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Spam! It's What's for Christmas

in the Mistletoe Madness Advent Calendar from Dreamspinner Press

Summary:

?Tis the season to be... fired, dumped, and befuddled about the future? Ben Richmond is not having a holly-jolly Christmas. In fact, life has been a wash since a knee injury ended his dream of a baseball career. He's so desperate that when he spies an ad for nude male models, he jumps at it, hoping he can pull off a grand gesture to win back his boyfriend. The only hitch? Photographer Gavin McNally. He?s demanding, seductive, and wears a pair of tight-fitting black pants like nobody?s business. Ben hasn?t been this attracted to someone in a long time, but is he really ready to call it quits with the ex?

How to Buy:

Available in various ebook formats from Dreamspinner Press

Reviews:

Joan/Sarah F at Dear Author said:
This is Ben?s book and Ben is?adorable. Trying to make it work, trying to readjust his life after his dreams are destroyed, trying to figure out what he really wants. Again, the tone of the story, Ben?s voice and his characterization, make it something I just couldn?t stop reading.Grade: B+

Jenre at Well Read said:
Too much to like. This story was witty and amusing with lots of laugh out loud parts, especially when Ben has to be 'gotten ready' for the photoshoot. The sex was hot and I liked poor old Ben who thought he knew what he wanted but then begins to doubt himself...My pick of the week, and even perhaps of the month. A fabulous story about how fate (or is that a very unconventional Santa) can set you on a path to finding the man of your dreams. Grade: Excellent

Tam at Tam's Reads said:
I quite enjoyed the humour in this story, again, no declarations of true love but figuring out that clinging to the past just because it's been there is not always the way to go. This one made my morning a little brighter today.

Excerpt:

BEN RICHMOND?S kitchenette looked like a newspaper had exploded all over it. Sheets of smudgy black-and-white type covered the chipped linoleum-topped table, while others lay littered on the ground. A few had even ended up on top of the refrigerator where he?d flung them in a fit of exasperation. Ben?s job search was going slowly, to put it mildly. The whole enterprise made him want to throw up his hands in defeat, crawl back into bed, and stay there for the next few decades.

?Accountant, actuary, advertising manager,? he read out loud from the classifieds between sips of coffee.

He sighed heavily. He had none of these skills and wasn?t even entirely sure what an actuary did. Probably, he shouldn?t have called his boss at Speedy?s Custom Siding a neurotic dickless wonder. That had gotten him fired but good, the latest in a long line of drive-by encounters with employment.

Ben couldn?t honestly say he regretted not working at Speedy?s anymore, with its sterile white walls and mud-colored carpet. He?d spent eight very long hours a day in a gray-walled cubicle, tethered to his desk by a headset, answering questions about vinyl siding. The company operated like an iron-fisted third grade classroom, everything strictly regimented. An actual bell rang to announce time for a fifteen-minute break, half an hour?s lunch, time to go home, time to breathe. Ben didn?t care much for regimentation, and he and the neurotic dickless wonder had clashed early and often. At least, he?d learned by now not to bring personal bric-a-brac to the office. When security had come to escort him from the building, all he?d had to take was himself.

He scanned further down the help-wanted column. ?Data processing, doorman, elevator repair.?

The voice of Ben?s tenth-grade English teacher floated through his head: I realize you think you have better things to do than actually pay attention in class, Mr. Richmond, but one of these days you just might need something to fall back on and then you?re really going to wish you?d bothered to learn something about anything at all. How much did it suck that old Mrs. Greenawald had turned out to be right?

This wasn?t how his life was supposed to go: twenty-eight years old and jobless, totally broke, living in what had to be L.A.?s crappiest apartment. He was Ben Richmond, big-time jock, the great shortstop hope of Westland High School, voted most likely to take the big leagues by storm, drafted number one by the Cleveland Indians. He?d been blazing a path through the minors until one random Wednesday when his knee went one way and he went the other on a hot shot up the middle.

There had been surgeries and rehab and then more surgeries. In the end, the doctors had shaken their heads at him: nothing left to try. So much for his baseball career. Ben had cycled through the predictable anger and disappointment and then just seemed to get stuck on confusion. Three years later, he still had no clue what to do with himself now that he couldn?t play baseball.

Hotel manager, human resources assistant, lathe operator. He wondered if he?d be any good with a lathe.

?Kai?? he started to call out, because his boyfriend was always willing to offer a blunt assessment of his abilities.

He stopped with a pang. He kept forgetting that he?d lost more than his job when the neurotic dickless wonder had fired him.