The Queen & the Homo Jock King (68 page)
Gustavo Tiberius is not normal. He knows this. Everyone in his small town of Abby, Oregon, knows this. He reads encyclopedias every night before bed. He has a pet ferret called Harry S. Truman. He owns a video rental store that no one goes to. His closest friends are a lady named Lottie with drag queen hair and a trio of elderly Vespa riders known as the We Three Queens.
Gus is not normal. And he’s fine with that. All he wants is to be left alone.
Until Casey, an asexual stoner hipster and the newest employee at Lottie’s Lattes, enters his life. For some reason, Casey thinks Gus is the greatest thing ever. And maybe Gus is starting to think the same thing about Casey, even if Casey is obsessive about Instagramming his food.
But Gus isn’t normal and Casey deserves someone who can be. Suddenly wanting to be that someone, Gus steps out of his comfort zone and plans to become the most normal person ever.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?
John and Jackie first laid eyes on each other when they were twelve years old. Now, seventy-one years later, Jack prepares to give his beloved husband the ultimate gift. Before he does, they’ll relive five key moments from their younger lives together over the course of a single afternoon. From their first meeting and first kiss to the violence of an abusive father and the heartache of growing up, these moments have defined who they have become. As sunset approaches, John will show the depths of his love for the one man who has made him whole: his Jackie. They’ll soon learn there is no force more powerful than their devotion to one another.
Once upon a time, in an alleyway in the slums of the City Of Lockes, a young and somewhat lonely boy named Sam Haversford turns a group of teenage douchebags into stone completely by accident.
Of course, this catches the attention of a higher power, and Sam’s pulled from the only world he knows to become an apprentice to the King’s Wizard, Morgan of Shadows.
When Sam’s fourteen, he enters the Dark Woods and returns with Gary, the hornless gay unicorn, and a half-giant named Tiggy, earning the moniker Sam of Wilds.
At fifteen, Sam learns what love truly is when a new knight arrives at the castle—Knight Ryan Foxheart, the dreamiest dream to have ever been dreamed.
Naturally, it all goes to hell when Ryan dates the reprehensible Prince Justin, Sam can’t control his magic, a sexually aggressive dragon kidnaps the prince, and the King sends them on an epic quest to save Ryan’s boyfriend, all while Sam falls more in love with someone he can never have.
Or so he thinks.
Sequel to
Who We Are
Tyson Thompson graduated high school at sixteen and left the town of Seafare, Oregon, bound for what he assumed would be bigger and better things. He soon found out the real world has teeth, and he returns to the coast with four years of failure, addiction, and a diagnosis of panic disorder trailing behind him. His brother, Bear, and his brother’s husband, Otter, believe coming home is exactly what Tyson needs to find himself again. Surrounded by family in the Green Monstrosity, Tyson attempts to put the pieces of his broken life back together.
But shortly after he arrives home, Tyson comes face to face with inevitability in the form of his childhood friend and first love, Dominic Miller, who he hasn’t seen since the day he left Seafare. As their paths cross, old wounds reopen, new secrets are revealed, and Tyson discovers there is more to his own story than he was told all those years ago.
In a sea of familiar faces, new friends, and the memories of a mother’s devastating choice, Tyson will learn that in order to have any hope for a future, he must fight the ghosts of his past.
“FIVE ooey gooey strawberries dipped in chocolate for TJ Klune’s
Tell Me It's Real
and my pick as the greatest romance of all time… because it was about me you know.”
—Guilty Indulgence Romance Reviews
“…what I like best about
Tell Me It’s Real
. It
is
real. The characters are real. The dialogue is real. And the actions are real.”
—Live Your Life, Buy the Book
“I want more! This book will be added to one of my favorites list. It’s an absolute feel good book.”
—MM Good Book Reviews
“TJ Klune is awesome wrapped in crazy, regurgitated as spectacular… will most definitely be in my fave books of 2013, I laughed, cried, I laughed while crying, and most of all I fell in love with all the characters.”
—Pants Off Reviews
“I loved the mix of humor and tenderness and I really appreciated how it is both sweet and hysterical at once.”
—Joyfully Jay
When
TJ KLUNE
was eight, he picked up a pen and paper and began to write his first story (which turned out to be his own sweeping epic version of the video game
Super Metroid
—he didn’t think the game ended very well and wanted to offer his own take on it. He never heard back from the video game company, much to his chagrin). Now, over two decades later, the cast of characters in his head have only gotten louder, wondering why he has to go to work as a claims examiner for an insurance company during the day when he could just stay home and write.
Since being published, TJ has won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance, fought off three lions that threatened to attack him and his village, and was chosen by Amazon as having written one of the best GLBT books of 2011.
And one of those things isn’t true.
(It’s the lion thing. The lion thing isn’t true.)
Facebook: TJ Klune
Blog: tjklunebooks.blogspot.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Burn
How to Be a Normal Person
Into This River I Drown
John & Jackie
The Lightning-Struck Heart
Tell Me It’s Real • The Queen & the Homo Jock King
BEAR, OTTER, AND THE KID
Bear, Otter, and the Kid
Who We Are
The Art of Breathing
Published By
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Queen & the Homo Jock King
© 2016 TJ Klune.
Cover Art
© 2016 Reese Dante.
http://www.reesedante.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
ISBN: 978-1-63476-801-6
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63476-802-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918973
Published February 2016
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Dick for You and a Dick for Me
Chapter 2: How to Present Yourself like a Cat in Heat
Chapter 3: I Feel as Fresh as a Summer Zeeve
Chapter 4: Inviting One-Night Stands to Brunch
Chapter 5: Seriously the Most Awkward Brunch Ever
Chapter 6: Nick Carter Is Jamaican Me Crazy
Chapter 7: Hey, Republicans! Suck My Balls!
Chapter 8: Dirty Dr. Seussing: Putting My Spunk in Your Trunk