Page 10 of Country Road Romance

“I know it isn’t,” he said. “But it’s also not as easy as you might think to get ahead in the writing business. No matter how hard you try, you get knocked down, and it can take a lot to get back on your feet after that.”

Charlie barked out a little laugh. “I think that rejection is just a key part of being a creative. You have to develop a thick skin about these things.”

Jared wanted to tell him that he knew all of that already, which was why he was content to just…not deal with it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle rejection–he could, or at least he thought he could–it was just that, having dealt with so manydisappointments and rejections in his personal life, he would just rather avoid having to deal with them in his professional life.

Don’t go there, Jared,he thought.Just keep it light and smooth and let it go at that.

Charlie seemed to sense that he might have overstepped a boundary because he made an abrupt change of direction in their conversation.

“You know what,” he said. “Let’s go to the Stonewall tonight.” Again he got that rather sheepish look on his face. “I’ll admit that I did a little bit of research on that place, too. I still can’t quite believe a place like Huntington has a gay bar.”

“It used to have three,” Jared said matter-of-factly. “But, well, times change, I guess, and it’s gotten harder to keep gay bars open.”

Charlie shook his head. “You know, it’s a shame. I don’t think people these days realize how important gay bars were to guys our age.” He snorted an indelicate laugh. “I guess we’re being called geriatric millennials.”

“Funny that you would make an assumption that I’malsoa geriatric millennial,” Jared said even though, of course, he was very much a geriatric millennial.

“Well,” Charlie said with a smirk, “you do have quite a lot of gray hair, so unless you started going gray at an early age, I’d say that you’re at least in your mid-thirties.”

“Not all of us are lucky enough to be blonde,” he said. “You’re never going to really go gray. It’ll just gradually turn white, until you look like a distinguished older gentleman.

“Or an English lawyer.”

They both shared a laugh and, just like that, something seemed to change between them, for a while at least.

“You’re just lucky that the Stonewall is open tonight at all,” Jared said. “They’re normally closed on weeknights, but they decided to have a special night since the film festival is in town.”

Just then Charlie’s stomach growled, and so did Jared’s.

“Uh, would you like to get something to eat?” Jared asked. He glanced at his watch. “It’s gonna be quite a while before the Stonewall opens, so we have some time to kill.”

Charlie beamed that smile at him.

“I’d love that.”

They got some McDonald’s–“It’smy favorite cheat food,” Charlie explained with a blush–and somehow managed to spend the next several hours just driving around Huntington and its environs. Jared found it strangely to show off this city that he’d come to love. By the end of the day they were at Harris Riverfront Park. It might have seen better days, but Jared had always thought it had its unique faded beauty.

The sun was already starting to set and, if Jared was being honest with himself, he wasn’t quite ready to go to the bar yet. He couldn’t quite define why, but he knew there was something magical going on here, something that he wouldn’t be able to recapture once it went away.

You really are a hopeless romantic.

“I’m not quite ready to go yet, though,” Charlie said, seeming to read his mind. “I just kind of enjoy sitting here in peace and quiet.”

And that’s just what they did, until the last sliver of the sun slipped below the horizon, leaving them bathed in the gloom of evening.

Jared sighed, because it was starting to get chilly, and he just felt that it was time for them to get going, before this little rendezvous could get any more romantic.

You could kiss him right now and no one would be any the wiser,a little voice in his head said.You know you want to.

He shook his head to clear it of that troubling little thought. His life was messy and complicated enough without kissing Charlie Garrett and opening that whole can of worms.

“Shall we go?”

The words sounded abrupt and a little rude to his own ears, but if Charlie thought the same thing he didn’t say it. Instead he just flashed that dazzling smile, and Jared found himself glad he was sitting down, because his knees felt a little wobbly.

Good Lord, pull yourself together.

“Yes, let’s,” he said instead.

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