WIP Wednesday: A little rainy hump day angst

Photo credit: Jon Sullivan

It's gray and rainy here, but the rain is bringing a very welcome respite from 90+ degree temps, so I'll take it. I won't go so far as to say I'll be happy driving to work in it in a few hours, but I'll take it nonetheless.

Angsty, broody men and rain go together well, so I'm sharing a snippet from my untitled manuscript (I've really got to get on naming this thing) about Jake and Connor, whose relationship seems to be falling apart.

Jake just found out that Connor lied about where he was going to be, which sets off all kinds of warning  bells for Jake. Here's a peek at his internal monologue:

---

Jake stalked down the hallway to their room, scowling at the neatly made bed. He’d forgotten that Gavin's sister Elaine was staying there for the night. He and Connor were supposed to be sleeping over at Chris' for the weekend.

He stomped back to the living room and threw himself on the couch, reaching for the remote and flicking on the television. A few minutes of channel surfing didn’t turn up anything that caught his attention, and even if he had, he didn’t think he could focus on something like a movie or television show while Connor was out gallivanting around town. So he sat and stewed until he could barely stand it, limbs practically twitching with nervous energy. As a contractor, he worked a lot with his hands and was up and around all day—he'd never been good at just sitting back and relaxing.

Not that it would be possible to relax at the moment. Jake ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He was overdue for a cut, but he'd been waiting for Connor to say something. Jake almost never kept track of things like that; Connor was the one who hounded him to go in for a cut when it started to get shaggy. If left to his own devices, Jake would only get it cut when it started to get so unruly that it made his baseball caps fit too tightly.

But Connor hadn't said anything. There had been no hastily scribbled Post-it note on the bathroom mirror or coupons tucked into Jake's wallet for his favorite salon chain. Hell, Jake hadn't been able to wear the Mariners hat he almost never took off for over a week now because it had gotten uncomfortable, and Connor hadn't noticed that, either.

Jake added that to his mental tally of everything that had been going wrong with Connor lately, resisting the urge to tug at his floppy locks in frustration. He needed to be doing something, but it wasn't like he could confront Connor when he didn't even know where he was. Jake knew he could text him—even at his most distracted and unavailable, Connor always responded to texts. But could he trust anything Connor said? Wouldn't he just claim to be with Chris and make Jake even angrier?