Adulting 101 Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 1537

  Burnsville, NC 28714

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Adulting 101

  Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Henry

  Cover art: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: Kate De Groot

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-449-7

  First edition

  August, 2016

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-450-3

  ABOUT THE EBOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED:

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  The struggle is real.

  Nick Stahlnecker is eighteen and not ready to grow up yet. He has a summer job, a case of existential panic, and a hopeless crush on the unattainable Jai Hazenbrook. Except how do you know that your coworker’s unattainable unless you ask to blow him in the porta-potty?

  That’s probably not what Dad meant when he said Nick should act more like an adult.

  Twenty-five-year-old Jai is back in his hometown of Franklin, Ohio, just long enough to earn the money to get the hell out again. His long-term goal of seeing more of the world is worth the short-term pain of living in his mother’s basement, but only barely.

  Meeting Nick doesn’t fit in with Jai’s plans at all, but, as Jai soon learns, you don’t have to travel halfway around the world to have the adventure of a lifetime.

  This is not a summer romance. This is a summer friendship-with-benefits. It’s got pizza with disgusting toppings, Netflix and chill, and accidental exhibitionism. That’s all. There are no feelings here. None. Shut up.

  This one’s for Kal. Damn it, Kal, I wish I’d worked this in somehow:

  “How’s your head?”

  “I haven’t had any complaints.”

  You make the day job a little bit filthier, and a lot more fun.

  About Adulting 101

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Lisa Henry

  About the Author

  More like this

  Nick: Holy shit dude, u have to help me!

  Devon: What u do?

  Nick: Remember how my dad got me this job so I’d “straighten up & fly right” before college?

  Devon: Yeah . . .

  Nick: There’s a guy at work I want to do things to. With my tongue & my dick.

  Devon: Dude. TMI.

  Nick: If I suck his dick on the site I’ll probably get fired right?

  Devon: Dude.

  Jai Hazenbrook is ridiculous. Firstly, there’s his name. If Nick were on a quest to return the One Ring to the fiery pits of Mount Doom, Jai Hazenbrook would totally be the hot-as-fuck elf in tight leather pants who could shoot the left testicle off an orc at a thousand paces. Whereas Nick, of course, would be the short hairy-footed guy who liked beer and fireworks and second breakfasts. Even in his fantasy worlds, Nick is a realist.

  What? He’s been waiting for another growth spurt, okay? He doesn’t want to be a giant or anything. He just wants to crack five foot ten, really. Five foot ten feels a lot more respectable than five foot seven.

  Nick’s been waiting on his growth spurt since he was fifteen. He’s eighteen now and starting to think it’s never coming. Not that he obsesses about it or anything. He’s got much more interesting things to obsess about.

  Jai Hazenbrook, for example.

  Jai Hazenbrook is tall, fuck him.

  (Nick wishes.)

  He’s tall and has features that can really only be described as chiseled, if Nick’s late-night research into romance novels can be believed. Which they probably can’t. Otherwise surely Jai would also wear kilts and be a millionaire, but whatever. He’s tall, and he’s chiseled, and he has incredible eyes that sometimes can’t decide if they’re blue or if they’re gray, but are usually narrowed in Nick’s direction in a glare. A why-the-fuck-is-this-kid-always-staring-at-me glare.

  Nick is not always subtle.

  Okay, Nick is never subtle.

  Which is why he’s pretty sure he’s going to be fired by the end of the week.

  Nick’s dad got him the job at Grover Construction. Disappointingly, it has nothing to do with the Sesame Street puppet, because Nick totally would have been down with that. Harvey Grover is one of his dad’s clients. His dad is an accountant. A certified public accountant. It’s his life’s deepest regret that he’s dedicated himself to pecuniary responsibility, and has somehow managed to raise a son who “doesn’t understand the value of a dollar.” Hence this experimentation with a “job.”

  Look, Nick likes having a job. It’s just Mr. Grover very sensibly doesn’t trust him much around the actual construction parts of the construction job. Because power saws and nail guns. So it kind of means Nick answers the phone, and runs errands to the sites and back, and spends as much time as he can staring at Jai Hazenbrook’s fucking perfect ass.

  It is seriously fucking perfect. It’s the sort of ass that should inspire goddamn poetry. Nick’s not the kind of guy who can write sonnets or anything, mostly because he can’t remember how to, but if he happens to have a page in his notebook dedicated entirely to ass-related haikus, that’s his business, right?

  That ass is so hot.

  I would totally hit it.

  Yes yes yes yes yes.

  Nick’s haiku skills are maybe a little rusty too, but at least the sentiment is heartfelt.

  When Nick’s dad arranged this job, well, of course Nick drifted off to sleep with visions of hot construction guys dancing in his head. The
visions, not the guys. The fantasy guys did not dance. They just kind of stood around and struck poses, making their unnecessary abs tighten right up, like they were in a Diet Coke commercial or something. Even then, Nick knew the reality wouldn’t be so sweet. There would be no come-hither looks from hot-as-the-sun shirtless construction guys. No. There would be hairy backs and beer bellies and lots of ball scratching but not in a fun way. Nick knows the difference between fantasy and reality.

  Which is why Jai Hazenbrook has no fucking place in reality.

  Which is why whenever Nick is sent out to the site Jai works on, or Jai comes into the office for something, Nick’s brain kind of goes offline. It shuts itself down into a protective coma in case Nick starts believing in unicorns or something. Jai Hazenbrook simply does not compute.

  And Nick is totally, absolutely going to suck Jai’s mythical elf unicorn dick if it’s the last thing he does.

  Which, at least as far as his job at Grover Construction goes, it probably will be.

  Nick: Which is hotter? My red shirt or my blue shirt?

  Devon: Nothing makes u look hot. U have a face like an ass.

  Nick: Fuck you. This is an emergency!

  Devon: Red.

  Devon Staples has been Nick’s best friend since third grade, when their teacher, Mr. Packer, was such an asshole he seated the class according to alphabetical order instead of letting them sit next to their friends. Well, his whole evil plan backfired, because Devon Staples and Nick Stahlnecker are now, and forever will be, best bros. Their bromance is epic. Devon even took Nick to prom, which was beyond incredible because he’s not even a little bit bi—except for the thing that happened at baseball camp when they were fourteen that they don’t talk about. He’s just super cool, and gets a kick out of pissing off his stepdad, who is an evangelical Christian and can be kind of a dick. So prom was pretty funny.

  Devon is also oddly protective of Nick sometimes. He claims it’s because he’s three months older than Nick, and therefore the big brother in this bromance. Nick claims it’s because he’s secretly jealous of any guy who tries to get with Nick, because of complex abandonment issues and uncertainty about his own sexuality. It’s probably some weird mix of both, but they’ve never bothered to analyze it except in a teasing way. Whatever it is, it works for them and it’s cool.

  Devon, naturally, thinks making “blow Jai Hazenbrook” a life goal is a dumb idea.

  “Bro, this is a dumb idea.”

  Nick holds his phone awkwardly between his ear and his shoulder as he buttons up his red shirt. It’s his lucky red shirt. If everything goes well, Nick hopes to upgrade it to his lucky red cocksucking shirt. And it does make him look hotter than the blue. It’s a little tighter maybe. It makes his shoulders and his biceps look good, and kind of pulls across his chest when he moves. He can make this work.

  “Is it?” he asks idly, turning this way and that in front of his mirror to try to judge how hot his reflection is. Either he’s really hot, or he’s some kid wearing the wrong-size shirt. It’s kind of hard to tell objectively which look he’s rocking. “Or is it the greatest idea ever?”

  “No. No, Nick, it’s not.” Devon sighs into the phone. “Your dad is going to be pissed if you lose your job. And also if you get caught blowing some guy—”

  “Jai Hazenbrook is not just some guy, Dev,” Nick tells him haughtily. “Jai Hazenbrook is a glorious, beautiful, dangerous creature who makes Legolas look kind of plain.”

  “Dude, you need to stop jerking off to the Fellowship of the Ring.”

  “They could be the fellowship of my—”

  “Nick!”

  Nick gets the feeling he’s just scarred Devon for life. Which is only fair, really, because last year Devon got really drunk and confessed he’d had a wet dream about Nick’s mom. Seriously? And Devon thinks Nick overshares. Nick still gets creeped out whenever his mom offers Devon cookies. He’s always half-afraid the bow-chicka-bow-wow music will start up somewhere in the background and things will get crazy gross.

  “It would be cool if he had long hair,” Nick says. “And leather pants. Maybe he’s got leather pants. Do you think I should ask him?”

  “You want to blow some guy you don’t even know and ask if he has leather pants? You know you’re more likely to end up in a weird sex dungeon than Middle Earth cosplay, right?”

  Nick considers the possibility for a moment. “I could totally be into that.”

  “Dude.”

  Yeah, Nick could totally be into that. He’s looked online. He’s seen videos. But he also isn’t sure. It’s like the time he tried blue cheese. It looked pretty good, and heaps of other people like it, and right up until the moment he put it in his mouth, he was totally keeping an open mind. And then it turned out it tasted like ass. Like Satan’s ass. But he hadn’t known until he tried it for himself. And how else is he supposed to learn things except by trying them? Kinky shit may be awesome and hot and incredible. It may also be blue cheese. Nick kind of wants to know which one it is.

  But that’s a life goal for another day.

  Today’s life goal: blow Jai Hazenbrook.

  “You’ve got this,” he tells his reflection, determined to give it some confidence. “You’re wearing your lucky red shirt, you look hot, and you’re totally going to suck some dick today.”

  A little voice in his head reminds him this is the worst idea ever.

  The little voice is Devon. He’s still there. Nick tries to explain how this isn’t just some random dick, this could be a life-changing dick, but apparently it sounds better in his head than in actual words, because Devon starts making strange high-pitched sounds like he does when they’re watching slasher movies and blood and body parts are flying everywhere.

  “Fine,” Devon says at last. “But when you get busted, then fired, don’t come crying to me about it.”

  “I won’t,” Nick promises.

  He will. They both know it.

  “Good luck, I guess.”

  “I don’t need it, bro,” Nick says with way more confidence than he feels. “I’m superhot today. Not even Jai Hazenbrook will be able to resist me.”

  He manages to believe it almost all the way out the door.

  By the time Nick arrives at the offices of Grover Construction, his lucky red cocksucking shirt has a coffee stain on it because the damn barista at the place down the street overfilled his cup. What with that and with Devon’s prophecies of doom, Nick almost feels like the universe is trying to tell him that hey, maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Nick ignores the universe. Fuck it, right? What did the universe ever do for him anyway?

  Grover Construction is on Second Street. It shares the parking lot with a dentist’s office. From his desk, Nick has a good view of crying children being dragged toward the dentist by their parents. It’s sometimes nice, when he’s really bored and has already counted the staples in his stapler a dozen times, to know that other people are having a worse day than he is. Nick’s job is super dull. He mostly takes care of answering the phone and doing filing, and stapling things. Sometimes the things don’t even need stapling, but Nick does it anyway. He makes shiny little railroad tracks along the tops of documents. His record is thirty-eight staples on one thing. Then he picked thirty-seven of them out again because he remembered he was supposed to be professional.

  Adulting is hard.

  The struggle is real.

  Patricia is the office manager at Grover Construction. She’s Harvey Grover’s cousin. She’s forty-six and is lactose intolerant. Nick’s not sure why she chose to share either of those things with him. It wasn’t like he lay awake at night wondering her age. And it’s definitely not like he was going to hold her down and force her to drink milk. Patricia is also a Scrabble champion, at the state level. Apparently there are competitions and everything. She keeps a bunch of second-hand dictionaries on her desk, and brushes up on tricky Q-words during her lunch break.

  Nick doesn’t have a lot in common with Patricia,
but they have totally bonded over their all-consuming lust for Jai Hazenbrook.

  “Mm-hmm,” Patricia said one day after Jai had left the office, his ass looking extra spectacular that morning. “I would do terrible things to that boy.”

  Nick gasped. “Do you also want to climb him like a tree?”

  “I would make him cry for his mommy.”

  Which, wow, okay, was maybe a little more intense than anything Nick was thinking of, but more power to her. Nick’s not scared of the competition, because firstly Patricia is already married to a firefighter, and hello, you don’t get to be greedy like that. Once you bag a firefighter, you’ve already hit the jackpot and thanks for playing. Also, Jai Hazenbrook is gay. Probably. Possibly. Nick is almost sure he’s not just projecting when he gets that vibe. So if anyone in the office gets to jump Jai’s bones, it’s going to be Nick.

  It is absolutely going to be Nick.

  Nick sits down at his desk and fiddles with his collection of paper clips. Then he checks his email, checks BuzzFeed, and it’s still only 9:08? What the hell is that about?

  Patricia is down the hall in the little break room, making a cup of tea. Nick can hear her humming to herself. She drinks weird-smelling tea that has bits of things floating in it. Nick is not a fan. Not of the tea, or the humming either. Both are not very office-neighborly. Nick feels his two and a half weeks of employment have taught him everything he needs to know about office etiquette, and he’s definitely a better coworker than Patricia. Although she has developed a twitch in her right eye whenever he goes on a stapling rampage.

  Ker-thunk. Ker-thunk. Ker-thunk.

  Stapling things is fun though, right?

  Gross tea is gross.

  Gross tea also saves the day, because Patricia isn’t back at her desk yet when Harvey Grover turns up, wiping a hand over his comb-over to keep it from flapping up in the blast of the air conditioner. He blinks through his glasses at Patricia’s empty desk, the corners of his mouth turning down, and then turns his head slowly. His gaze lands on Nick.

  “Ah!” he says, like this is an unexpected delight. Which of course it is, because Nick is awesome, but usually people don’t notice. Mr. Grover waves a big yellow envelope in Nick’s direction. “Nick, I need someone to take this to the site manager on Jacobsen Street.”