Nine Small Sips

  V.L. Locey

  Nine Small Sips

  A Tales of Bryant Wedding

  MM Contemporary Romance

  V.L. Locey

  Life for Isamu Taylor is now a Cinderella story that includes a Manhattan loft, a new position in the hottest LGBT film production company in New York City, and an upcoming wedding in Bryant Park to his very own handsome prince.

  He’s come a long way from that struggling film student with ratty sneakers and shaggy hair. Isamu is now living an urbanite’s fairy tale with that happily ever after just around a bustling city street corner.

  But as all wedding planners know, even the best laid plans seem to go awry, and Isamu and Brian’s wedding is no exception. But love—both old and new—is in the air, so nothing can go too badly, right?

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resale or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file-sharing peer-to-peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of U.S. copyright law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any other way or by any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A V.L. Locey MM Romance Collection

  Nine Small Sips – A Tales of Bryant Wedding

  Copyright © 2018 V.L. Locey

  First E-book Publication: June 12, 2019

  Cover design by: Designs by Sloan

  Edited by: Rebecca Cartee

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2018 by Designs by Sloan

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Also by V.L. Locey

  LGBTQ Releases

  Cayuga Cougars Series

  Harrisburg Railers Series

  Colors of Love Series

  Owatonna Eagles Series

  M/F Releases

  Meet V.L. Locey

  Acknowledgments

  To my family who accepts me and all my foibles and quirks. Even the plastic banana in my holster.

  To my alphas, betas, editors, and proofers who work incredibly hard to help me make my books the shiniest we can make them.

  To Rachel who helps keep me on time, in line, and reasonably sane.

  If you want to keep up with all the latest news about my upcoming M/M releases, sign up for my newsletter by visiting my website:

  http://vlloceyauthor.com/

  Chapter One

  June 10

  “Mom, I just hung up with Baba. Can you please call her back and try to explain that we’re both men? I think she forgets because she keeps telling me about her wedding to Jiji and how they did things and how she’s bringing her Saki set and needs to have cherry blossoms and—”

  “Isamu, breathe,” my mother said, her chin, which according to Brian I had inherited, looking a bit disgruntled. I grabbed my laptop, hiked up my briefs with one hand, and stormed out onto the patio, the rush of warm city air a little jarring after the cool of the air-conditioned loft. We had the best Wi-Fi available here, so the Skype call and picture never wavered as I moved location to let Brian sleep in. We had a busy day ahead, and he was grumpy if he didn’t get enough sleep. “Trust me when I say that your grandmother is well aware that you’re marrying a man.”

  I placed the laptop on the glass table, spun to slide the door shut, and then flopped down into the bright yellow chair that matched the huge umbrella jutting out of the middle of the table. The sounds and grit of the city rarely made it up to this patio. It was like another world here at times. A fairy tale existence that played with my values more than a little. All the luxury that Brian took for granted—or his due because he’d worked his ass off for every dime—sat on my shoulders like a moralistic raven. It pecked at me from time to time to remind me that my roots and my current life were worlds apart. Kind of like my grandmother in Japan and me here in Manhattan.

  “She hates my gayness,” I sighed, placing my elbows to the glass tabletop and then resting my chin on my cupped hands.

  “No honey, she does not hate you. She adores you; she just doesn’t understand homosexuality.” Mom was back home in Jersey, sipping on her tea, looking as frayed as I did. This wedding was going to kill me. There were so many details. Little things that I’d not thought of when I’d insisted we get married in Bryant Park that cold wintery day Brian had proposed. “She thinks you chose to be gay and that it’s a way to avoid having children.”

  “Brian and I can have kids if we want to. We just don’t.” I pouted then scowled then sighed and then made a face that gave my mother the giggles. “Seriously, I know she’s struggling and all, and that’s kind of still a ‘thing’ in Japan for the LGBT movement, like don’t ask and don’t tell, but come on. They have pride parades in Tokyo for shit sake. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say shit I’m just…GAH!”

  “Yes, but they still haven’t legalized same sex marriages, Isamu,” Mom reminded me, not that I needed to be reminded. My grandmother mentioned it at least one time per phone call. Still, I guess the fact that she was flying over to attend my wedding to Brian was something and something big at that. Still… “Just give her time. You could give into her a bit and work something from our culture into your wedding.”

  “Mom…”

  “Let her bring her Saki set. It’s a small thing, and you could blend it into the ceremony with ease. That will make her feel welcomed and perhaps not like such an outsider.”

  The door behind me slid open, and Brian stepped up behind me, hopefully not as nude as he’d been when we’d fallen into his big bed last night. He slid his hands down over my bare chest as he bent down to press a kiss to my cheek.

  “Mama ohayō,” he said to my mother as he lay draped over my shoulders. Mom gave him a soft smile. She’d grown fonder of Brian over the months since we’d gotten engaged, but she still held some reservations, ones that she kept to herself, but ones that I suspected I knew all too well. The fact that he spoke Japanese was a plus, as it would be for my grandmother when she finally met him, but she still thought he was too old for me. She didn’t say so, but I could see it in her chin. It kind of wrinkled from time to time when she’d look at Brian.

  “Ohayou,” Mom replied politely. “Tell Isamu that working the Saki ceremony into your wedding won’t tip the cart too drastically.”

  He spread his long frame into the other chair, his hazel eyes still lazy with sleep. His hair was ruffled, his cheeks covered with new whiskers, and his chest bared. Thankfully he’d stepped into a pair of thin summer lounge pants of deep blue.

  “I’d be happy to include it,” he said around a yawn. My eyes darted from my fiancé stretching his arms high up over his rumpled brown hair to stretch back to my mother. She looked smug. Even her tiny chin had a haughty set. “You have a lovely culture; why not include a small part of it?”

  “Because I’m American. I want an American wedding with American things like throwing rice—”

  “That’s not done anymore. Something about the birds eating the rice and blowing up?” Brian tossed out then placed his feet on my lap. I caressed his long, chilly, perfectly pedicured toes.

  The door opened again, and Rose, our new housekeeper, stepped out with the morning coffee and fruit tray. We’d decided on a housekeeper a couple of months ago because neither of us were eating properly, and my habits clashed with Brian’s. He was fastidious to the point of obsession, and I was a slob. The fights about dirty dishes and crusty socks beside the hamper were spiraling up and out of control, so Brian hired someone to cook healthy foods and keep things tidy—things being the shit I left lying around—so we could be happy young newlyweds and not a prematurely old married couple bickering about dusty shelves or toothpaste in the sink. So far Rose was working out brilliantly.

  We all greeted the round, older woman who had taken Brian in hand the moment she’d applied for the position. Over fifty people had shown up for the job, all of them sycophants and weasel-like cock-kissers according to Brian. All but Rose Dupont. Rose had called him an uptight, rich prick when he’d thrown some of his shit at her, and he’d hired her on the spot. Brian liked people who refused to bow down for anyone. It was something he kept trying to drum into my head, but I was still
struggling with the whole “I give no fucks about what anyone thinks” frame of mind.

  “Then you can skip the rice throwing and do the Saki ceremony. Your Baba would love it if you used her set,” Mom wheedled as Rose moved around the table in a crisp blue uniform that she insisted be worn on a daily basis.

  I smiled feebly up at the freckled redhead as she put my cup of coffee in front of me. Rose patted my cheek then served Brian in the brisk, efficient manner that he preferred. No cheek pats for Mr. Gilles. Those he only allowed from his soon-to-be husband and maybe the drunks at Flex if he’d gotten enough Johnny Walker Blue Label into him. Flex. That was another stop on this manic Saturday. The pre-wedding list was insane. I was stressing and had had the urge to puke on my shoes for the past three weeks.

  I looked from my mother and her chin to Brian. His hazel eyes were sexy sleepy and locked on me over his coffee mug.

  “What do you think?” I asked because it was his wedding as much as it was mine. Probably more than mine since he was footing the bill for everything from the costs to have a wedding in Bryant Park to the limos and the honeymoon and the airline tickets for my grandmother to fly over.

  “I think if it makes Baba happy, then we should incorporate it into the ceremony. It’s just a purification ritual if what I’ve read is correct. She will have to understand that we’re not having a Shinto priest or any other kind of religious figurehead in attendance,” he replied after setting his coffee down and picking up a fork to jab at a fat cube of watermelon in a fluted bowl. “We don’t do pontificating assholes asking their sky friend to bless our union.”

  Mom’s chin got a little tight. Rose hustled off to pick up the place. “She understands that it’s a Western marriage,” Mom replied before setting her empty teacup aside. I could see she was thinking of offering up a suggestion about possibly having a small prayer, but she bit it back. Brian was utterly respectful of my parents and had graciously worked most of their suggestions into our own wants for this ceremony. The only time things had gotten hot was when Mom had suggested we have the small ceremony in a church instead of on the lawn of Bryant Park. Brian had a few harsh words about organized religion and the way it had treated the LGBTQIA+ community that he used to kill that suggestion immediately.

  “Then I’m happy to use Baba’s Saki set for the ceremony as long as it fits into our timeframe.” He pulled the chunk of pink fruit off his fork with perfect white teeth and chewed quietly. “We can drop Adrian a note and tell him to wiggle it in.”

  “Adrian will require smelling salts if we add or take out one more thing.” To say our wedding planner was slightly high-strung was putting it mildly. “I’m just not sure if I want to do this to be honest. It’s not at all in line with the rest of the ceremony and the reception…”

  “Isamu, this little drama queen hissy fit you’re throwing is childish.” He speared a square of cantaloupe and offered it to me. I gaped openly. “Stop acting petulant. We can accommodate the wishes of the elderly matriarch of your family.”

  Great. Now I felt like shit, and it was only nine o’clock in the morning. “Am I really being childish?”

  Brian nodded then fed me some cantaloupe. I licked the juice from my lips then peeked at my mother as I chewed. Her chin said that she agreed with Brian’s remark.

  I exhaled through my nose. “I am. Ugh, this wedding is going to make me hurl.” I dropped my forehead to the table and winced at the contact. Mom and Brian had a quick couple of words while my forehead throbbed, and then his cool fingers tracked down my arm.

  “Come here,” he softly called. I slid over into his lap after saying goodbye to my mother, burping the one bite of cantaloupe.

  “My nerves are shot. I’m sorry I’m being such a—”

  “Bridezilla?” He carded his fingers through my knotted hair.

  That made me snort and wiggle into his arms a bit deeper. “I so am. Like, I was bitching about my seventy-year-old grandmother wanting us to sip some rice wine in her old cups.”

  “And don’t forget her insistence that we have cherry blossoms scattered about,” he teased, his shoulder a perfect pillow for my head. My feet dangled off the side of the patio chair.

  “Shit yes,” I snickered, the panic that rode in my chest easing a bit. Brian was always so in control of everything; I envied him that. “Even though the cherry trees did their thing like three months ago.” My eyelids drifted closed, and I let myself melt further into him. “Sure, I’d love to have cherry blossoms like she and Jiji did when they got married.”

  “Like the Saki ceremony?”

  I groaned. “Yes, just like that. Adrian is rubbing off on me,” I confided, lifting his arm and laying it across my lap and hip. He smelled like warm man.

  “You have several levels of gay flounce to master before you can even dream to touch the hem of Adrian Pontimore’s silky drawers.”

  That made me feel marginally better. “Will you feed me more fruit as I try to think of a fitting apology to my poor widowed grandmother who’ll be boarding a plane in a week, alone, to come see her queer grandson marry a man far too proudly gay, far too old, and far too aloof for him?”

  “You’ve been reading your mother’s chin again,” he muttered, kissed my own talkative chin, and then fed me fruit until I begged off and left his lap to shower for the long day of wedding planning and nervous breakdowns ahead. I dreaded brunch with Adrian tomorrow. It would make my little bitch fit this morning pale in comparison.

  Chapter Two

  June 11

  “Brian, no, please, I beg you do not make me go meet Adrian alone,” I pleaded, following my fiancé around our loft as he readied himself to go into the office. On a Sunday.

  “Isamu, he’s just a high-strung homo. If you don’t let his histrionic level get too high, he’s fine,” he said while tossing papers and notebooks into his attaché case. “I would have gone yesterday as we’d planned, but his last minute reschedule to brunch today means you have to handle him.”

  I trotted along after him like a stray dog looking for a friendly handout. “How the hell am I supposed to handle Adrian Pontimore?”

  He spun to face me. I bit back anything else I had planned to say when I saw how tightly knotted his eyebrows were. “Be firm with him. He thrives on theatrics so simply don’t allow him to act out.”

  “But I…”

  “Isamu,” he said on a hearty exhalation. “I have to go in on Sundays to make sure everything is caught up before we leave on our honeymoon. You knew this, yes?” He picked up his fine leather bag and waited for me to reply.

  “Yes, but…”

  “No buts. Adrian works for us. We’re paying him a ridiculous amount of money to plan our wedding. Artist he may be, and highly sought after, but it’s us who sign his paycheck.”

  “You. It’s you who signs his paycheck,” I mumbled under my breath. He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped my gaze up from his gray-striped Hugo Boss shirt to his face. He was smiling that soft little smile that made my cock twitch. No one worked sensual smug quite like Brian.

  “He works for us. Remember that. Now, let me get to the office. Grace is already there, and you know how she is about me being late.” He led my mouth to his, pulling gently to make me rise to my toes. His lips were soft and inquisitive, moving over mine with gentle brushes that made me want more. I tried to lick at the seam of his mouth or press myself against him, but he held me in place, teasing until I huffed and made him chuckle. “Go handle Adrian. When I get home, and I hear that you’ve taken a firm hand with him, I’ll make sure you’re well rewarded.”