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    Idaho Pride
    Idaho Pride
    Idaho Pride
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Idaho Pride

    By Sarah Black

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    After an attempt to diffuse an explosive situation, Lee Hunter and Jeremy Sheridan end up taking the heat for the conflict and become friends. While researching a tragic local story for Jeremy’s magazine, Idaho Pride, Lee agrees to mentor Luis, a troubled young intern. But Jeremy has a problem of his own: a jealous ex-lover who threatens not only Jeremy and Lee's new romance, but also the fledgling family they're trying to create.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamspinner Press
    Release dateApr 28, 2010
    ISBN9781615814428
    Idaho Pride
    Author

    Sarah Black

    SARAH BLACK is a baker and baking instructor with 25 years of professional baking experience in New York City, having worked at such legendary bakeries as Tom Cat Bakery and Amy’s Bread and consulted with companies such as Whole Foods Market and Pepperidge Farm. Her future plans include teaching bread classes at The Seasoned Farmhouse and opening a recreational bread and baking school called Flowers and Bread in the spring of 2016, both in Clintonville, Ohio.

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    Reviews for Idaho Pride

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    • 4/5
      Idaho Pride by Sarah Black may especially appeal to readers who love to look beyond the parameters of a hot man-to-man romance and get a bigger view of the unique way in which the gay man fits into his community. Protagonist Lee finds that he must adjust his comfortable life to make room for a romance with his new neighbor, a gay activist, but that’s only the beginning. He soon realizes that his understated attitude towards his own sexuality borders on denial, especially when he unexpectedly gains a surrogate son to mentor, troubled gay teenager Luis.

      This novella offers the readers many delights, including a down-to-earth and specific setting in Boise, Idaho. The characters are strong and complex with standouts in Luis, the tragic police captain McClain, and the volatile hockey player Almarr. I found Lee’s love interest Jeremy to be somewhat bland, but there is so much story going on between Lee and Luis that it more than compensates.

      The story opens with sportswriter Lee hanging out at a coffee shop with players from the Idaho Steelheads minor league hockey team. New neighbor Jeremy comes in with his adoring interns to distribute copies of his new gay magazine Idaho Pride, and trouble breaks out between the hockey players and the interns. As a result, Lee and Jeremy get hauled before Captain McClain and sentenced to a community service project involving tidying up a local cemetery, which soon reveals McClain’s tragic secret. Meanwhile, Lee starts mentoring one of Jeremy’s interns, troubled teen Luis, on a writing project about legendary gay athlete Greg Louganis. This is a well-written story centering on the bonds of friendship, love, and responsibility between appealing gay characters.

      Val for AReCafe

    Book preview

    Idaho Pride - Sarah Black

    Chapter One

    IT WAS a beautiful day for such an ugly scene. Late April sunshine was showing Boise at her springtime best, with daffodils dancing in the flowerbeds and a riot of tulips crowding the planters and edging the sidewalks. Downtown the outdoor cafés were filled with pale, happy people who were drunk on the sunshine and honey-sweet air after a long five months of winter.

    Lee studied the group of hockey players crowding around his café table, their bulky bodies dwarfing the spindly iron chairs. Spring was usually a glum time for the Idaho Steelheads, when the attention of the sports-watching public turned to basketball’s March Madness and then to baseball. It had been a moderately successful season, but rumors of staffing changes and player cuts were causing the usually touchy sticks to become even more paranoid and suspicious than usual.

    Julius Miller leaned across the table. Lee, come on, man. I know you know something. The front office tells you the crap weeks before the other reporters even hear the farts.

    Lee winced. Damn, Julius, you got to work on your metaphors, big guy. Take some poetry classes or something.

    Looks to me like we got too many poets already and not enough hockey players. He gestured toward a table full of young men dressed in identical white sweatshirts. Were they all wearing lip gloss? Boise. Man, this used to be a conservative town. With some standards, you know what I’m saying? Where people came to the goddamn hockey games!

    Lee leaned forward. Settle down. Plenty of people are coming to the hockey games, and I haven’t heard anything from the brass about you being canned.

    One of the other players sat up, a Nordic giant named Alfarr. He had a full, red beard and a missing front tooth. So what can you do for us, Lee? Can’t you write a story saying… I don’t know… something good?

    Lee studied him. Sometimes public sports figures do things to get stories written, you know, like….

    What, a DUI? Rape charge?

    No. Like volunteer work. They stared blankly at him. Like go talk about not doing drugs at the elementary school. Give a hockey clinic at the Y for underprivileged youth. Something like that.

    Julius was rubbing his chin. That could work. As long as it don’t take too much time.

    That’s the spirit, Lee said and leaned back in his chair. He took a sip of Mexican Mocha and let the warm April sunshine flow over his face, as soft as a lover’s hand.

    A man pushed open the door of Tully’s and came out onto the patio with a load of magazines in his arms. Lee flushed and looked down at his lap, hoping to avoid any accidental eye contact. He knew this guy… Jeremy something. He’d moved into Lee’s apartment building in December, and they had run into each other a few times in the elevator and in the laundry room. Lee felt the color deepen in his face. Five years he had lived in the Idaho Building, and never once had he run into anyone else in the laundry room at 0530. His sweats were in the dryer, and he had just run down in his underwear to pull them out warm. This guy was in there taking his shirts out of the washer and had handed him his neatly folded sweats without a word. He was good-looking, movie-star handsome, with sad, blue puppy-dog eyes and silky golden hair cut short. Lee had dropped his running shoes, pulled on his sweats then his socks, and the guy had watched him, not saying a word. But he was grinning by the time Lee tied the last shoestring, nodded, and sprinted away down the stairs. Since then Lee had made very sure his sweats were ready to go before he went to sleep, but he missed pulling them on warm from the dryer.

    Jeremy put the stack of magazines down on the table with the boys in their matching sweatshirts. Lee caught a glimpse of the design: a big, bright rainbow with the words IDAHO PRIDE in grass-green letters. The boys were young, early twenties, maybe, and they all turned shining, happy, eager faces toward Jeremy. Lee studied his lap some more. Somebody ought to show those boys how to hide their feelings just a bit. It wasn’t a good idea to go around looking like little girls in love, and they were all looking at Jeremy like he was a big, blond ice cream cone ready to get licked.

    "You guys are the best! We could never have gotten the first issue of Idaho Pride off the ground and looking so fine, he said, holding a copy of the magazine against his chest, without our talented and hardworking interns. This first issue is for you. He passed stacks of magazines around the table. These are the copies for free distribution, like we talked about. I’ve got special first-issue copies for all of you back at my place. Okay, does everyone know what to do?"

    A sweet-faced kid with a small, hopeful moustache raised his hand. Jeremy, can we give copies to people we think might be interested, or should we stick to just businesses?

    Anyone you think might like a copy, Jeremy said. We’ve got two hundred set aside for free distribution, so you give your copies away how you see fit.

    Alfarr leaned forward and nudged Julius with a hard elbow. Can you believe this shit? Looks like the ‘French Club’ has left the library.

    Lee studied him. That is a really good example of the wrong kind of publicity. The Idaho Steelheads will not be happy with you if you get your name in the paper for gay-bashing. Didn’t you get the memo? The jocks don’t beat up the ‘French Club’ anymore.

    "Yeah, whatever, man. One of those pinks comes over here, I’ll shove a copy of Idaho Pride up his ass. Oh, wait a minute. You think they’d like that shit?"

    The rest of the table started laughing, and one of the Idaho Pride interns came slowly to his feet. Well, not all the boys looked like sweet-faced poets. This kid looked like he’d come out of a few hard years at Folsom State Prison, and he had the tattoos to prove it. His dark hair was cut in a jagged flattop, a tiny shaved lightning bolt over his ear, and a green and black snake tattoo wound its way around his neck. Jeremy put a hand on his arm.

    Luis, it’s cool. He looked over at Lee. It’s only the first issue. Not everybody is gonna be a fan until at least the fourth issue. Maybe the fifth.

    A short boy with apple-pink cheeks stood up next to Luis and addressed their table. You guys are Steelheads, right? Hockey players, he explained to the rest of his table. "You want a copy of Idaho Pride? It’s a new magazine celebrating diversity in the Treasure Valley."

    Luis was standing next to him, very close, and Lee could see the kid’s hands were shaking. I’d like a copy, Lee said, and the boy with the apple cheeks handed him one with a grateful smile. Then Luis turned to Alfarr and tried to stare him down. The rest of the Idaho Pride was waiting to leap to the rescue.

    Alfarr stood up. He was six-six, if Lee remembered his stats, and two hundred forty-five pounds. Julius was a little smaller, maybe six-five. They looked like Vikings on a rape-and-pillage mission. Diversity? What kind of shit is that? It’s a queer magazine. Why don’t you call it what it is?

    Luis’s hand slid into his pocket, and Lee stood up. Would you guys settle down? This isn’t high school.

    Jeremy took a step closer to them and put a hand on Luis’s

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