the world’s a different place when you step out the next day.”

  Jevon smiled wistfully. “I hear you. But it’s not quite like that for me. I work away a lot, so sometimes months pass before I notice that I’ve fucked up at home.”

  “Where is your home?”

  “I don’t really have one at the moment. I sold my flat last year, so I crash with family when I’m in the city. Maybe I’ll buy again someday, but I can’t be bothered right now.”

  It was a shortened version of the truth, but Jevon didn’t feel like explaining his eccentric way of life just yet—or even at all, if this came to nothing. Which it would, because even if he hadn’t been getting on a plane the very next day, he had no idea how to ask someone like Rhys if he could see him again.

  Luckily, Rhys’s interest in the property market dried up. He bought a couple of tequila shots and slid one Jevon’s way. “You know you’re way too hot to be sitting in a gay bar on your own, right?”

  “If you say so.” Jevon toyed with the tiny glass. “I don’t come to these places much, so I don’t keep up with the etiquette. Is banging in the toilets the thing now?”

  Rhys snorted. “It is around here. Ain’t my thing though. I don’t mind fucking in public but it’s gotta be somewhere clean.”

  Another zap of heat buzzed through Jevon’s veins, turning his body into a live wire of unfulfilled sexual tension. He imagined taking Rhys by the hand and leading him to a dark corner, dropping to his knees, and—Right. Like you’d even know what to do with a cock in your mouth.

  Perspective returned like the grim reaper and Jevon almost laughed, but Rhys’s questioning frown
stopped him. Jevon shrugged. “Sorry. I’m a bit leathered.”

  Rhys nodded. “Fair enough. I’m halfway there myself. Fancy some fresh air? My place is five minutes away.”

  Jevon gulped. He’d heard propositions like that before but never from anyone he’d have considered going home with. Am I tripping? The suggestive twinkle in Rhys’s dark gaze seemed like a dream, but the pounding in Jevon’s chest was all too real. “You want me to come back to your place?”

  “If you want to,” Rhys said. “You seem like you’ve had enough of this place for the night, but I’m kind of enjoying your company, so . . .”

  “What if I’m an axe murderer?”

  Rhys shrugged. “There’s been nights when I wouldn’t have cared if you’d killed me in my sleep. You wanna do it now, I’d call that fate.”

  A shadow clouded Rhys’s wry humour. It was fleeting—gone so fast someone else might not have seen it—but Jevon saw it. How could he not when his life’s work was to chase shadows away?

  He slid from his stool in a motion that could’ve been smooth three pints ago and closed his hand around Rhys’s wrist. A spark flowed from where they touched to Jevon’s already thumping heart, and he swallowed, gripping Rhys tighter and chancing a glance to find him transfixed by Jevon’s hand on him.

  Whoops. Jevon let go, but Rhys inhaled sharply and quickly reclaimed Jevon’s hand, pulling him forward. Jevon stumbled. He collided with Rhys’s shoulder, and they were inexplicably kissing.