Laurie Parkinson, who’s lived in Laurel Hills all his life, is a gay sheet metal worker who’d rather be a gay hairdresser. Wheat Dupuis, who’s also gay, is the scion of one of Laurel Hill’s wealthiest families. He’d rather grow grapes than become CFO of Dupuis International. Laurie wakes one morning to discover his family gone and his town decimated by a bacteria that has lain dormant for millennia, incased in ice. With the melting of the ice caps, the bacteria is released, and mankind faces a pandemic that could surpass the Black Plague. Wheat and his family are on their way to safety when the unthinkable happens and he’s left behind. Laurie knows of a bunker in the woods outside Laurel Hill, where he intends to take refuge. On the way there, Laurie finds and rescues Wheat. Can two such dissimilar men work together through a pandemic to find their families ... and possibly find love, as well?

Pandemic

Fortunately, she appeared to think the subject was settled, so she let it go. “Have you been eating? You look a little thin.”


“I’m eating,” he assured her, then changed the subject himself. “Where’s Pop?”


“He’s in the den watching the news.”


Pop never watched the news. Neither did Laurie, if it came to that. It was just too depressing. They both preferred BBC America. “Is anything happening I should be aware of?”


Her lips tightened. “They’re talking about an epidemic of some sort or other. It’s too early for flu season, and the last outbreak of salmonella from that breakfast cereal has been contained, but it’s all over Europe, and people in New York and California are coming down with it.”


Pop wouldn’t worry if it was just the West Coast, but New York was only a few hundred miles northeast of here, and that would concern him.


“Do me a favor? Don’t bring it up if he doesn’t? He hasn’t been feeling well—”


Chapter 3