Fresh Start: A Small Town Gay Romance (Cedarwood Beach Book 1) Read online

  God, it felt good to be out of LA and all the other big cities that we’d visited. The roads were quieter. The sky was clearer. Hell, even the air was different. Once I was on the final stretch on SR14, the silence and peace were even stronger.

  I can’t believe it had taken me this long to visit. Already, I was starting to feel myself again, and I’d almost forgotten who that was. Detective Strong and the Monster of the Abyss had taken six months to film, not counting the reshoots, the dubbing, and all the promoting. A year and something out of my life, which I was grateful for, but I always wondered if spending so much time working was taking me away from real life.

  That fan had a point.

  The press knew nothing about my personal life–which was just how I liked it–other than what Tracy let out. In fact, the only things the press knew about me were not even true. Tracy had molded this picture of me as the playboy looking for love in all the wrong places, when in fact, none of it was real. I hadn’t even been in a relationship since I was at thirty.

  My headlights illuminated a sign that welcomed me in the small town.

  Cedarwood Beach, VA. Population: 1,766

  1,766? I don’t think I’d ever been in a small town like that, ever! Growing up in Chicago, I was used to the hustle and bustle of a busy city and sought it out everywhere I’d settled since I left. I was curious to find out how different things were in a place like this.

  My GPS guided me through the outskirts of the town and got me to my parents’ house in no time. I parked the car in their driveaway and got out. The house rose over two stories, and the exterior was reinforced with grey stonework. Their front garden was covered in green grass and pretty flower beds that I was certain Mom had planted, and the path in middle was illuminated by small solar lights.

  I walked up to the front door and knocked.

  It was only ten in the evening, and my parents weren’t known for going to bed early, but when no one responded after a few minutes, I panicked.

  Maybe I should have told them I was coming. I wanted to surprise them, but what if they weren’t even home? I pressed their doorbell, and it shook the entire house with its chime. If that didn’t get their attention, than I didn’t know what would.

  The door opened, and my mother appeared behind it wearing an emerald green evening dress and holding a champagne glass in one hand.

  “D-Dawson,” she shrieked, and for a split second, I thought she was going to slap me.

  But then she wrapped her arms around me in one of her mama bear hugs that I’d missed more than I cared to admit.

  “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I wanted to surprise you, Ma. Is that okay?” I asked.

  “Of course it’s okay,” she said. “But I thought you were busy with your press tour.”

  “Come on, Ma. I wouldn’t miss your fortieth wedding anniversary,” I said.

  Mom stepped aside and welcomed me in the house. When she closed the door, I realized there was an ambient music around the house and the lights were dimmed.

  “Well, you missed all the other ones,” she said in her usual honest tone.

  My mother didn’t do subtle. And she didn’t hold grudges. But she always said exactly what went through her mind, as if she had no filter. That little issue was one of the reasons she never held any friends for too long. She meant well, but not everyone got the chance to know that.

  “I know. I’m sorry. You know how it—”

  “Oh, darling, I know. You work hard. Perhaps too hard. We know you love us. Even if it wouldn’t hurt you to show us sometimes,” she said, and a pang of guilt pressed on my chest.

  “I wouldn’t want to miss your ruby anniversary. You did invite me, after all,” I said.

  “We invite you every year, darling. You’ve never come before,” she said.

  I put my hands up and let the subject go. Mom walked me through the hallway and the music became louder.

  “Fair enough. I’ve been a bad son. I know. I’ll try and make it up to you,” I said, and Mom took a sip of her drink and raised her eyebrows. “Are you having a party?”

  Mom walked faster toward the back, and I followed.

  “Yes, we decided to have a little soirée. Uncle Larry and your cousins are here early, and Linda decided to leave Roland, so she’s sleeping in one of the guest rooms,” she said, and I walked into the open plan kitchen and dining room and was immediately taken aback by all the family gathered in one place.

  My aunt approached me and gave me a warm hug, and the rest of the family surrounded me.

  I’d missed this. Being amongst family. I hadn’t had that since I left home. The realization made my eyes sting, and I blinked the unwelcome tears away.

  “Where are you staying, sweetie? You gotta be careful. The town might be small, but I’m sure people will start recognizing you once you go out in broad daylight,” Aunt Sally said.

  “Oh,” I replied and turned to Mom and Dad. “I was hoping to stay with you guys.”

  My dad slapped me at the back and huffed.

  "We'll make some space for my boy, won't we? It's all good," he said.

  "Yes," Mom agreed. "I'm sure we can fit you in somewhere."

  She got up and started looking around herself for a solution to the problem.

  "Maybe in the media room. But then the kids will wake him up every morning. Or maybe we should put the kids in the media room, although then they won't ever go to bed," she mumbled.

  "It's okay," I said not wanting to ruin the moment with any unnecessary stress. "I'll just get a hotel somewhere. Don't worry. I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

  Mom turned to me, and her eyes shot wide open.

  "No, it's okay. We'll make space. You won't be able to find a room this late. The Butterfly Festival starts tomorrow, and everything will be fully booked,” she said.

  “The what?”

  “The Butterfly Festival. It’s a week-long, annual event. There are lots of activities for kids and adults, and then at the end, we release the baby butterflies into the world. It’s magical.”

  “Indeed. It’s so pretty,” Aunt Sally said.

  And with that, I knew I had a lot of making up to do. Even Aunt Sally, who lived in Canada with her husband and her five children, had been to the Butterfly Festival before. And I, with all the money that I had accumulated from my movies and how easy it was to hire a private jet, hadn’t even been to this town since they moved here after retirement.

  I was a bad son.

  But there was still time to apologize for all the years I’d missed.

  “Okay, in that case, I better head to town,” I said and got up to leave.

  Mom hooked herself to me as if we were glued together and tried to stop me.

  "Dawson, don't be silly. We'll figure something out. Won't we, Jeff?" she turned to my dad for support.

  "Of course we will," he said. "Larry, come on. Let's go upstairs and move some things around."

  My uncle got up from his chair without a second to spare, but I already felt bad. I wasn't going to let them go into so much trouble. I should have called. It was stupid of me to assume that they wouldn't have family visiting.

  "Dad, no. Honestly, it's ok," I said.

  "But Dawson—" Mom started again, and I knew I'd have to nip this in the bud if I didn't want to get them all distressed so late in the evening.

  "Why don't I go into town and try to get a hotel, and if I can't find anything, then we can figure out if you can fit me somewhere for tonight? How does that sound?"

  Mom shook her head. "But we haven't seen you in forever. I don't want you staying far away," she said.

  I gave her a hug to show her how much I loved her and to put her mind at ease and then turned to my dad.

  "I came here for you guys. We can spend as much time together as you want."

  Dad smiled and squeezed my shoulder as Uncle Larry took his seat back.

  "I should go before it gets too late," I sa
id.

  Mom hugged me and made me promise to call with an update, and my dad walked me to the driveway. When we got to my car, he stood back and admired the rental.

  “A Bentley, huh? My boy’s got taste and style,” he said and slapped me on the back again.

  “Well, I gotta make something out of all my hard work,” I said defensively. I didn’t know why.

  “Yeah, you do. You work hard, so you deserve to spoil yourself,” Dad said.

  I unlocked the car and got in.

  “You know, you don’t have to lock your car around here. It’s weird, but once you’ve been here for a while, you get used to it,” he said and leaned into my window, taking a look at the interior.

  “I’m only staying a week, Dad. But I’ll make sure it isn’t the last time I visit,” I said and turned the key on the ignition.

  “It’s good to see you, Son. I’m glad you came,” he replied, and I nodded as I reversed the car onto the main road.

  I drove off before he could see the unshed tears pooling in my eyes.

  The town was only a ten-minute drive away, but as predicted, all the hotels and inns were fully booked. I’d been so stupid to come all this way without checking things first. Karen could have helped me book something. It was my fault, of course.

  It was incredible how many hotel rooms and bed & breakfasts a small town like that could have. And they were all at capacity. Just my luck, wasn’t it? It should teach me for leaving things to the last minute. I might be Dawson Eldred, Hollywood A-lister out there in front of the lights and the cameras, but here? I was just Dawson.

  I walked along the seafront, taking the scenery in. Most shops were closed, but the few bars and restaurants that were open were buzzing with locals and tourists alike. The walkway was pebbled, and there were benches dotted at equal lengths that overlooked Mobjack Bay.

  At the other end of the town square, I caught a glimpse of a large house with cables of fairy lights stretching from the center over the front door to the trees opposite. I approached it, intrigued by the luminescent décor, and when I reached the main entrance, I read the sign over the front door.

  Melody’s Bed & Breakfast.

  Not really believing there would be any space in the most prominent building I’d seen along the promenade, I walked in and braced myself for rejection.

  A woman who looked to be in her late thirties, with long black curls and the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen, looked up at me from a little desk that served as a reception area.

  “Hello. Welcome to Melody’s. I’m Melody. How can I help?” she asked.

  Her face reminded me of someone, yet I couldn’t decide who, and I definitely hadn’t met this woman before. It was going to bug me for a long time until I could figure it out.

  “Well, I know it’s a long shot, but I’m looking for a room,” I said. “Even if it’s only for the night.”

  Melody stood up and came round to my side.

  “You’re a very lucky man. I just had a cancellation call in. How long are you staying?”

  That was lucky indeed.

  Two

  Leo

  “Leo Karras should have stayed in the collective memory of Britain as the boy band heart-throb and steered clear of the West End because his latest debut on the stage is nothing short of a shambles. Stick to what you know, Leo. We’ll all be better for it,” I read in the paper I’d picked up on my way to the coffee shop.

  My fists curled around the pages, making it crumple, and my eyes blurred, the lines of the review blending together into a chaos of letters. What more could I do? Was there even anything I could do, or should do, and would it even change the critics’ opinion of me?

  “Next,” shouted the barista, and it took a couple of tries before I realized he was talking to me, and I moved to stand in front of him. “What can I get for ya, mate?”

  I browsed the board over him, reading all the artisan coffees they served even though I knew very well I’d go for my usual. A woman tutted behind me, and I put the newspaper down.

  “I’ll have a caramel iced latte with cream, please,” I said and tapped my card on the card machine, then joined the queue of people waiting for their drinks.

  Even though the paper was now resting at the bottom of the trash in the shop, the words danced in front of me everywhere I looked. It was a catch-22. Everything I did. No matter how good I thought I was, no matter how much the fans loved me, I couldn’t catch a break.

  Acting had been my passion since I was a little munchkin in rural Virginia, and that same passion had taken me all the way to New York to study at the NYC School for the Dramatic Arts. And when I finally got a part, after a lifetime of waiting and getting nothing in return, the critics had to go and crap all over it.

  Stick to what you know. Really? How could anyone even grasp what my breadth of knowledge even entailed? What my skillset even was. All my life, I’d watched celebrity after celebrity after celebrity parade their usually artless asses through my dreams and get applauded for it, and when I was finally doing what I loved, no one cared for it.

  It was funny, in a way. When I was in One Shot and we were taking Britain by storm with our hits, the critics were begging me to stick to what I knew best. Modeling. I was just a pretty face and nothing more. And when I was a model? Well, no one cared much about what I knew best. It was all about the looks.

  “Iced latte for Leo,” another barista called out, and the few people waiting turned to look at me, recognition coloring their faces.

  I approached the guy and grabbed my coffee.

  “Hey, aren’t you from One Shot?” he said.

  Did it matter that I’d been cast as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes: The Musical Whodunnit? No. Because everyone just remembered Leo, the wild One Shot member.

  “Yes, and?” I snapped at him and immediately regretted it.

  It wasn’t his fault the critics were making our show tank. He was just a man. He wasn’t to blame that I was a failure. I’d achieved that all by myself.

  I looked at him to try and apologize, but the guy shook his head and returned to his next order, so I gave up and left the coffee shop, coming back out on the busy high street at Camden.

  This area had been my home for more than a few years, only lately I couldn’t stand it. The people, the tourist crowds, the pretense. To be fair, nowhere felt like home anymore.

  I left Cedarwood Beach when I was just a babe, barely legal, and hadn’t returned since. That had been my only home, and by the time I came of age, I couldn’t wait to leave and never return.

  Maybe this was karma, and I was paying some stupid price for something terrible I’d done that I wasn’t even aware of.

  I didn’t know what it was. What I knew for sure was that if I didn’t control this bullshit, my career as an actor would be over before it had even begun.

  Retrieving my phone from my pocket, I immediately called Milo, who answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, sweetheart. I was just thinking about my cutie, sex-on-legs client. What can I do you for?” he sang on the other end.

  At least there was someone who was always on my side, no matter what crap the press or life threw my way. And boy did he know how to make me feel wanted.

  “Hey M, have you read the Daily Post?”

  “No. Should I?” he asked.

  “Uhm, hell yeah. There’s a scathing review for the show,” I told him. “This is what? The seventh in a week?”

  “More like the twelfth, darling. I haven’t been showing you everything they’re writing about you. I don’t want you going into a depress mode,” he chuckled. “You get it? Depress mode?”

  I turned left to one of the side streets that was less crammed and walked up toward Primrose Hill and back home.

  “Have you heard anything from Nichols?”

  Nichols had approached me specifically for this part and had coached me on everything I needed to make my stage debut, but no director or producer could keep a show alive if
all the critics hated it and the tickets didn’t sell.

  “He’s trying to deal with the situation. It’s only the previews anyway, darling. He’s already got the writers working on bettering the script. Don’t panic. Besides, the people are loving it, and that’s what matters,” Milo said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s a relief, I guess,” I said. I took the house keys out of my back pocket and unlocked my front door. “Are you sure they’re loving it?”

  “Of course they do. Just... don’t go on Reddit, okay?”

  I rolled my eyes at my close friend and agent and closed the front door.

  “You’re not supposed to tell me that. Now, of course, I’m going to go on Reddit,” I said. “Gee, M, you’re terrible at this.”

  Milo let out a shrill gasp, and I could picture him clasping his imaginary pearls.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Douche. I’m not your PA. I’m your agent. A-gent. If you want someone to sugar coat shit, hire a professional sugar-coater. I ain’t one,” he said, and we both knew that was a lie.

  Milo had been by my side since before the band broke up and had stuck with me through my tumultuous years as an addict. If there was a professional sugar-coater, Milo was definitely it.

  “Anyway,” he said as I took a sip of my drink. “Where are you? What are you doing? What are you wearing?”

  The coffee went down the wrong pipe, and I coughed it all back out.

  “For fuck’s sake, Milo. Don’t do that to me,” I complained.

  “What? What did I do?” he asked.

  “Made me choke,” I said.

  “Oh, darling. It’s not my fault you have a terrible gag reflex. And I can’t help it. I’m a funny girl. Sue me. You didn’t answer my questions, though,” he said.

  “I just got home and was about to start cooking us roast dinner,” I answered. “Why?”

  “No reason. It’s fine. I’ll see you later then,” he said and hung up before I could ask him what he was planning. Because if I knew one thing about Milo, it was that he was always planning something.

  I got to my kitchen and turned the oven on while trying to forget the stupid paper and resist the urge to go online and read what people thought of my newest project.