Page 1 of Two Chances

Chapter1

Kellen

Icouldn’t sleep.

Big surprise.

An hour before the sun crested the eastern horizon, I quit trying and hopped onto Route 95, heading to my old stomping grounds for a few days.With it being a Sunday morning, traffic was a nonissue, and I made it out of Boston pretty damn quickly.

Mom’s birthday breakfast wouldn’t be for a few hours, but I’d been ready to disappear into the sticks of Maine to decompress like I did every couple of months.

My time as an escort for the gay branch of Elite was easy money and enjoyable so far, but I definitely missed my family and the solitude found outside the city.I’d signed on with the escort service as a blatantfuck youto my ex who’d cheated on me right before our wedding almost three years ago.He’d left me for a side dish I hadn’t known about, and the debt we’d accrued in planning the exchanging of our vows had landed in my lap.

Fucking asshole.

Every night I got on my knees to suck dick for an EEMM client, lubed up my cock to breach a needy hole, or offered up my ass for another man filled me with a sense of bitter righteousness and satisfaction.

Because fuck Xavier, fuck relationships, and fuck my broken heart.

Thattime heals all woundssaying?Bullshit.Two and a half years had passed since I’d walked into our bedroom to find my fiancé, who’d never bottomed for me, with a dick lodged up his ass, his legs wrapped around a back that wasn’t mine.

“Fuck.”I scrubbed a hand over my face, wishing yet again that I could erase the image of his infidelity burned into my memory.The damned sight was still vivid in color and sound, like a movie playing before my eyes.The side dish’s waxed, twink ass flexing as he thrust.My fiancé begging him to give him more.

Harder, sweetheart.Deeper.Love having your dick in me.

“Jesus fucking Christ!Enough already!”I growled at myself and stretched my neck side to side since I didn’t have anything nearby I could punch to drown out Xavier’s echoing words.They continued to live in my head no matter how hard I fought to forget them.

Teeth clenched, I stared through the windshield, not getting the blessed peacefulness heading out of the city should have brought me.

Usually, escaping the constant reminders of my ex and the life we’d had there proved a great distraction.Xavier had never been about countryside living, and I’d gladly moved back to Boston to be with him after our long-distance relationship had begun to strain.

Never should have left Maine for a guy who’d seemed too good to be true.It turned out he wasn’t fucking good at all.

I’d lived in Boston years earlier for college.That was where I’d first met Micah, Elite’s owner.We’d kept in touch somewhat once I’d returned home after graduation.He’d reached out to me just weeks after Xavier had broken my heart, and I’d hopped aboard the gay branch of Elite he’d wanted to test out.

I’d ended up staying in the city.Gladly.Happy in my vindictiveness to fuck as many men as often as possible.

The Welcome to Maine sign twitched my lips upward for the first time since I opened my eyes in the predawn darkness, and I released a slow exhale, imagining all the negativity of Xavier washing away as I drove over the bridge.

Familycame to mind every time I saw that sign.Same as a warm, genuine hug given out of true affection I hadn’t had in a while, my home state’s greeting soothed the clenching in my guts.

Unlike my ex, my family loved me.Hard stop.No conditions.No secrets and no fucking lies.

I would be seeing all of the Roberts clan shortly, which was one hell of a reason to smile.As the third of four grown-ass children though, I should have been settled down like the rest of them with two-point-five kids trailing along after me and making me rip my hair out.I thought I’d found the love of my life—

Enough.

I inhaled until it hurt and slowly emptied my lungs again, determined to put aside the shitty memories in exchange for a little peace and quiet.Well, not exactlyquietwith my nieces and nephews who would be running around Mom and Dad’s.Four days of rest among people who loved me as-is would settle my insides so I could return to the work they didn’t judge me for.

Elite paid well, and I felt hella satisfied fucking random clients to get back at Xavier even if he didn’t know I did it.I had plenty of cash to do whatever the hell I wanted thanks to hiring my body out to bring others pleasure, but I also enjoyed my job.

And since I had zero plans of ever allowing my emotions to get tangled up in relationship-type bullshit again, Elite was the best way for me to hook up and keep my heart safe.

Once I exited the major highway, I turned off my AC and rolled down all the windows.Fresh, too-warm air whipped through my SUV, and I breathed in the scent of summer, contentment finally sneaking into my soul as it always did whenever I went back to my roots.

The old Maine farmhouse my family had been living in for three generations sat off a side road a couple of miles outside of Nodhead Falls, and a grin spread over my face the second it came into view.My older brother Jacob had helped Dad repaint the entire thing the summer before, the white clapboards blinding in the sun hitting it head-on.

We’d joked as kids about the sprawling additions that had been added over the generations to keep our ancestors from having to brave the cold in winter.The main house connected to a mud/laundry room, then another section had been taken over by the grandchildren and namedPlayTime.That area attached directly to a garage.Another building spanned the distance from there to the barn and housed most of mom’s gardening shit.

---