Tall, intelligent and handsome, Hatch Lye is works for Ravenous, a company that tests cookbook recipes for publishing houses. At thirty-five, he’s pretty much settled in his ways.<br><br>Then unexpectedly, things change for him when he makes an afternoon coffee run. On the street corner, he meets a homeless man named Kevin Balk. They exchange smiles, a simple hello, and Hatch gives the man money. Without thinking through the consequences of his actions, Hatch invites Kevin back to his home for a meal, shower, and much-needed sleep.<br><br>What transpires between the two men over shared meals and the next few weeks of autumn? Can their different lives come together as a romance begins, and secrets of Kevin’s mysterious life are revealed?

Ravenous

I awakened before Kevin the next morning and took a shower, prepared coffee, and decided to work while he slept. Three breakfast recipes were executed: eggs baked in avocado, brie and cranberry phyllo turnovers, and fruit-stuffed monkey bread. Within a half hour of my creations in the kitchen, the Cape Cod filled with breakfast smells.


Sweet and fruity scents waved from one room to the next, climbing the stairs to the second floor. Although the cheese and cranberry turnovers recipe passed the “usage” test that Ravenous made me enforce during my cooking/baking practices, the phyllo became undercooked and unbearably mushy. My bad since I didn’t remove the treat from the oven when I was supposed to, allowing it to cook longer. No matter how limp the delight became, Kevin—wearing nothing more than a pair of my snug boxer-briefs and looking sexy as hell—woke from his dreams and enjoyed the baked badness at the kitchen’s island with me, shoulder to shoulder.


Chapter 20