Don't Try This at Home (Anthology)

290 Pages·2011·1.83 MB·English

by  Birmingham Anna

Copyright

Published by
Dreamspinner Press
5032 Capital Circle SW
Ste 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the
authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Midnight Caller Copyright © 2012 by Anna Birmingham
Snapshots Copyright © 2012 by Rena Butler
Basil’s Luck Copyright © 2012 by Henrietta Clarke
Boys, Toys, and Carpet Fitters © 2012 by Taylin Clavelli
Outbursts Copyright © 2012 by Bell Ellis
Tyler Wang Has a Ball Copyright © 2012 by Kim Fielding
Boy Next Door Copyright © 2012 by Ellee Hill
Gremlins in the Works Copyright © 2012 by Kiernan Kelly
Good Food Gone Bad Copyright © 2012 by Venona Keyes
Attack of the Hedgehogs Copyright © 2012 by Kate Pavelle
It’s Not What You Think Copyright © 2012 by Teegan Loy
Slippery When Wet Copyright © 2012 K. Lynn
Desperate Measures Copyright © 2012 by E.T. Malinowski
Gordon’s Cat Copyright © 2012 by Aundrea Singer
Photo Finish Copyright © 2012 by AC Valentine
Edited by Anne Regan
Cover Art by Paul Richmond
http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com
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, except where
permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at:
5032 Capital Circle SW Ste 2, PMB# 279 Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
ISBN: 978-1-61372-263-3
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
August 2012
eBook edition available
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61372-264-0
Basil’s Luck by Henrietta Clarke
Midnight Caller by Anna Birmingham
Boy Next Door by Ellee Hill
Gremlins in the Works by Kiernan Kelly
Attack of the Hedgehogs by Kate Pavelle
Gordon’s Cat by Aundrea Singer
Slippery When Wet by K. Lynn
Boys, Toys, and Carpet Fitters by Taylin Clavelli
Good Food Gone Bad by Venona Keyes
Desperate Measures by E.T. Malinowski
It’s Not What You Think by Teegan Loy
Tyler Wang Has a Ball by Kim Fielding
Snapshots by Rena Butler
Photo Finish by AC Valentine
Outbursts by Bell Ellis
BASIL CARAWAY WATKINS was not a superstitious man. The fact that
everything seemed to be going wrong on this Friday the thirteenth was of
little note; things always seemed to be going wrong for Basil. Today,
he’d knocked his colleague Lena’s coffee over in the morning and
trapped his thumb in the stepladder in the afternoon. It was with an ironic
smirk that Lena had wished him “good luck” instead of “good night”
when, at the end of the day, they’d locked up the doors of the library
where they worked and gone their separate ways.
Now, as he picked up a basket in his local store on the way home
and caught sight of the fresh white bandage on his thumb, Basil reflected
that it was a good thing he didn’t believe bad things came in threes. He’d
already had enough bad luck for one day, thank you very much! To his
relief, he managed to get halfway around the store without anything
going wrong. For once, no cans toppled off the shelf when he picked one
up; no insects flew out of the bananas and stung him; and no eggs
spontaneously leaped out of the closed carton when he put it in the
basket. (He still wasn’t sure how that one had happened.) However, he’d
gotten all the way around to breakfast cereal without anything going
wrong, and so he began to relax.
Really, he should have known better. It was always when he was
relaxing that the worst things happened. It was why, as he told his
mother, he was tense most of the time. At least when he was tense, he
anticipated the bad luck.
He was just reaching for the last bottle of Rioja when a hand
collided with his, sending a tingle up his arm. Glancing up in surprise, he
6 | HENRIETTA CLARKE

found himself looking into the face of a truly gorgeous man; a truly
gorgeous man who was holding the same bottle of wine and looking
equally surprised to find a man attached to it.
“Oh! Um. Sorry!” Basil stuttered, blinking.
“No, sorry, my fault,” the stranger said with a stunning smile.
“Here, you take it. You saw it first, I think.” He glanced down to where
his little finger overlapped Basil’s thumb.
“Oh no, it’s all right, I can pick another,” Basil replied, shaking his
head. He’d picked the Rioja as a Friday night treat, but this man’s smile
was treat enough for today.
“No really, I insist.”
“Honestly, it’s fine, you take it.”
The man gave a laugh, and Basil’s stomach flipped.
“Yeah, we could be standing here doing this for a long time….”
The stranger paused. “Look, this might be wildly inappropriate, and I
apologize if I’m reading you wrong, but I was wondering… would you
maybe like to have dinner with me and share the wine?”
Basil blinked. “Sorry, a-are you asking me out on a date?” It
seemed too good to be true, and clarification was definitely necessary.
“Is that okay?” The man looked worried, and it was the most
endearing thing Basil had ever seen.
“Er, yes. Yeah, I’d like that.” Basil smiled, releasing his hold on
the wine.
“Great.” The stranger winked… and also let go.
A moment later, the sound of smashing glass echoed through the
store, and Basil’s beige pants were splattered with red.
“Oh… sugaration!” he exclaimed, glaring down at the mess on the
floor.
The stranger quirked an eyebrow. “‘Sugaration’? I was thinking
‘crap!’ myself.”
Basil flushed a little. “Force of habit,” he explained. “I work in a
library, and obviously we can’t swear in front of the kids. Spur of the
moment substitute curses are a necessity.”
“No, I like it,” the stranger responded. “‘Crap’ is so unoriginal.”
“Well, it has been around since the dawn of time,” Basil responded
automatically, then flushed a little more. “Sorry; I make jokes when I’m
nervous. And they’re usually as bad as my luck.”
BASIL’S LUCK | 7

“Hmm, well, I can see it hasn’t been your lucky day today.” The
man nodded toward the bandage on Basil’s thumb. “You look like
you’ve been through the wars.”
“You could say that,” Basil observed wryly. “I’m Basil, by the
way, Basil Watkins—and if you really want a date, I’d advise you to
wear Kevlar.”
The stranger laughed. “Tom,” he offered, extending a hand.
“Thomas John. Unfortunately I don’t have any Kevlar—for some
inexplicable reason it isn’t standard issue for bank tellers. Would taking
you to a restaurant where I can find a human shield at short notice
instead be an acceptable substitute?”
“That works for me.” Basil smiled, taking a couple of steps
backward to get out of the way of the store worker who had appeared with
cleaning stuff to mop up the spilled wine. Unfortunately, the wine had
oozed across the floor while he and Tom had been talking, and the surface
behind him was now crimson and slippery. Being Basil, he found himself
sitting on his ass in the wine and broken glass before he had time to blink.
“Oh Jesus, are you okay?” Tom asked, a frown creasing his
handsome face as the floor shuddered slightly with the impact.
Basil sighed heavily, wincing as he gingerly attempted to move.
“I’m not sure which hurts most, my ass or my dignity.”
Tom winced in sympathy. “I’d help you up, but if I try to move….”
He shook his head, one hand giving a sweeping gesture to the perilous
floor. “I figure one of us ending up on their ass is enough for one day.”
“Yeah…. If it’s all the same to you, do you mind taking a rain
check on that date until my dignity has had time to recover some?”
Tom chuckled. “Well, if I’m being honest, I’d rather postpone it
until your ass has had time to recover.”
“That too,” Basil agreed, putting his hands down to push himself up
and yelping as fragments of broken glass burrowed into his palms. “Shit!”
“That bad, huh?” Tom’s tone was sympathetic.
Basil chuckled weakly. “I’ve had worse.”
He watched idly as the store worker, whose badge proclaimed her
to be “Mary”, got to work mopping up the wine, figuring it would be
easier to get up once the floor was dried.
“I’m so sorry about this,” he murmured, unsure whether he was
addressing himself to Tom or Mary and not really caring.
8 | HENRIETTA CLARKE

“No, no, it was all my fault,” Tom insisted, stepping backward in a
trail of deep red footprints after Mary had mopped the floor behind him.
“Do you need a hand?” he asked the store worker, who shook her head.
“I’m okay, sir; happens all the time,” she said cheerfully. “And
honestly, it’s more interesting than working the checkout.”
“Well, I live to entertain,” Basil quipped, examining the blood
oozing from his palms and sighing. He wasn’t quite dexterous enough to
clean out his own right hand with a pair of tweezers, which meant a trip
to the emergency room. The sixth this year, if his tally was correct.
“How ’bout you?” Tom asked, skirting Mary carefully and
extending his hands to Basil. “Ready to try getting up?”
“I guess…” Basil said doubtfully. “Not sure I can grab you,
though.” He glanced down at his ruined palms again. It was kind of hard
to tell what was blood and what was wine, and the last thing he wanted
to do was leave burgundy handprints on Tom’s white jacket, which had
miraculously escaped the bottle-dropping without a splash. Some people,
Basil thought with the slightest hint of bitterness, were just lucky.
“Okay, sugar, I’ll grab you,” Tom responded cheerfully, reaching
down to grasp Basil’s elbows and haul him to his feet.
The movement sent prickles of pain rippling through Basil’s ass,
and he yelped again, breathing harshly through his nose to combat the
pain. Yep—definitely a day for the emergency room.
Tom frowned in response to the yelp, eyes full of concern. “Sugar, you
need a doctor,” he observed. “You okay to walk out to my car? I’ll drive you
to the emergency room. And don’t worry about leaving bloodstains; they’ll
clean, and you need to get that glass seen to as soon as possible.”
Considering that Basil had walked to work and shopped on the way
home, he was grateful for the offer.
“I think so,” he replied cautiously, gritting his teeth and
appreciating Tom’s hold on his wrist as he gingerly took a few steps in
the direction of the checkout and exit.
“I’ll have to pay for that wine on the way out,” Tom mused,
holding up a hand to halt Basil’s protests. “No, it’s only fair. Please let
me; I feel terrible about this.”
Deciding that you had to pick your battles, Basil smiled. “Wait ’til
you’ve known me a little while,” he cautioned. “Give it a couple months
and forget terrible, you’ll just be exasperated. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a
walking disaster.” He blushed.
BASIL’S LUCK | 9

Tom grinned. “A very cute walking disaster,” he countered.
Basil blinked. “Cute?” he repeated with a frown. Standing short at
five foot nine, with round cheeks and a weak chin and mousy hair
topping a body which the kindest soul could only describe as “cuddly”,
Basil had never thought to apply a word like “cute” to himself before.
Nor had there been many men in his life to boost his confidence with
such compliments. He was just the pasty, pudgy, accident-prone one, and
until his first glimpse of Tom’s devastating cheekbones, Basil had been
okay with that. Now, he wondered if Fate was trying to make up for
thirty-one years of embarrassing calamities.
Tom paused, turning to look Basil up and down, appreciation clear
in his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, winking. “Cute. And sweet. And, I imagine,
interesting and funny. So before you ask… yes, I do still want that date.”

TOM still wanted the date when a red-faced Basil limped out of the
emergency room a couple of hours later, palms and ass free of glass. He
still wanted it a week later when he called Basil up to see if his dignity
had recovered any, and he still wanted it two days after that when Basil
called to ask for another rain check because he’d sprained his ankle
slipping off a stepladder at work.
In the end, it was two and a half weeks after the bottle-dropping
incident before they finally managed to make it to a restaurant. Tom had
chosen it specifically because it had no stairs and plenty of space
between the tables; from what he’d seen of Basil so far, the man would
manage to have an accident somehow, so why tempt fate?
It was more a precaution to spare Basil pain and blushes than to
reduce Tom’s chances of embarrassment and annoyance; to his surprise,
he was actually finding the whole “walking disaster” thing as adorable as
the man himself. There was something like suspense inherent in it, and
overall it served to make Basil intriguing. The fact that the man could
laugh at himself was another major point in his favor, and Tom was
really looking forward to the date.
To his mingled relief and disappointment, they managed to get all
the way through being seated, ordering, and the wine being served
without disaster striking; though Tom was definitely amused by how
cautiously Basil handled his glass.
10 | HENRIETTA CLARKE

“Wine hates me this month,” he explained with a sigh. “As if
dropping the bottle when I met you wasn’t bad enough, I managed to
overturn a full glass into my clean laundry last weekend. Fortunately it
was white wine and dark clothes, so it didn’t stain, but all the same, I’m
not taking any chances.”
It was evident that Basil was one of those people who struggled to
speak without gesturing (this had been less apparent when he’d been
sitting on his ass in a pool of wine with his hands full of glass), and he
finished up his speech with a wild sweep that knocked into the plate of
salad the waitress was attempting to place in front of him. There was a
clatter of smashing china as the dish hit the floor, and Basil blinked in
astonishment, looking around. Tom bit his lip to keep from smiling at the
look of bemusement on his date’s face.
“Oh Lord, I am so sorry!” Basil apologized, blushing.
Tom chalked up a few more points in Basil’s favor as the other
man listened to the waitress’s apology and waved it aside gracefully,
insisting that the incident was entirely his fault and that he would pay for
the appetizer to be replaced.
“But don’t let me hold you up,” he told Tom with a flush. “Please,
get started.”
Tom smiled, reaching over to take Basil’s hands, uncaring that the
waitress was still crouched a couple of feet away, cleaning up the
unfortunate plateful of food.
“Okay, how about you share mine now, and then we share yours
when it comes? And let’s talk about something so boring that you don’t
feel moved to gesture. Like, I dunno, pasteurized milk. Or baseball. I’ve
never gotten what the deal is with baseball. Give me football any day.”
“I’ve never really been one for sports,” Basil returned, and Tom
noted with warmth that the other man had made no attempt to extract his
hand from Tom’s.
“Too busy reading?” Tom guessed, remembering Basil was a librarian.
“Something like that,” Basil agreed. “Although I guess it really
stems from high school. I was always the kid who was last to be picked:
too chubby to run fast; couldn’t catch for spit; and don’t get me started
on throwing. I picked up a ball, and everyone ducked and covered. It was
more excruciating than having glass pulled out of my ass by a doctor
who I swear was trying not to laugh the whole time.”
Tom quirked an eyebrow, biting back a smile of his own. “So is