Quarantine Date

By Derek

Boy crazy Dallas Maxwell comes within inches of making everything official with his new crush Carlos “Charlie” Rodrigues.
And then the Covid-19 pandemic hits.

With everything closed, and everyone staying home, Dallas no longer has an audience to delight with his antics. Worse, he can’t see Charlie, who he considers his ‘Almost Boyfriend’.

They bridge the gap with ‘Quarantine Dates’ on their computers, but that’s not enough for Dallas. He desperately wants to see Charlie in person and acts on that desire.

When Dallas’ mother tests positive for Covid-19, his entire household enters isolation. For Dallas, this not only means separation from Charlie, but losing him because Dallas put him at risk. Now Dallas must find a way to stay healthy and win over the boy of his dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Derek
• Release date: Apr 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005048785

Book preview

Quarantine Date: A Gay Young Adult Romance Story

By Derek Clendening

Published by Rainbow Reader Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2021 Derek Clendening

This whole thing started when I bribed Carlos Rodriguez with a roll of toilet paper. I’ve done a lot of things to win boys over, but that has got to be the topper. Okay, that isn’t exactly where this story starts, but it set a series of crappy and not-so-crappy events in motion. I just wanted to whet your appetite for the weirdness to come in this story.

When you think about it, the story begins in March of 2020, because that was when everything started going crazy. A boy named Carlos, who told me to call him Charlie, had caught my eye and I totally meant to work some Dallas Maxwell charm on him. As I imagined, T.D. Austin was chasing him, too. If you don’t already know, T.D. Austin competes with me for every single cute boy in school. As vile as Austin is, I knew I would have to bring my A game, but Charlie surprised me.

He rejected Austin right out of the gate.

That relieved me and not just because I no longer had to compete with anyone. Being Dallas Maxwell, the most famous teenager in Buffalo, would suffice for me. It also meant Charlie had enough brains and good taste to know better, but not necessarily in that order.

It probably helped that I started a rumor in school that Austin’s parents voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and were planning a repeat performance later in the year. Actually, I didn’t start the rumor, per se. I got my straight best friend Cole to tell one or two people in each of his classes and oh boy did that rumor spread like wildfire.

Anyway, Charlie and I sat across from one another in Sweet_ness 7 Café on the corner of Grant and Lafayette when he told me about Austin. And you know what? I almost didn’t hear him. I lost myself in Charlie’s brown eyes so frequently that he must have thought I had something wrong with me.

Those brown eyes of his shifted around the room, telling me something was wrong. I reached across the table and cupped a hand over his.

We really shouldn’t be doing this, he said.

What?

"Sitting