TV celebrity chef and cookbook author Adam de Leon walked away from his lover when Jason’s drug addiction spiraled out of control. Adam also abandoned his renowned restaurant in San Francisco to start a small bistro in the Sierra Foothills.
Five years later Adam is battling the conservative leaders of Stone Acres, California, to open a new restaurant in the historic Old Town area when Jason turns up on his doorstep—a recovered Jason, now going by the name David and claiming he's overcome his addictions. What’s more, he begs Adam to take him back and says he’s ready for their happily ever after.
Adam has enough on his plate with problems plaguing the opening of his restaurant. Now he’s having a hard time deciding which to follow—his head or his heart.
Jimmy picked up the envelope.
“You didn’t open it?” His question broke the tension between me and Stone. “Don’t you want to know what’s in it?”
“It’s a check,” I whispered. “I know what’s in it. It’s his payback for everything he thinks he stole from me.” I didn’t add that there wasn’t a check large enough to cover the cost of a broken heart.
“For how much?” Jimmy asked.
“Does it matter?” I countered.
Jimmy shrugged and Stone glared at him.
“That’s it? A check?” Jimmy was holding the fat envelope and waving it in front of me. “Feels like a lot of paper for only a check.”
Stone’s glare turned deadly, but Jimmy ignored him.
“No. He said something about a decision I had to make.” I tried to bat the envelope away, but he moved it so it evaded my hand.
“You should open it, huh?” he asked mildly.
READ MOREStone grabbed the envelope and slammed it on the table. “The man isn’t interested, babe!” he yelled at Jimmy.
Jimmy smiled and picked at the cinnamon roll.
“Sure he is,” he countered. “He wants to know what’s inside the envelope.” He took a breath and leaned back. “I’m getting him more coffee, and you’re persuading him to open it and find out what decision he needs to make.”
Jimmy got up and touched Stone’s back. Jimmy leaned over and planted a kiss on Stone’s bald head. “We gotta get this guy moved by tonight, remember.”
While I was puzzling over what he’d meant about me moving, Stone shook his head, a tiny smile puckering his lips. He picked up the envelope.
“He’s fucking right, you know. You need to open this and find out what else Jason wants.”
I nodded and took it from him.
I tore the end off the envelope and slid out a check and some sheets of paper. The cashier’s check was made out to me for five hundred thousand dollars. Too much and too little. I handed Stone the check and slowly opened the three pages.
Thanks for giving me a chance to explain what happened. You left. It was the smartest thing you’ve ever done for me. I needed it. I was hanging on by a thread and expecting you to knit me back together while I teetered between getting clean and getting high.
When you left, I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I spent a couple of days feeling sorry for myself and cursing you. Then one day I saw myself in a store window while I was panhandling tourists.
Who the hell was the bum? I had a complete and thorough breakdown right there on the sidewalk. The cops picked me up and brought me in when I started taking off my clothes and apologizing to people for being so filthy and wasted.
The cops asked if I wanted to go into rehab. It was a no-brainer. Probably because I didn’t have a brain by then. I didn’t have you to bail me out. Anyway, I cleaned up in a state facility. I buried the old Jason and walked away from the loser. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
Well, it doesn’t work like that exactly. I craved drugs so bad sometimes I all but gnawed my arms off pushing the cravings away. I was working as a janitor for a software company, a placement I got because of you, actually. One of the execs recognized me as the “best friend” of the greatest chef to cook in the Bay Area. His words, but my belief too.
Anyway, there’s a diversionary technique they teach you in the rehab center that was working for me—when I remembered to do it. You wear a rubber band around your wrist and when the cravings start, you snap the rubber band. Easy, right? Only I kept forgetting.
The company made apps for smartphones, so I asked the exec, who kept bugging me about you and your recipes, to make me an app for the phone I’d been given. I wanted him to make me an alarm to randomly ring and buzz. Something that would go off when I least expected it and make me worry about when it would go off instead of thinking about the cravings, which also came at crazy times.
We started there and his app seemed to be working. But I figured if there was some kind of gyroscope or something in it to recognize when I started shaking and then sound the alarm, it would be better.
Okay, long story short—the app worked and the guy’s selling it to places like high-end rehab facilities and state agencies. It’s being used for all kinds of behavior modification.
So how’d I make money off it, you’re asking. Well, the exec, who’s now worth in the billion-dollar range, figures he’d never have come up with it if it hadn’t been for me. He gave me rights to a quarter of the sales for life. Bet you never thought I’d live through rehab and help create a phone app and become a millionaire, did you? Me neither.
Anyway, there’s a lot more to the story after I started making money, but I’ll save it for later if you maybe decide you want to be friends with the new David Jason Fairbanks.
Okay, I know you don’t want the money and have a lot of your own. But I have to give this to you. I have to. So I’ve figured out what I think you should do with it. I’ve enclosed a list of LGBTQ support groups that I got off the web.
I want you to pick one or all of them and distribute the money in your name. Or if you’re suddenly feeling nostalgic about the late, unlamented Jason Fuck Up, you can do it in both our names. Since we took so much grief in school, I figure it’d be best if we try to help someone else—a lot of someone elses.
Anyway, it’s a suggestion. Do whatever you want. Just think, though. It’s a lot of money and it could do a lot of good.
You’re my first and only love. I’ll love you until I stop breathing, and even then I’ll love you to the end of time.
Formerly Your Pretty Boy
FUCK.
Dammit, Pretty Boy. I was right back where I’d been when Stone and Jimmy arrived. Tears were coursing down my cheeks, and Stone had me in a death hug. Jimmy was rubbing my back and making “Shhh” sounds.
Shit.
I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to like him. He was dead. I had to get over this. I had to. I’d go crazy otherwise.
COLLAPSE
Wendy on Joyfully Jay wrote:I don’t have a lot of books that are an automatic read, but this series is in that club. I’ve been following the intersecting lives of the characters since the first story, and I get a little thrill when I see there’s a new one.
Up until now, Jimmy was my favorite character, with Fredi a close second. I have to say, Adam’s now in the running as a top contender. I’m not often a fan of the gruff-with-a-heart-of-gold types, but Adam’s intriguing. Maybe it’s his love of cooking and the fact that he knows he’s good at what he does; maybe it’s the way he’s not afraid to own his mistakes and learn from them. Whatever it is, I enjoyed spending time in his POV. I really liked the brotherly, intimate relationship between Adam and Stone.
I’ll admit to being on the fence at first about Adam and Jason/David’s relationship at first. I could absolutely buy that David had changed, and I was willing to suspend my disbelief at the almost fairy tale elements of his transformation. But I wasn’t at all impressed when he tried to lay any of the blame for his past problems on Adam. That said, I think that might be what I liked about this story—these two obviously have some things to work through, and there’s a hint that as much as David wants to be someone new, and as much as he wants to convince Adam, there’s still some darkness lurking under their happy-ever-after. The back-and-forth Adam has about seeing David as an entirely different person while still getting flashes of his old self as Jason also hints that there’s more to resolve there.
These novels are a bit like comfort food. They all have some similarity (tough man’s man paired with a softer, gentler guy plus the ongoing battle with the town’s homophobic bullies). I think that may be what I like about them, that each one feels a bit like coming home. I’m now so invested in the town and its inhabitants that by the time I finish one, I’m already yearning for the next installment. I hope this series goes on for a long, long time.
For a sweet and savory love match, a meat-and-potatoes satisfying story, and all the comforts of a shared family meal, this one gets 9/10 fountain pens.
Dan on Love Bytes wrote:Typical of all of these stories in the Foothills Pride series, the emphasis of the story is on romance rather than sex. This means there isn’t really any on page sex. Instead, we get a build up of what is to come and then someone shuts the lights off and shuts the bedroom door.
Unlike the previous books, this one does have quite a bit of the story focusing on the struggles the gay community faces with the conservative leaders. I actually enjoyed this part of the storyline since in previous books it was alluded to, but we never really got all that much about how it was happening to the characters.
I was bothered that when Jason/David returned, he was criticizing Adam for his use of endearments that are actual belittlements of people he claims to care for. For instance, he claims that Adam calling him “Pretty Boy” helped to lead to his addiction. For me, I didn’t care for the way this topic was brought up and thought it was more of laying blame than it was constructive criticism. This may have just been me and my own baggage with dealing with people with addiction, and others may see it differently.
Overall, this was a nice addition to a great series. While not my favorite of the series, I got a chance to meet back up with some of my old favorites. If you are a fan of this series, you don’t want to miss this one.
I believe that this is my favorite of the four Foothills Pride stories so far. I’ve always thought that Adam deserved his own story, and remember mentioning it to the author at one point. I’m so glad she listened and gave us his tale!
We met Adam in previous portions of the Foothills Pride overall storyline, and he has always intrigued me. A big bear of a man, with a scar across his face which makes him look like a thug. He is even know as the “Thug Chef.” Now we learn more about Adam’s past. We learn that he is a quite famous celebrity chef from San Francisco, who returned to Stone Acres after a disastrous breakup with his lifelong boyfriend Jason. Jason had a bad addiction to drugs, and the only way to help him was to leave him. But Adam has felt guilty ever since.
Now Jason is back. Or is he? This self-assured, wealthy looking man who showed up on Adams doorstep calling himself David seems like the perfect incarnation of the man. But Adam is suspicious…is he really?
I loved the continuing tale of Stone Acres and how these two men fit in with the other men and background characters we’ve met in previous stories. I really feel like Stone Acres, California is a real place, and I could stop by and visit.
As I said above, I think this is my favorite of the series. Ms. Henshaw is doing an excellent job with the stories, and I’m always thrilled to see a new one hitting the review list! I would highly recommend you pick up this series. The novellas could probably be read as standalones, but take my advice, read them in order. The previous novellas are: What’s in a Name (#1), Redesigning Max (#2) and Behr Facts (#3). I reviewed all three, all of which you can find in my review section here or by clicking on the search block in the gray bar above this review and typing in the author’s name.
I highly recommend this book, and the entire series. Enjoy.
