"Transit", with Raev Gray (Dreamspinner Press, 2010)
"Transit" is a 25,000-word contemporary m/m novella released by Dreamspinner Press on 3 November. Get it here.
When a snow storm strands Javier Castillo in Italy at Christmas, it almost ruins his chance to win back a client his advertising agency desperately needs. The situation isn’t improved by the presence of his colleague, Andrew Young, a silver-tongued account director infamous for having slept with a client. Javier has a hard time respecting a man who would do anything for an account, but proximity may prove that Andrew is not quite the man Javier thought. They might have the opportunity to forge a successful business opportunity—or even a life together—if they don’t get cold feet.
When a snow storm strands Javier Castillo in Italy at Christmas, it almost ruins his chance to win back a client his advertising agency desperately needs. The situation isn’t improved by the presence of his colleague, Andrew Young, a silver-tongued account director infamous for having slept with a client. Javier has a hard time respecting a man who would do anything for an account, but proximity may prove that Andrew is not quite the man Javier thought. They might have the opportunity to forge a successful business opportunity—or even a life together—if they don’t get cold feet.
Excerpt
“Listen, I don’t want to hear it.” The longer the conversation went on, the less likely Andrew would be able to rescue the pizza from the oven. The handset’s ultramodern design had no sharp angles. He couldn’t wedge it between shoulder and ear without it slipping away, and that meant he needed at least one hand. Rescuing a pizza that was drying out or already burning with one hand would mean he’d burn himself, and then it would slide off the tray and land, most likely facedown, on the kitchen tiles.
“Andy, come on.”
“Fuck ‘Andy’. It’s Andrew, and you know it, sugar puff,” Andrew growled into the phone. That shut Chaz up. Andrew hadn’t been aware how nasty “sugar puff” could sound if he spoke it with enough venom. “We’ve been through this a million times, and it’s getting old. Leave me the fuck alone, or I’ll get a restraining order. I’m not fucking joking, okay? I don’t want to hear it anymore. You broke it off with me; then you come crawling back. I give you another chance; then you treat me like dirt again. I’m done with this. I’m done with hot-cold, hot-cold. I get enough ups and downs in my job. I don’t need you to kick me in the face when you feel like it too. You’re a cocksucker, and not in the nice way. Fuck you, Chaz.”
“I can tell you work in advert….”
Andrew hung up, feeling weird because he was shaking, and he wasn’t sure it was all rage. Eight months of this. I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you. Sometimes those swings had come in the middle of conversations. Some kind of mental health issue. Chaz was a classical pianist—didn’t all those guys end up insane and hanging themselves?
He put the phone down firmly on the granite countertop, then plucked two dish towels off the rack and opened the oven. He still, with a part of his brain, expected the smoke alarm to go off at the sudden wave of heat, but American flats were spacious, whereas his first flat in Sheffield had had the smoke alarm installed in the corridor, just two steps away from the oven. Making a full English always meant inviting the fire brigade to share.
The pizza was dried out, the cheese toward the rim had a dark brown skin, and some sausage slices had started to turn into carbon. Andrew ignored the health warnings about carcinogens in burned food and neatly cut out the unburned center. The phone rang again, and he stilled, aware that he was clutching the cutlery. Five times. Seven. Ten. Silence, when the answering machine took care of Chaz.
This whole drama had started when they’d decided to do “open relationship” after three months. Or rather, Chaz had so much as told him they’d be “open” from now on. And into what kind of trouble had that put them? Chaz immediately acquired two or maybe three other toyboys in the musical scene. Andrew wanted to be self-righteous, but he remembered his own McGrady disaster too well. Mixing business and pleasure. And hell, in this whole economic mess, with nobody knowing if they’d have a job come next week, getting that kind of boost to the ego had been too damned nice. You’re looking great today, Mr. Young. He was a sucker for men who complimented him. But it hadn’t actually helped his relationship much. If that train wreck of jealous calls and mutual stalking on Facebook and LinkedIn counted as a relationship. Fuck Chaz.
The pizza tasted like burned cardboard. He’d craved carbs after his last stint of diet, but this wasn’t worth it. Vaguely disgusted, he tossed the half-eaten food into the bin.
The phone began to ring again.
Andrew shot it a baleful look and headed to his wardrobe to pack for the business trip tomorrow, blanking out the calls, selecting tailored suits and ties, shirts, socks, and managing to squeeze in gym kit too. He pondered taking lube and condoms.
Ever hopeful, Andrew, he thought when he placed them into the suitcase, even though the destination was Singapore, where homosexual acts could get him caned. He didn’t expect to do anything there. Especially not since he was going to travel with Javier Castillo, the group creative director he’d gotten involved to rescue the account and smooth things over. The agency had landed a big fish with the Singapore client, but that fish, Ms. Li, was more barracuda than trout. She was on the verge of a fit in that very polite Asian kind of way because the previous creative team hadn’t successfully read her mind.
Castillo was a hard-ass, but he knew his job. Maybe some good old Latino charm might work on the lady who decided whether that account would be renewed or not. Keeping customers was important enough at the moment that Andrew was perfectly happy to do what it took and make sure he had the best shot he could get. He was, after all, the responsible account director. He’d never have gotten that far up without being efficient and sometimes ruthless.
At least he’d be out of the country over Christmas. This year he hadn’t felt like flying over to England. His older sister was going through a bad divorce and had holed up with their parents, and Andrew didn’t feel he had the strength to be supportive. That he’d never liked her soon-to-be-ex wouldn’t help either. The guy had grabbed him by the lapels at the wedding reception and called him a fucking faggot to his face, which had set the tone. Andrew had just about managed to refrain from sending her a congratulatory e-mail when he’d heard the news from their mother.
In any case, he had a lot of things on his own plate at the moment—the job, Chaz, maybe returning to England. Maybe a new job, plans that terrified him just as much as they excited him.
At the very least, the business trip meant he could get away from it all without feeling guilty. Busy rather than heartless. He’d deal with all the rest when he returned, just in time for the new year. He seriously hoped 2010 would suck less than 2009.
The phone rang again.
There were two kinds of frequent travelers: the ones who got more enraged every time they experienced a setback, expecting every need to be met immediately, and the ones who took setbacks with the resigned, dull-eyed patience of someone who was entirely too used to this kind of thing.
Javier Castillo was in the latter category, though he may or may not have let his Latin temper get the best of him in his younger years. Back then, he may or may not have been enraged at being stranded in Italy two days before Christmas, with a colleague, instead of spending time with his family in balmy San Diego. And all of this to try and save the agency’s collective asses. That colleague was Andrew Young, a British account director. Javier didn’t know him well. By reputation, sure. Everyone knew Andrew’s reputation, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
It was only convenient to take a taxi together. They worked in the same open-plan advertising office (“open spaces for open minds”), and they had to meet the same client in Singapore. Of course the travel lady had booked them on the same flight.
“Jesus, twenty-six hours of flying. You’d think the global village had shrunk the planet somewhat,” Andrew had said.
Javier had reacted with some grouchy reply and regretted it immediately. It wasn’t Andrew’s fault they were being sent out so close to the holiday, after all. Javier knew his own reputation: they said he had no sense of humor at all, that he stalked around like an angry pit bull. He’d suspected they’d simply stereotyped Latino aggression until he caught himself in the mirror one day and realized they were right. He stood completely straight, with the poise and coiled strength of a boxer, ready to bash anybody’s face in. After the initial grouchiness, he made an effort to be friendlier to Andrew and realized the Brit had been watching him, maybe trying to size him up.
They’d spent most of the flight talking business, a safe topic, and Javier had realized why Andrew was an AD. He knew his stuff and knew his clients. Plus, he had the kind of natural charm that outstripped Javier’s hard-won people skills.
As for Javier himself, he was more a creative type than a salesman. He could talk frankly and directly about what he and his creative team did. He could intrigue people with his art, but he’d never been good at setting them at ease and making them smile. He left that to the ADs. He wasn’t idealistic enough to feel that glimmer of hope that they might pull themselves out of the fire just by charm alone, but maybe in Andrew’s case he could. He really was charming.
Then, of course there would be a freak snowstorm in Northern Italy. About ten hours later, and they were late, circling Malpensa like an eagle trying to land. According to the pilot, there was some kind of fuck-up on the Italian side (of course), and they circled for half an hour more. Two and a half hours late. Not that it had mattered in the end; their connection was grounded by snow.
They went to the Crowne Plaza for rooms, but everyone else seemed to have had the same idea at the same time.
In the shadow of the huge, multicolored Christmas tree, Javier shuffled forward with the check-in line, bumping shoulders with Andrew as one or the other shifted his weight, and every time they touched, he felt it for the next five minutes. Tired and travel-dazed as he was, he found his gaze wandering from admiring the architecture to admiring the line of that pale neck, the curve of his ear, the simple aesthetic of the human body. That aesthetic was entirely sexual for Javier.
He knew there’d be trouble when the clerks behind the counter started getting nervous, leaning to one side to see how long the line was, conferring with one another. He suspected the hotel was nearly filled with the other few hundred grounded passengers. They were third and fourth in line now; maybe they’d get lucky.
He and Andrew stood shoulder to shoulder at the counter; they stepped up simultaneously, and the clerk glanced uneasily between them. “Only one room, signori.”
Javier hoped he had misunderstood and it was a question. “There’s only one room left?”
The clerk nodded. Avoiding Andrew’s eyes, Javier set the company credit card and his passport down on the counter, shaking his head. What else, he thought. What fucking else.
“Is it a double?” Andrew jumped into the breach. “If that’s okay, Javier.”
“It’s fine.” Javier sighed and decided he honestly didn’t care. He’d had to share a room with a travel partner before; in spite of what some spoiled suits thought, it wouldn’t kill either of them. He’d ignore Andrew’s proximity, too tired to do anything about it anyway, and they’d be back on the metaphorical road in the morning.
“Double, signore,” the clerk agreed, and passed a key card across.
“We’ll need two,” Javier said. The clerk seemed to take this as an insult and cast him a positively dirty look. Javier was well-accustomed to dealing with affronted artists and won the stare-down. The clerk programmed another key card and slapped it onto the counter with ill grace. Javier glanced at the room number, then headed for the elevator, muttering under his breath, “If the global village makes the world smaller, I hope it starts by cutting Italy out first.”
Andrew burst into laughter, startling Javier. He was still smiling when they entered the elevator, and Javier studied him out of the corner of his eye. There was an odd lightness in his expression that didn’t seem to fit hours of travel and delays. Was it phony, or was he just that good-natured?
He was too drained for further small talk, but once the door shut behind them, he suddenly realized they were alone, in a hotel room. The beds were pushed together.
“If you want the bathroom first,” Andrew offered, and placed the suitcase on the nearest bed. He pulled the folded clothes out and hung them up so they wouldn’t crumple, then shed his jacket, pulled the silver cuff links out, and rolled up his sleeves, baring pale arms covered with barely visible blond hair. Those arms were toned, probably from the gym, and moved with quick, clever gestures. “Want anything from the menu?”
“They have any kind of fish?” Javier studiously turned away from Andrew and the pushed-together beds and went into the bathroom for a shower, waiting until he’d stripped to start the water. The four-star hotel was classy enough to have adequate hot water—probably—but he didn’t chance it.
He hung his jacket on the rack outside the door and shed his shoes, putting them underneath the rack. He peeled his shirt and undershirt off with a relieved sigh. In the mirror, he caught sight of the full-color tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his right shoulder, just outside his shoulder blade. The ink was old, faded, the lines beginning to blur, but every time he saw it, it startled him, as if he didn’t expect it to be there on his body.
“Uh. Grilled fish. Swordfish, I think,” Andrew said. Javier spotted the other man’s face in the mirror, looking through the partly open door. They broke eye contact simultaneously. “I’ll order that.”
Javier closed the door and took in a deep breath before he pulled off his pants and started the shower. Christ, this was a terrible idea. He could still feel those pale eyes on him, eyebrows lifted slightly. Clearly checking him out. No. Absolutely not. It could not happen. He made the shower quick, forcing his mind to a different topic, wondering what his parents and siblings were doing, calculating the time difference to New York and San Diego, deciding if he should call. But Andrew wouldn’t leave his mind, and he only succeeded in making himself feel dirty. He surrendered the shower with some perfunctory comment and waited to see if Andrew would leave the door open even a fraction. He didn’t.
Reviews
I do not have a lot to say about this novella, except that it all just worked for me in such lovely way. Loved the connection between Andrew and Javier, despite the fact that I am usually not a fan of Instalove, but the fact that they worked together and at least noticed each other at work made me believe that at least instant lust was very possible.
I just loved both guys with their insecurities, both wanting to reach out and not wanting to be hurt again. And of course fear of losing their jobs added very believable tension in the potential beginning of their relationship and added very realistic touch to me.
I also loved that authors did not care to explain to us whether Andrew really slept with the client in the past or not, it made for the possibility of more flawed and endearing protagonist, because "things just happened" could mean anything.
It was fast and very enjoyable read. -- Sirius11215 at Amazon
This story is so sweet and mature at the same time. I usually smirk on the idea of "falling in love within days" but the way that both Gray/Voinov pen this story out just make me a believer.
When the two colleagues are stranded because of a freak snowstorm in Northern Italy, Andrew and Javier are forced to share a room and a bed ... which later results in sharing their thoughts and worries and expectations. While they start from different place in life, the two men actually want the same finish line -- a relationship, a pair of dogs (or cats), family. Simply the joy of knowing that you have someone to be there through the thick and thin; which makes them connected in much deeper level -- and this is why I believe in them, even if the journey of falling in love happens quite fast.
Beautifully written (with an HEA no less) and intimate (all those talking sessions in the room), make me falling in love with the story from the beginning to the very end. -- Ami at Goodreads
Transit is the story of two men travelling on a parallel journey, each longing to arrive at the same destination, but following different paths to get there. Placing trust in something fragile, in something that comes with no guarantees, requires courage and compromise; it’s a pass or fail test for which there is no way to prepare.
Andrew and Javier were both incredibly engaging characters whose lives were filled with the strengths, insecurities, and uncertainties that made them each relatable. They were a fine example of how opposites attract and of how an opposing force can often become the catalyst for much needed change. Their attraction to each other may have sparked effortlessly, but their personal and professional lives hit just enough snags along the way to add a bit of angst and depth to their romance and gave me a reason to welcome their happy ending. -- Lisa at Goodreads
