Andy Howard dropped out of college to get away from his abusive father. When his longtime boyfriend reveals similar tendencies, Andy refuses to endure another moment of it, running away with nothing more than the cash in his pockets. He makes it to Virginia, where he's taken in by Scooter Stahl, a restaurant owner looking for an extra hand who's willing to be paid cash under the table.<br><br>Scooter's been struggling for years: to keep the beachside restaurant he inherited from his parents above water (both financially and literally); to live down the fact that he's gay in a small southern town; to get over the man who's owned his heart since he was fourteen. But he's never had to struggle as hard as he is now, to keep his hands off Andy.

Nights in Sandbridge

So: the walks. Twice a day, he and Trick walked halfway down the beach and back, rain or shine. (It was more shine than rain, and wow, Scooter had not been kidding about the heat, because they weren’t even to the end of June and the early mornings were already in the mid-eighties, and the less said about the afternoons, the better.)


Now they’d figured out Andy was a resident and not a timeshare tourist, the locals were…friendly. It had been unnerving at first; Andy was used to New York, where people didn’t even make eye contact outside of social situations, much less strike up conversations with random passers-by. But now that he’d been here a while, gotten used to it, he didn’t mind it so much. Especially when they would wave, or even stop him to exchange greetings and gossip. Sometimes they’d ask him to pass messages on to Scooter (as if cell phones weren’t a thing, even if Andy himself still didn’t have one). It was nice. Normal. For Sandbridge.


Chapter 62