What? Sunday Again?

I adore rainy days.

Well, usually.

Not so much when it's a roaring 42 degrees Fahrenheit, I have a rad case of strep on steroids, and my First Sergeant has a "case of the ass" and sends me out to stand on a corner, in said rain to direct traffic. For eight hours.

LOL.

Good times, good times.

Okay, I can hear you squawking in the background.

Yes, oh impatient one, there will be an excerpt today.

Can't a girl be a wee bit nostalgic on a rainy day? Especially when she thinks she might have accidentally found by far the coolest squad leader she ever had?

Huh?

No?

*huffs*

Fine.

Then how about a sneaky peaky at an unedited excerpt of my upcoming story?

A SNEAKY PEAKY FROM TOUCH & GO!!
unedited, uncensored...and hopefully uncommonly intriguing.

Patrick eyed the other men in the room, thick clouds of tension radiating out from each one as they all struggled to stop vibrating hard enough to rattle their own teeth out. Shit. They were all a sorry bunch of junkies, and he loved every one of them. Leon had saved Patrick’s life more than once as he struggled to get clean. Patrick squeezed the hard plastic chit in his hand. He looked down, because, damn it, something was in his eye, and he didn’t want any of the fuckers to think he was some kind of pansy assed punk, crying over a cheap piece of plastic.

Well.

He might be a little moved by the whole six months of being clean bit. But he still wasn’t going to let the fuckers see him cry. He snorted. They’d never let him live it down. Leon especially would rag him about it. Patrick looked up through his eyelashes at his mentor who currently had a wide white smile plastered on his very black face.

Crap.

He definitely saw the sheen of moisture in Patrick’s eyes. A cool shiver whispered up the big red head’s spine as the small dark skinned man continued to watch him with knowing eyes. Patrick blew out an aggrieved breath. Nothing could be done at this point to stave off the inevitable teasing. Patrick squared his shoulders and raised his head.

Leon’s grin changed to one of approval.

Patrick stood up.

“Hi. I’m Patrick, and I’m an addict. Um. This is my sixth month—”

Leon interrupted him.

“Damn boy, tell them the truth. You almost seven months clean now. Ain’t it ‘bout time you start in telling the truth full time?”

The older man’s eyes were fathomless pools of black. Patrick swallowed hard. He didn’t have a chit for seven months yet. It felt like lying to say that. He firmed his chin.

“I’m not all the way there yet, Leon. I don’t take credit for almost anymore.”

Leon nodded, his eyes warming until Patrick could feel the embrace they carried.

“I’m an addict, and I’d like to start today by making amends to the men of this group. I lied to some of you…and I stole from Leon. Twice. And he never gave up on me. He took me to the hospital twice when I overdosed. And he lets me call him when I wanna use, no matter what time it is. So…I’m sorry Leon. And I want to find a way to pay you back…for…um…for everything.”

Words stopped coming, so Patrick sat, his hands clammy, and sweat rolling down the side of his face. Holy Christ, that was harder than he thought it would be.

He could only imagine how hard it would be to make amends to Tony and Kevin.

Fuck.

He pushed that thought to the back of his mind. He’d wait until he had a chance to talk his strategy over with Leon. Then he’d approach the two men he’d hurt the most, even though the thought of doing so made his stomach clench and burn.

Patrick focused on welcoming the next man in the circle.

“Welcome Henri.”

*****

Leaving the coffee shop after his private meeting with Leon, Patrick realized he’d forgotten to buy toilet paper earlier in the week. He was down to his very last roll. Rolling his eyes at his absent-mindedness, he turned his Izuzu Trooper toward the grocery story.

Ten minutes later he was in the paper product aisle when a sultry voice caressed his ears.

“Are you gonna spend all day looking, sugar, or are you gonna move along so the rest of us can get to the good stuff?”

Patrick swung his head around quickly. A slender man with pink gloss on his plush, fuck-me-hard lips and bold black guy-liner all around his eyes was standing just behind him, eyeing him up like the last piece of chocolate on earth. He swallowed hard around the boulder that was suddenly lodged in his throat, and tried to keep his imagination from playing out all the parts of himself he’d like to rub the guy’s long, silky black hair across.

The man’s mouth quirked up in a half smile.

“Sugar, I know as fine as you are you have to have had an incident of homo-jayzus-those-jeans make me wanna put you in my grocery cart for dinner before today, hmm?”

Patrick’s mouth dropped open. He couldn't think of a thing to say.
And really?
He could think of far better things to do with his mouth than talk.