A gay story: Puppy Love Ch. 05 Chapter 5 of 6
As usual I’m always interested in your thoughts and feedback
Jack’s alarm went off Tuesday morning… the sound of rain tap dancing on the bedroom window.
Looking at Luke laying in bed next to him, he let out a steady breath of relief… it wasn’t a dream. Everything that happened between them was real. He laughed to himself, still having a hard time wrapping his brain around it all.
Jack reached over and gave Luke a light shake “time to get up” Jack whispered “we’ve gotta get ready for work.”
Rolling over towards Jack, Luke opened his eyes and stretched his arms wide. Damn, those eyes. Those greener than green eyes. “Sounds like it raining” Jack said “do you still want to walk to work or take the car?”
“Doesn’t really matter to me” Luke yawned “either is fine with me.”
Jack leaned in against Luke and kissed him, a few bright, rapid kisses on his lips that Luke greedily accepted. Running his fingers over Luke’s chest, Jack stopped and brushed the right nipple, his index finger circling around the dark red nub – giving a light tug on the silver piercing. Luke let slip a moan of pleasure and cracked a playful smile.
“Maybe the car? We can swing by my place on the way in to see if I have water yet?”
“Yeah, great idea, that works for me.”
“Plus, if you don’t stop teasing me…” Luke took Jack’s hand and placed it on his hard cock “see what you started.”
Jack laughed “sorry, my bad. Need me to handle that for you?”
“No” Luke chuckled, rolling onto his side, away from Jack “you’ve done more than enough, thank you.” He laughed “If you keep this up we won’t just be late for work, we’ll never leave the house.” Taking one more look at the clock on the bedside table “yeah, definitely the car.”
–
Luke dragged himself out of Jack’s bed, he could hear Theo and Olive whimpering on the other side of the door. The dogs immediately charged the room, happily bounding in and out, trampling Luke when he opened it. Dogs around this feet, dogs running around the room, dogs jumping on the bed. Luke stood silently and watched, smiling to himself. Olive was happy, he was happy and, especially, Jack was happy. He could get used to this whole happiness thing.
“We’ll divide and conquer this morning. You shower and I’ll let the dogs out. Then you can bring them back in while I clean up.”
Luke closed his eyes and slowly shook his head “so that means I’ll be freshly showered and wrangling two wet dogs back into the house? How dumb do you think I am Mr. Poole?”
“Caught that did you?” Jack smiled “Ok, new plan. We both take the dogs out and then come up and shower together.” Jack waggled his eyebrows.
Luke leaned close into Jack “Much.” kiss “Better.” kiss “Plan.” kiss.
Before heading off, Jack and Luke settled Theo and Olive in for the day. Jack knew the dogs would be fine at home for the day. Theo had spent many days unsupervised while Jack worked – Olive would be just fine for her first ‘home alone’ work day.
–
At the office, Jack and Luke rode the elevator to the third floor. Stepping out, they each briefly took the others’ hand – giving a gentle squeeze, and turned to their respective directions. Jack going left to Art, Luke to the right towards Authors.
Bob Brown rounded the corner just as Jack was settling into his desk “So, Jack, how are we doing with the art for the Princess Pig book?”
“Last illustration is sketched, just needs to be outlined and colored. I’ll have everything ready for prepress today. Right on schedule.”
“Excellent Jack! Great job… because I have your next assignment ready to go.”
“I already have my next assignment. I’ve had it for a couple weeks now.”
Bob made a sweeping motion with his hands “brush that aside for the time being. We have a book we’re aiming to push out a little sooner than expected. Needs a new front cover.”
This wasn’t anything new, it’s rather common in publishing. One book may suddenly become ready to launch sooner, so projects are swapped out.
Bob handed him an intent page including a brief synopsis of the book, age demographic, author info and more “That’s fine. What am I working on now?”
“A new YA novel by an up and coming author. It’s already been through the first round of revisions… the author is working on those now.” Bob stood there as Jack scanned his new assignment. “content could be ready to go in a month or less.”
“Shelter Me by Lily Kelly” Jack read.
FUCK! This is Luke’s book! He didn’t say anything about the title change… I wonder if he even knows? Plus the author too… does he realize it’s not even in his name anymore!?
“Wait, no. Author pitched a new name and Marketing ate it up. It’s part of the reason we need a new cover.”
Bob took the intent page back from Jack, crossing out the old title and replacing it with ‘Puppy Love’… the idea he and Luke came up with at the diner.
“Takes place around two teens volunteering at an animal shelter, what I read of it sounds sweet.”
Jack smiled back at Bob “Thanks for the info… I’ll have it ready for deadline.”
Bob began to walk away but stopped, turning around slowly “I’m sure you’ll come up with something great for Luke” he grinned a wide smile “after all, that’s why I gave it to you.”
“What do you… I mean… why would you think? We’re not…”
Bob laughed “Just because I’m not in every department every day doesn’t mean I don’t see things. It’s nice to see you shining again Jackson.”
Jack looked at his feet and blushed.
–
‘Gotta see you at lunch. Do you have time?’ Jack texted Luke.
‘I’m touched’ Luke responded with a blushing emoji.
Jack laughed at the response ‘don’t flatter yourself, it’s business’ eye roll emoji.
‘Meet you downstairs at Noon?’
‘Sure. BTW, Bob suspects something going on between us.’
Luke replied quickly with a mind blown emoji.
‘Fill you in at lunch.’
–
Before they knew it, Noon had rolled around and the rain had all but let up. It was just a little Summer drizzle at this point. Jack and Luke walked toward Burgers & Beyond, a trendy sandwich place up the street. Jack was trying to find a gentle way of letting Luke know his fantastic, highly praised, book was no longer his. How do you tell someone who’s invested so much energy into a project that it was being pulled out from under them?
After placing their orders, the guys found a seat along the front windows.
“So… what’s going on?” Luke asked smiling.
“Shit, don’t smile. You’re not going to like this” Jack bit his lower lip concentrating on what to say.
“Tell me” Luke was concerned now.
“Ok, I was assigned your book as my next project”
“That’s fantastic! What’s so bad about that?”
Jack took a deep breath “alright, it needs a new cover because their changing the title to ‘Puppy Love’.”
“Like we talked about at the diner! That’s fantastic!”
“Yeah, well. The book isn’t written by Luke Larson, it’s someone named Lily…”
Luke cut him off “Lily Kelly”.
Jack looked confused “Wait… how? Do you know her?”
“I’m very familiar with her work” Luke smiled “she’s a great author.”
Jack frowned “so, what, Dove is giving her your book?”
“Kind of” Luke reached across the table and took Jack’s hand “Lily Kelly is me… or at least the name they’re using for this book at Dove. If it sells as well as they think I’ll be writing a few others.”