A Royal Secret Read online

  “A Royal Secret”

  M/M Gay Romance

  Jerry Cole

  © 2019

  Jerry Cole

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2019.07.31)

  http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: C Mitchell, AliD, Jim Adcock, Julian White, Earleen Gregg, RS, JayBee and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Steve was preventing a potential disaster when he ran into Bobby for the first time. Granted, the potential disaster was more like the avoidance of a nosey friend, but it was worth it as long as he didn’t have to explain for the nth time why he wasn’t interested in dating anyone right now, thanks. Why was that something people always wanted to know about you? Or wanted for you? Steve had been single for years, and he was perfectly content for it to stay that way.

  There was no way anybody could have time for a relationship when they were in college. He wasn’t sure he could fit in dates between the assignments and tutoring and lectures. He could barely find the time to make sure his photographs and sketches were the best he could make them. Dating was definitely out of the question.

  So busy running away from Sam’s relentless questions, Steve didn’t see the guy until he’d rammed straight into him, sending them both sprawling to the floor.

  “Uh,” Steve stammered. “Geez, sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  The guy he’d run over was smaller than he was in bulk and in stature. When Steve caught his eyes, he was smirking. His hair was disheveled, in a way that screamed on purpose, and unlike most of the guys on campus, he actually had decent facial hair—a goatee that accentuated the attractiveness of the guy. “No problem. In a hurry, huh?”

  Steve climbed to his feet, holding out a hand, which was stared at for a beat, before the guy took it and let Steve haul him to his feet. “My friend keeps asking who I’m dating and I…uh, well, I’m sure you don’t wanna hear about it.”

  An intrigued expression, and the fake-edged smirk turned into a genuine smile. “If you wanna share, go ahead. Not like you’ll ever see me again for it to be a problem.”

  When Steve didn’t say anything right away, the guy turned his attention back to the wall, and Steve realized he was looking at the mural that had been painted there the year before. It had been part of a final assessment, and while Steve had permission, he wasn’t exactly proud of having to deface school property to get his grade.

  The guy was frowning. “How long has this been here? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”

  Strange, considering most of the campus had to have seen it by now.

  “The art students completed it at the end of last semester,” Steve offered.

  There was an almost wistful expression on the guy’s face.

  “I keep referring to you as ‘the guy’ inside my head,” Steve pointed out. “Would it be too much to ask you your name?”

  “You don’t do this a lot, do you?” The guy—Jesus, again—laughed, and Steve was struck by how nice his eyes were. Brown, bright, like he had a lot of stuff to be happy about. It was a nice look that Steve didn’t often see on faces around college; everyone was stressed and exhausted. “It’s Bobby.” Bobby folded his arms across his chest. “It’s a good painting. I hope they got a good grade.”

  “I did,” Steve said, before he could stop himself. After a pause he flushed. “Well, we did. There were three of us.”

  The mural itself filled the whole wall, and Steve could remember having to get ladders, then debate with the school about whether it was unsafe or against health and safety until everyone was satisfied and the mural could be completed. Depicting the rise of the royal family through the secession from Britain to the current modernization of royalty throughout the world, it was mostly abstract to people who didn’t know what it represented, but people Steve had seen admiring it assure him they get the story behind it.

  The expression on Bobby’s face was interesting, an expression of almost awe as he ran his fingers over the last section, the story of Princess Maria fleeing and finding a home in Italy. Nobody knew what happened to her, and Grand Prince Louis and the Palace themselves had remained completely tight-lipped about it. He didn’t know why that particular story impacted Bobby, but Steve knew plenty of people who had been upset by her departure and continued to be.

  “You’re an artist?” Bobby asked at last, and though he was still staring at the mural, Steve could feel the weight of the question, genuine curiosity.

  “Was,” Steve said, shrugging easily when Bobby raised his eyebrow
s. “I changed majors in second year to photography. Liked it better.”

  “You’re pretty good at this,” Bobby said, though he accepted Steve’s point with a nod. “It’s a pity.”

  “Other people helped,” Steve pointed out. There was a touch of pride that Bobby thought he was any good, which was ridiculous given they’d only just met a minute or so ago, but whatever. Still, Steve was all about people giving due credit, and he could feel his face heat, his eyes darted from Bobby to the mural and then back. “You should see my photographs.”

  “I would love to,” Bobby says, smirking, around the same time Steve realized what he said. When Steve didn’t say anything, he shifted on his feet, self-conscious, probably, because Steve’s an idiot and not talking. “Unless that wasn’t an actual invite.”

  “It could be,” Steve said quickly and God, why can’t he speak like a normal person?

  Bobby looked delighted. “Was that an accident?”

  “No,” Steve said, sounding unconvincing even to himself. “Yes?”

  The laugh Bobby let out was small but genuine, and his eyes were shining when he looked back at Steve. “I like you,” Bobby paused, realizing he doesn’t have Steve’s name and Steve opens his mouth to reply.

  “There you are!” Sam’s coming around the corner, looking a little pissed off, one hand on his backpack strap, the other flipping Steve the bird. Bobby snorted from behind Steve, who was trying to explain he didn’t really want to spend time with Sam if all he was going to do was try and set him up. Sam’s eyes narrowed, and he rolled his eyes. “What the hell, Steve, next time just tell me that.”

  So maybe it was a dick move, but so was interrupting Steve when he was trying to talk to Bobby—who had disappeared. “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “Where’d Bobby go?” There weren’t many ways for Bobby to escape, but the campus was crowded—thanks, class changeover—and it was hopeless trying to find him. “Fuck, Sam, now he’s run off, and I didn’t even get his number!”

  Sam clearly did not pick up on how pissed off Steve was. “You were gonna get a guy’s number? That’s what I’m talking about, Steve! Wait until I tell Jamie, he was beginning to think you were gonna be celibate forever.”

  “Jamie’s an asshole,” Steve muttered, partly because Jamie was, actually, an asshole, but also because he was distracted. “You don’t know a Bobby on campus, do you?”

  The expression on Sam’s face was incredulous. “Bobby? Wow, Steve, what a completely unique name that no two people could ever share and so, yes, I know only one Bobby on campus!”

  Sam could be very long winded in his sarcasm, and Steve had learned to let him get on with it before interrupting or trying to rectify whatever it was that he was talking about. “All right, I get it.”

  Sam’s expression relaxed, and he nudged Steve’s shoulder. “Is that the guy you were talking to?”

  “Yeah, he said he liked the mural.”

  “Everyone likes the mural,” Sam muttered, but he at least looked apologetic. “I’m sorry I drove him away.”

  “Whatever,” Steve muttered, letting out a sigh. It was a long shot anyway and Bobby hadn’t said anything about genuinely being interested, however much he had tried to backtrack about inviting himself to see Steve’s photographs. “It wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

  Sam didn’t try and offer platitudes or tell him he was wrong, which Steve appreciated. The last thing he wanted right then was that yes, it might have gone somewhere, but he guessed they’d never know now. Shit. Steve shook it off. He had class to get to just like everybody else on campus, and he couldn’t worry about a guy he’d spoken to for less than five minutes.

  The second time Steve ran into Bobby, it was a week later.

  Jamie and Sam had spent the better part of three days mocking Steve for failing to land a date—something that was technically Sam’s fault, so Steve didn’t know where he got off mocking Steve for that—and deciding they would both have to band together to find someone that would be suitable.

  That was the very thing that had driven Steve to find Bobby in the first place, so he vetoed that suggestion and told them both to fuck off. That didn’t stop them trying anyway, and they didn’t share many classes together, but they found a way to haunt Steve’s day anyway.

  “You’re both assholes,” Steve informed them, when they accosted him outside of the photography studio and tried to convince him to come with them to the campus coffee shop. Steve thought about telling them where to shove it, but he could do with a coffee if just to get himself motivated for the next class. It was a lecture on a subject he was familiar with, but that didn’t make it easy to sit through. The professor was a bit dull, and though Steve wasn’t in the habit of criticizing the people who took time to teach him, there was just no other way to say it.

  Jamie grinned. “You’re still our mate,” he pointed out. “Think that says more about you as a person than it does us.”

  Sam pointed at Jamie, nodding. “Right.”

  Steve rolled his eyes, pushing open the door to the coffee shop and cussing them both out, before promptly slamming into someone on the other side of the door. “Shit, sor–”

  “You make a habit of walking into me,” Bobby said, lips quirking up into a smile. He had sunglasses perched on the top of his head even though it wasn’t exactly sunny in New York right now. It worked for him, Steve thought, before shaking his head and bringing himself back to the moment.

  “Bobby!” Steve’s voice was a little loud, managing to carry over the din of the café, and he winced, ducking his head.

  “So, you’re Bobby,” Jamie said, peering around Steve to get a good look at Bobby.

  Sam nodded. “Definitely Bobby.”

  “You were talking about me,” Bobby said, ignoring them both which earned him a point in Steve’s favor. “I made that much of an impression in five minutes?”

  “More like three,” Steve pointed out, flushing.

  Jamie leaned an arm against Steve’s shoulder, which Steve thought about shrugging off, but didn’t. “Steve gets flustered around any cute boys who think his art is worth staring at.”

  “You think I’m cute?” Bobby asked, around the same time Steve said, “That’s a lie!”

  Bobby frowned. “You don’t think I’m cute?”

  “Jamie does,” Steve said hurriedly, and at the expression on Bobby’s face, cursed himself and sighed. “I’m terrible at this. Jamie clearly does and yes, I do, but you ran off, and I didn’t have a chance to find you—and do you know how many Bobby’s are on campus—So, I gave up finding you and—”

  “Slow down,” Bobby said, through a laugh. There was something fond on his face and shit, apparently Steve’s ridiculous inability to form functioning sentences was doing it for him? “You didn’t actually give me your name, so I couldn’t find you.”

  Steve stalled. “You wanted to find me?”

  Bobby’s grin was small but blinding, and even when he was nudged out of the way by someone trying to leave the café, he kept eye contact with Steve. “You’re a handsome guy who draws amazing art. What’s not to want to get to know?”

  There was a heat in Bobby’s gaze Steve could appreciate. At this point, he was fairly sure both Sam and Jamie would be dragging Bobby to bed, if they were into men, but Steve wasn’t that kind of guy, and though he could very much see himself wanting that with Bobby, they didn’t know each other. Steve’s Mama would not be proud of him for bedding Bobby the second time they spoke.

  “Here,” Bobby said, when Steve still hadn’t said anything. Jamie’s elbow was digging into his back, and even Sam was giving Steve a suspicious look and what the fuck, Steve was just bad at this. He’d tried to tell them; it wasn’t his fault they hadn’t believe him. Bobby was holding his phone and after a beat, Steve took it, looking at Bobby in bewilderment. Bobby laughed gently. “You really are bad at this. Put your number in, Steve, then I can actually get to know you before running off again.”
>
  Steve sighed at himself, feeling the heat rise on his cheeks and dammit, he was not going to spend every moment with Bobby flushed and embarrassed. He didn’t look great red in the face. Typing his name and number into the phone, he handed it back with a wry smile. “Sure you wanna keep in contact with a disaster like me?”

  “Please do,” Jamie interjected. “Nobody else will take him.”

  “He is hopeless,” Sam agreed.

  Bobby looked between them, his smirk back, and though Steve preferred his smile, he couldn’t deny there was something about the cocky expression on Bobby’s face that did it for him. “Great friends you have there, Steve.”

  “I tried to ditch ‘em in third grade,” Steve said with a sigh. “Didn’t work out.”

  “You wish,” Jamie muttered, but thankfully, both he and Sam took the hint and moved toward the counter to get the drinks they actually promised Steve.

  “Nice friends.” Bobby watched them leave, but there was nothing antagonistic in his voice, which was good. When he did date, Steve was adamant that whoever he did so with had to like his friends. Hopefully that was a prerequisite for everyone, and Steve wasn’t going to be the outlier.

  “They can be assholes,” Steve said, and grinned at Bobby’s laugh.

  “So can mine.” Bobby slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Being hopeless at dating is fine as long as the person you’re dating knows it. You should be fine.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Steve smirked. “Is that your philosophy?”

  “Are you calling me hopeless at dating, Steve?” Bobby looked mock-offended and it did nothing to lessen Steve’s smirk. Folding his arms across his chest, Bobby narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you should date me and find out just how hopeless I am.”

  Steve opened his mouth to say something witty, and all that came out was a ridiculous noise he would deny later, but Bobby’s eyes were soft, his smile curling into something way too much for Steve to handle.