Title: Zeno
Author: Gene Gant
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 05/20/2025
Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 78100
Genre: Contemporary YA, contemporary, US South, YA, high school, coming out, coming of age, bisexual, gay, Black teens, slow burn, friend crush, family, black joy, humorous, friendship, #ownvoices
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Description
At sixteen, Zeno Anderson is on the cusp of graduation. He’s anxious to leave for college in Illinois come fall, but his cautious parents have their doubts about letting him out of the nest before he’s eighteen. Zeno worries he’s doing more to hurt than help himself on that front.
The thing is, Zeno has a tendency to run from problems, and he’s a bit confused in his social life. After a terrible misunderstanding, he’s been avoiding best friend, Marvus, for months now, only to find himself semi-crushing on Jemma, who seems to be catching feelings of her own. When something serious happens to Zeno at Jemma’s unsupervised party, threatening their friendship, Zeno doesn’t do himself any favors by not letting his parents in on it.
Then, there’s tall, handsome Dalvin Drake, wide receiver on the football team. Zeno is surprised to discover, as his crush on Jemma wanes, his feelings for dreamy Dalvin fast-track from buddy zone to full-on flirt. With two friendships already on the rocks, Zeno doesn’t want to risk losing Dalvin. Yeah, but the thing is, Dalvin’s suddenly dropping hints that he’s into Zeno too.
Life is so complicated. What exactly is a fella supposed to do with all this?
Zeno
Gene Gant © 2025
All Rights Reserved
“Hey,” Dalvin said as he eased up behind me in his own varsity jacket.
“Hey.” I watched as the three boys banged through the door into the parking lot that connected to the gym. “They kinda look like they’re headed to football practice. I thought that was canceled or something.”
“Nope. It’s still on. We practice every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.”
“Then…you’re ditching practice?” That would be major. In the three and a half years I’d known him, Dalvin never ditched anything.
“Hell no, man. Yesterday, the coach showed the team video of three plays from our last regular season game and asked how those plays almost lost us that game. I was the only player who came up with the right answer, so Coach told me I could skip practice today since I already knew what he was about to drill into the rest of the team. He’s gonna work the hell outta them.”
“Bet you hate you’re missing out on that,” I said as we began ambling in the opposite direction toward the Arts wing. From my backpack, I pulled the chocolate bar I’d gotten out of the vending machine during lunch. I tore off the wrapping and chomped a huge bite. My eyes rolled up as I chewed. Pure heaven.
Dal was smiling when I looked at him again. I offered him a bite; he shook his head. His loss. Two chomps later, the chocolate bar was a sweet memory.
“You know,” Dalvin said, “I make killer brownies.”
What in the natural hell? I hesitated for a second in midstep. Was the dude into edibles or something? Shit. Mom and Dad would kill my ass if I did edibles. “Uh. What does that mean?”
Dalvin kept smiling, but his expression suddenly became unreadable. “It means I’m into baking these days.”
“Like, actual baking?”
“There’s another kind? Yeah, actual baking. My mom’s got this side hustle where she does cakes and pies for people who want a homemade dessert without the trouble of making it themselves. She pulls in some serious cash, too, anywhere from twenty-five bucks for a sweet potato pie to four hundred bucks for a wedding cake. She got swamped this one time and asked me to help out, and I got hooked. I learned a lot from my mom, and now I bake on my own. I’m good at it, man.”
I stopped cold in the hall, and three girls almost rear-ended me. They cursed as they ducked around and went on their way.
Dalvin turned back to me with this puzzled look on his face. “What?” he asked.
I pressed my lips together, covered my mouth with my hand, and wound up snickering through my nose. “I’m trying to picture it… You…in an apron…stirring up a batch of sugar cookies!” I burst out howling.
“Man, hell with you.” Grinning, Dalvin swiveled sharply at the waist, shoving me away with his backpack. “You sound like my pops.”
“Promise you’ll bake me something. Please.”
He looked me square in the eye, his smile gone. “Anything for you.”
Ooh. The serious vibe off him right now made my mouth go dry. I turned away for a moment, scratching the back of my head.
“So…” Dalvin blew out a breath. “Not exactly man stuff, huh, the baking?”
“Hey,” I said, turning back to him, “my dad cooks most of the meals at our house. He always has, even before my mom started working shifts out of town full time. He makes desserts, too, and he’s damned good at it like you. He loves cooking for his family.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. I mean, I’d starve if it weren’t for my dad. And I do most of the housework, laundry and cleaning the bathrooms and stuff. No such thing as women’s work at our house.”
This was a totally new side of Dalvin, a tiny crack in the armor of self-confidence he always presented. I liked this vulnerability in him, something he seemed to share only with me. I liked that I could back him up.
Dalvin smiled again. “Okay. I told you something embarrassing about me. Now let me hear something embarrassing about you.”
“Dal, what the hell? Baking’s your thing, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Tell that to Richie or the guys on the football team. I’d never hear the end of it.” He looked around anxiously at the kids passing by in the hall, maybe checking for eavesdroppers. They were wrapped up in their own business and paying no attention to us. “Uh, don’t say anything about this to anybody around here, okay Z?”
“I promise I won’t. And if it’ll make you feel better, I’m into scented candles. And calla lilies.”
Dalvin’s whole face lit up. “Candles and calla lilies? Seriously?”
“Definitely. My mom lights candles and takes long baths. She says it helps her relax when she’s stressed or feeling down or whatever. So, there was this time…something happened with this friend of mine, we stopped being cool with each other, and I was, like…really losing it. I lit one of my mom’s candles and sank into a tub of warm suds and, dude, it mellowed me out. I swear. Sometimes, I just sit in my room in the dark with a lit candle, and I’m chill. Jasmine’s my favorite scent.”
The expression on Dalvin’s face changed from amusement to concern. I knew immediately he wanted to ask about the friend debacle thing—please, God, don’t let him ask—and I almost shook my head when he opened his mouth. Right away, he closed up again. Maybe he picked up on my dread, somehow, because he finally said, “So. Where do the calla lilies come in, huh?”
“Oh, right. Before I started elementary school, my parents used to leave me with my mom’s mom while they worked. She loved calla lilies. In the spring and summer, I’d help her plant lilies around her house and take care of them. It became a thing for us that lasted until she died four years ago. When Mom sold her house, I transplanted some of her lilies into our yard, and I’ve been keeping them going since, as a way to remember her.”
“That’s a beautiful thing for you to do, man. Sorry about your grandma, though. Must’ve been tough, losing her.”
“Yeah. I still have my dad’s mom. She’s a gangsta Spades player. Taught me everything I know about the game. When we partner up, we rule the table.”
“I’m really close to both my grandmas too.” Dalvin smiled. “I’m glad you told me this stuff.”
I smiled at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I was thinking today that you’re really cool people. I can talk to you, always could, from just about the time we met. You have this way of making me see things for what they are.”
“I can say the same about you.”
“But we’ve been friends for over three years now, and it’s, like, I know you but not really,” Dalvin said. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you.”
“Dude, you know a lot about me. I know a lot about you. Remember all those nights we stayed up late playing online video games? The way we marathon episodes of Game of Thrones on your phone? The way we play soccer and basketball after school? We’re into a lot of the same stuff.”
“But there’s so much more. I’ve never been to your house, never met your parents. You don’t even know where I live. Do you know my biggest fear? I don’t know yours.”
I looked away from him. There were a number of kids I hung out with at school whose homes I’d never visited and whose parents I’d never met. That didn’t make them any less of a friend. Of course, I’d known Jemma about as long as I’d known Dalvin, and I’d been to her house a number of times. I played board games and watched movies with her parents and her sister. It was only fair that I invited her to my house for my dad’s backyard barbecues. Did that make her more of a friend than Dalvin?
Dalvin massaged the back of his neck, a move that screamed nervousness. Or frustration. “I’m not trying to make anything major out of this, Z. I wanna know you better, that’s all. Is it crazy to want that?”
I glanced up. The way he was looking at me…oh my gosh. There went that weird tingle through my body again. I liked the dude. He liked me. And I shivered.
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A former corporate writer of business correspondence, policy, and training manuals, Gene Gant lives with his family in a quiet little neighborhood outside Memphis, Tennessee. You can find Gene on Facebook.
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