Ripple Effects: A Contemporary Women’s Fiction Novella

By Alex Winters

Brady Sampson and Myer Joyner met in college, quickly bonding in their business classes and both landing gigs at nearby Global Initiatives in scenic Lost Lake, Tennessee. Combining their signing bonuses to invest in a rental house beside the lake together, the two take to being roommates the way they have every other challenge they’ve faced over the past two years -- secretly pining for one another while never speaking a word about it.

That is, until their sexy new coworker, Carly Carmichael, produces an uncommonly sensual stirring in both men. When Brady invites their new neighbor over for a meet and greet, she takes him up on the offer on the one day he’s out. While she and Myer sip wine and get to know each other better, both let it slip that they have a crush on Brady, unleashing a series of events that threaten to topple everything they thought they knew about each other.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2024

Book preview

Chapter One

Brady

White or red?

Brady Sampson glanced over at his new roomie, Myer, holding up two wine bottles and wearing an almost face-splitting grin. He struggled to ignore the equally cataclysmic ripples of desire that rang through his body as he kept a placid look on his face.

Which do you prefer? Brady answered.

Myer glanced from bottle to bottle as if he’d never seen them before, giving Brady time to openly adore his big, veiny hands as he held each aloft. I always drank beer before now.

Brady chuckled, never less than amused by Myer’s vaguely off-kilter outlook on life. So why don’t we grab some beer then?

Myer wrinkled his nose, nostrils flaring under a spray of cheery soft freckles to go with his mop of strawberry blond stubble. I dunno, this seems so grown up right now, you know?

Brady steered his own shopping cart closer, inching into the liquor aisle to join his new roomie. Beer is grown up, he suggested, studying the labels next to the shelf where Myer lingered. And cheaper too.

Myer gave him a spoilsport frown but set the bottles back just the same. Dude, you’re not going to be one of those cheap-ass roomies who puts his food on one shelf and mine on the other and pro-rates the rent if I happen to steal a grape or two, are you?

Brady chuckled. No, of course not. I just don’t really feel like paying for stuff I’m not going to drink, you know?

Myer considered this as if he’d never thought of it before. Valid point, I suppose. His big fingers did unspeakable things to Brady’s already lurid imagination as he moved down the aisle, touching several brands of champagne. Bubbly then?

Brady nodded, as if equally inspired. That’ll work, he agreed, taking one of the two bottles from Myer’s hand.

Hey! Myer’s youthful face -- oh yeah, he was definitely getting carded, for sure -- broke into a surprised grin. I thought I was in charge of alcoholic beverages this time.

You are, but that doesn’t mean you’re paying for it all.

Myer’s gaze quickly assessed the running total of Brady’s half-full shopping cart. You’re paying for the steaks already, though.

Cuz they come in a two-pack. You want me to tear them in half and get the butcher to rewrap them?

Myer frowned, looking effortlessly casual in a mustard-colored V-neck and striped, blue Madras shorts, the clothing seeming to hang off his lean, rangy frame the same way his shirt and ties did at work every day. Fair is fair, though.

Now who’s the cheap one? Huh, Myer?

Myer glanced at his own cart, only slightly less full than Brady’s. They were facing each other in the liquor aisle, carts side by side, just two bros out shopping like any other two bros out shopping. And yet, to Brady at least, the seemingly humdrum errand had such an intimate feel to it he had to struggle to keep from sweating.

I mean, Myer teased, nudging Brady’s elbow with no idea of what that little tremor from his touch felt like racing through Brady’s body. Have you seen the price of yogurt lately?

Brady snorted, romantic reverie suddenly broken. No, Myer, because I’m not a retired housewife on a diet.

They chuckled together, drifting onto the next aisle and quibbling over potato chips and pretzels like an old married couple. Brady struggled to keep things light when all he wanted was to reach out and grab Myer’s hand and cling to it like they were an actual couple.

He swallowed the desire, as he had all his life, and played it cool instead. Said the right things. Glanced Myer’s way just long enough, but never too long. Walked just close enough to him as they argued over wheat bread versus rye, and never too close. Laughed just hard enough, smiled just wide enough, sending all the right signals like he always had.

He’d leapt at the chance to room with Myer when they both got transferred to the Tennessee branch of Global Initiatives after their internship at the corporate offices in Latham, Georgia. They’d hit it off as interns, sharing lunch breaks and chatting it up in the campus gym after weekend workouts. Brady thought it would be the perfect way to solidify their friendship, even if he knew they could never be more than that. He thought he could be strong, thought he could fight the temptation, thought it would be easy, like it had been back when they’d just shared a cubicle.

But now? Sharing a sprawling house out on secluded Lost Lake, shopping together, padding barefoot down the same halls in various stages of undress? Suddenly Brady wondered if he was strong enough to weather the ups and downs of living with someone who only wanted to be friends.

When obviously, achingly, frustratingly, Brady wanted to be so much more.

* * *

Myer

Honestly, Brady, I could have helped with the dishes.

Myer Joyner creaked in his old rocking chair as if he was already retired, a juice glass half-full of bubbly in his hand. They’d rented the place furnished, but there was not a champagne flute in sight. Brady joined him, still wiping damp hands on a checkered dishcloth before tossing it over the weathered porch railing to dry when he was through. He leaned back against the porch railing next to it, lithe and lean like the ex-wrestler Brady’d been back in high school.

The moonlight favored his feathery black curls, to say nothing of his frame, clad in gray gym shorts and a navy-blue T-shirt with cutoff sleeves. Despite having graduated last year with a Business Degree, he probably looked just as he had back in high school: slight, taut, and fresh.

Not that it mattered to Myer, of course. He was straight as straight could be. And yet, whenever he was around Brady, he felt… different. Distracted by Brady’s features and radiant smile. Thrown by his long, almost delicate fingers and the way his ears blushed easily whenever he laughed or told an off-color story, which was more often than his preppy appearance at work might indicate.

Even now, in the wake of another great dinner together, sitting and rocking while Brady stood across from him, casually sipping his own dry Prosecco, Myer struggled for something non-ridiculous to say. Fortunately, his straight-arrow, former jock, total babe magnet Brady eased the tension with one of his vaguely boring non-sequiturs. The steak wasn’t too overdone?

Myer grinned almost secretly to himself. Such a bro thing to say! Actually, it was perfect. He beamed, even as he willed himself to play it cool about his new roommate cooking dinner for the two of them, like it was no big deal. I don’t like it too rare.

Same, Brady murmured, shifting onto the waist-high railing with little to no effort, sinews and tendon in his taut arms moving together like a symphony. Somewhere on the way from cooking and cleaning up dinner to the porch, he’d kicked off the sneakers he’d worn to the grocery store, swinging his big pale feet mesmerizingly as he wriggled to get more comfortable on the wide porch railing beneath him.

Myer had never been a foot guy. Had never understood that particular kink or fetish. Then again, he’d never seen anyone with the pure marble magnificence of Brady’s feet before, either. He struggled to keep his eyes off them, but where else to look? Brady’s lightly haired legs, thin and lithe? The way his gray gym shorts clung to his junk, thick and alluring in a way it shouldn’t have been? Or his clingy navy-blue T-shirt, hugging his almost concave belly as if inviting poor Myer to stare.

Not a fan of the steamed cauliflower, though, Brady offered casually, apparently unaware of what his barely clad form was doing to his thoroughly confused roomie. It wasn’t like Myer had never lived with guys before. College had been a blizzard of roommates, from the snoring ass he’d first roomed with in the freshman dorms to a revolving door of frat bro and jock types once he’d moved off-campus halfway through his sophomore year.

But this felt different. More intimate. More purposeful. Even more powerful. For one, the two had chosen to live together when they’d both gotten the promotion to the Global Initiatives Tennessee branch. Between signing bonuses and big raises, they could have easily afforded to live individually but it had only taken a single yes for each to agree to renting the sprawling farmhouse on Lost Lake together. Two weeks later they were all tucked in, grocery shopping together and cooking together and washing the dishes together. It should be no big thing. But from the casual and stranger-friendly work bond they’d formed back in Georgia, things had evolved here by the serene lake. Myer struggled to deny it to himself since Brady hadn’t a clue, but it wasn’t like Myer could really lie about how he felt, deep down inside.

I liked them, Myer blurted, wondering how long he’d been offline fantasizing about his sexy new roomie while he struggled to ignore Brady’s big, beautiful feet.

Brady rolled his dark brown eyes, made luminous by the light of the still glowing charcoals in the grill by his side. That’s because you covered them in half a bag of shredded cheese.

Myer chuckled. Yeah, well, you took the other half!

They were still chuckling when the crackle of tires on gravel interrupted them, the glowing glare of headlights illuminating Brady’s features and form like a spotlight until the car pulled into the drive across the street.

Carly’s home, Brady blurted unnecessarily, offering a friendly if noncommittal wave to their coworker-slash-neighbor, who’d used the same realtor they had to snag a rental house next door to them.

I figured. Myer rocked forward, only to see the cherry red pickup truck extinguish its headlights in the drive across from their own. Like most houses around Lost Lake, it was close but