Page 6 of Fanboy in the Falls (Devon Falls #3)

I’m being attacked by an onslaught of hormones my body has no chance against. —Gabe Gomez

So. It turns out I love demolishing things.

“Very impressive, little one,” Tom says as he watches me haul the sledgehammer up over my shoulder, draw it down across my body, and crush it against the sheetrock. “You and that sledgehammer are really having a moment together.”

I’m definitely not imagining that the wall is Dave. Definitely, definitely not.

“Nice form!” Colin shouts above the music we’ve got playing in the background. Heavy metal, which is Tom’s favorite. Colin, it turns out, is more into indie rock and rap.

I probably would have thought those preferences would be reversed.

Three days into our renovation project, I’m learning all kinds of things about two of my heroes.

Like how Colin doesn’t like tomatoes on his sandwiches unless they’re salted.

Or how Tom once sprained his ankle when he tried to do his own falling stunt on the set of a comedy action movie and accidentally crashed into a wall.

Or how they look at each other every single time someone asks one of them a question. Like they’re wired to always have a quick mental conversation with each other just to make sure they’re both on the same page.

I bring the sledgehammer down a little bit harder against the wall as I wonder what it would be like to have someone like that. A guaranteed partner to look to whenever I needed them—even if they weren’t actually my partner.

“Nice shot, Gabe!” Colin calls over the music. He drops his own sledgehammer easily over his shoulder and steps over to the pill-shaped speaker by the wall. He bends over to turn the music off, and I do everything I can not to stare at his ass.

If you want to stare at a guy’s ass and you identify as a guy, that definitely means you’re not straight, right? Or, if the ass in question belongs to Colin Templegate, does that mean you’re just human? I really wish someone would explain the rules to me.

Tom wipes beads of sweat from his forehead. “When do we get to be finished with this part, bestie? I don’t believe I enjoy destroying property nearly as much as the two of you.”

Colin tilts an eyebrow. “There’s a hotel room in Ibiza that suggests otherwise.”

“I’m insulted.” Tom huffs, but he’s smiling. He drops his own sledgehammer and crosses his arms over his chest. “My dates were responsible for most of that damage, as you well know. Especially the sink that fell out of the wall.”

I cough. “A sink fell out of a wall?” Now I grip my own sledgehammer even tighter. What the heck were they doing to make a sink fall out of a wall? And dates ? Multiple people caused the destruction of the sink together?

My brain’s working overtime conjuring up fantasies, and I have to drop my arms to quickly cover my groin. Good thing I wore very loose jogging pants today.

Colin snorts. “If I remember right, the bed also withstood some serious damage.” He smirks at Tom, who just smiles and winks. I tighten up my hands and pray that neither of them notice the slight rise in the cotton of my joggers.

“Well, good news,” Colin says. “We’re nearly done for the day. Eric said to take out this wall between the bedroom and bathroom; this is the only one that had serious drywall damage. So if we finish taking out this section, we should be good.”

I feel like cheering. We’re only a few days into this project, and we’ve already done most of the demo work on one of the rooms. Hopefully, this means we’re on schedule for having everything finished by the leaf festival.

I know Bethany decided to keep all the bookings for that week, which means we’ve got to be done by then if we want the inn to stay in business this year.

If only the Devon Falls Leaf Festival, one of my favorite weekends of the year, wasn’t also hanging over me like some kind of ticking cartoon bomb clock. Dave texted me again yesterday, because I’m pretty sure he can sense my panic all the way from Rochester.

Dave

Everything good? You still able to work at that winery and take care of my kid? Make sure you keep Lou out of those skirts and tutus. And don’t show him any of that weird shit you like. None of those shows with all the gay people.

I might have purposely let Lou wear his favorite purple tutu right after I saw that text.

And I thought I’d hidden my favorite shows from Dave pretty well the last time he was in Devon Falls, but I guess not.

Great. I texted Dave back that everything was fine and then repeated my affirmations for almost two hours straight.

And then I started looking up lawyers. And bus tickets.

“Excellent news.” Tom raises the hammer back up over his head. “Honestly, if I’d had any idea how dreadfully boring renovation was, I may not have suggested we take on this project. I simply have no idea why on earth you two like this whole demolition thing so much.”

“It’s cathartic,” Colin and I both say, exactly at the same time. He glances over at me in surprise, and I drop my gaze to the charred carpet below me.

Tom snorts. “Loves, I can think of many things that feel much more cathartic than this. Trust me.” He starts to aim the sledgehammer for the wall.

“Be careful,” Colin says. “The pipes we’re trying to avoid are—”

But he doesn’t manage to get the words out before Tom’s hammer hits, cracking a large hole into the half-collapsed, blackened drywall there.

And then the water comes.

It spits out from the wall, spraying all three of us, and it’s so shockingly cold that I actually shriek like Lou does when I let him run through the sprinklers. “I told you to turn the water off!” Colin shouts at Tom.

“I’m certain I did!”

“Sure doesn’t look like it!”

The two of them rush toward the broken pipe jutting out of the wall.

“I’ll get the water valve!” I shout. I rush past the stream, breathing through the shock of cold.

I can’t shut off the water to the whole inn, or the guests Bethany and Evelyn let back into the unaffected front rooms will be livid.

Luckily, Eric showed us where to shut off different sections of the old house’s water.

I’m guessing Tom just hit the wrong switch.

I can hear Tom and Colin trading comments and barbs back and forth about wet t-shirt contests and useless YouTube videos all the way to the basement stairs.

But the basement under this part of the house is small, more like a crawl space since this area of the building was actually added onto the original house sixty or seventy years ago.

I move on my knees through dust, dirt, and cobwebs before I find and close the shutoff valve.

By the time I get back to the room we’re working on, I’m panting and gross, and the dirt from the crawlspace has attached itself to my soaking-wet formerly yellow t-shirt, creating rivets of mud and brown water.

I don’t even want to imagine what my face looks like right now.

“It’s off,” I tell them, dropping my hands to my knees while I catch my breath. “And I—”

I can’t finish my sentence, though. Because Colin and Tom are just standing there, and all of their clothes are completely soaked through.

The outlines of Colin’s pectoral muscles and nipples are clear and distinct through the blue t-shirt now clinging to his body, and the outline of Tom’s belly and arm muscles is telegraphing the exact shape of his upper body.

I choke on my own breath. I’m being attacked by an onslaught of hormones my body has no chance against. My cock stands up so fast it almost hurts, and I know I have to get out of this room before either one of the men in front of me notice.

Before they realize that I can’t even be in the same room with the two of them like this without losing every ounce of control I have.

“I need to rinse off! Lake!” I call out in a choked voice, and then I take off out of the room again, rushing down the back hallway of the building, out the door, past the crawlspace I just came out of, and down to the edge of the small lake that butts up against the edge of the winery’s property.

I throw myself into it.

The cold water hits me like a freight train, and for a moment, I have to fight not to panic as the frigid temperature sinks through my body.

I manage to grab hold of my breath and hold it before water finds its way into my lungs.

I let myself fall for a moment, drifting in the stillness of the water.

The world goes still, just for a moment.

And for that moment, I wonder what it would be like if I let myself keep falling. Away from all the hardest parts of the real world.

My mom first got sick when I was fifteen, not long after Lou was born.

And ever since then, it’s like I’ve been treading water, just trying to stay afloat in a world that’s determined to drown me.

That was when Dave slunk out of the hospital room and into an online world, leaving me to take care of my mom and Lou while he just seemed to get angrier and meaner.

Then Mom died and Dave took off with Lou, and I was alone and in foster care and so desperate to see Lou again that nothing else seemed to matter but that.

And when I finally made it to Devon Falls and Dave started leaving Lou with me while he left to take road work jobs, I thought maybe I’d finally figured it out: how to tread water in my own life.