Levi Erickson runs Mama Mozzarella’s, his family pizzeria in sunny Seabreeze, South Carolina. It’s a peaceful existence, a little lame, a lotta boring. That is, until the day he tries to text Rexy, his perpetually late part-time employee but writes his old flame Rex instead. Little does he know that Rex has just gotten back into town himself and is eager for a little reunion ... in more ways than one!
Rex Carroll has come back to Seaside for one reason and one reason only: to watch the premiere of Undead Hookers from Venus III at the Seabreeze Cinemas. After all, he’s just completed the soundtrack and, despite his creative success, the movie’s financial failure has left his resources depleted and owing back rent on his crummy apartment back in LA.
When he arrives in town and gets the wrong number text from his former boss and old flame Levi, Rex can’t believe his good luck, or perfect timing. Now all he has to do is convince Levi age is just a number, and the sweltering kiss they almost shared his last night in town four years earlier was perfectly natural and long overdue!
Be careful what you wish for, Levi.
Only ... Levi panicked anew, scrambling to take back his flirtatious endeavor before it got carried just a little too far. Only if you want to, Rex! Obvi.
Oh, but I do!
The words came. Levi sat, waiting, unsure what to do -- or say -- next.
The longer Levi waited for a reply, the quieter the room grew. There was no soundtrack in the background, no flickering candles for ambience. Just a desperately horny guy lying in his bed waiting for his young crush to sext him back. Moments stretched into minutes until Levi thought it had all been some elaborate prank. A devious way to get back at him for acting the fool when Deputy Dupree interrupted their second almost kiss of their almost relationship.
He was just about to slip the phone back onto the nightstand when it bleated-slash-burped in his hand, startling him even though he’d been half-expecting it. There were no words this time, no clever quips or cute, funny strings of emojis. Just a picture, dimly lit. But bright enough for Levi to know the details of which would be seared in his memory forever, no matter what happened next. There was no face, for obvious reasons. Rex taking the picture from his chest down. A long lean body splayed out on the bed, clad only in clingy light blue boxer briefs, an obvious bulge taking up the center of the frame.
It drew Levi’s eye immediately, distracting him from the rest of the picture: the long legs stretched out beneath the bulge. The garish seahorse and starfish covered comforter beneath the beautiful young body on display. The old-fashioned wood paneling on the hotel room walls. A boxy TV with the screen turned off facing the bed. Levi found himself holding his breath, admiring every inch of the long, sinewy body poised above the waistband: the lean flat belly, the taught chest, maroon nipples at attention, all of it evocatively lit by some unseen light just out of frame.
But the bulge cried out to him, drawing his gaze back again and again, no matter how many times his nervous eyes strayed. He glanced furtively around the room, as if someone was there to see. Then he centered on the bulge, doing the pinch and pull thing until it blew up to max capacity, admiring every bump and ridge and strain of the obviously generous shaft beneath the thin cotton briefs.
When at last he’d studied every detail, committed it to memory and pinched and pulled every inch of the frame, Levi glanced back up from the phone, surprised that the entire evening hadn’t passed in the time it took him to explore every pixel of the selfie Rex had sent.
He was incapable of crafting an appropriate reply. He sat there, stiff as a rod, thinking and wracking his brain, when at last the phone bleated in his hand.
Well??!! Rex had texted.
Knowing he had to say something, afraid he might chicken out altogether, Levi tapped out an equally brief reply.
Jesus!
There followed a screen full of blushing face emojis.
Good Jesus? Rex texted quickly. Or bad Jesus?
So good it’s bad, Jesus!
