✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello, everyone! Thank you, Addison, for allowing me to stop by your blog again.
I’m Holly Day, and I write MM Romance stories for specific days. Most of what I write is paranormal, but now and then, I write something contemporary, and on occasion, there is an alien or two.
When I say I write stories for specific days, I mean all those days we celebrate for the fun of it, or because we want an excuse to eat cake, ice cream, chocolate, or whatever (you know, like Cinnamon Roll Day in October).
My most recent story, Squirrel Found, celebrates National Macadamia Nut Day.
So how do you feel about squirrels? Cute and fluffy or filthy rodents?
If it’s the latter, maybe you should stop reading now, because we’re talking cute, fluffy, scatterbrained, fluffy, cute, disorganized, cute, forgetful, and fluffy LOL.
Three months ago, Deneb lost his cousin – or so he believes, at least. They were in a clearing in squirrel form when a group of wolves attacked. His cousin never made it back, and after having waited a few days, Deneb set off into the world on his own.
He stayed in squirrel form, jumped from one branch to another until he no longer knew where he was.
One day, he finds himself in a forest behind a thrift shop. He watches a gorgeous man in a three-piece suit come and go, and when it’s closed for the night, he figures it might be time to shift back to human.
He has no clothes, but there is a dumpster where the thrift store workers throw away the clothes they deem unfit for selling. He jumps in to search. What he doesn’t know is that people are living in the building, and someone sees him.
All Nicodemus wants is to relax after a long day at work, so when one of the women he’s taken in calls and tells him there is a naked man in the dumpster, he isn’t pleased. Especially not since all he can find is a squirrel.
Squirrel Found is the fifth and last story in the A Scurry of Squirrels series. They’re all mostly standalone, but characters from the previous stories make an appearance. If you want to read them in order, this is the way to go:
- Squirrel Circus – A grumpy werewolf who rejects his fated mate simply because he’s a squirrel. Celebrates Squirrel Appreciation Day.
- Squirrel Hunt – A squirrel on the run who does his utmost best to avoid the local alpha wolf. Spoiler alert, he doesn’t succeed. Celebrates Read in the Bathtub Day.
- Squirrel in Hiding – A squirrel who hides in Doson from a group of wolves only to have one of the local wolves court him. Celebrates Read an Ebook Day.
- Squirrel Blue – A squirrel trapped in a cage and a werewolf who is set on stealing him. Celebrates National Peanut Butter Cookie Day.
- Squirrel Found – A squirrel grieving his cousin (who may or may not have been trapped in a cage and stolen by a werewolf), and a vampire who wants to be his safe haven. National Macadamia Nut Day.
Squirrel Found
by Holly Day
Series: A Scurry of Squirrels (Shared Universe – Book 5)
Genre: Paranormal Gay Romance
Length: Novella / 37,468 Words / 140 Pages
Heat Rating: 4 Flames
🛒 Purchase Links
Blurb
Squirrels should never travel alone.
Three months ago, Deneb Hartman lost his cousin. They were in a clearing, in their squirrel forms, when wolves attacked them. His cousin never made it back, and Deneb’s world shattered. He never did well on his own, and he’s been traveling aimlessly ever since.
Nicodemus Zervas owns a thrift shop in Doson. He’s a vampire surrounded by humans unaware of the supernatural world, and it’s lonely. For a year, he had a squirrel shifter working for him, but now he’s moved on and left Nicodemus behind. But then one day, there is a naked man jumping out of his recycling dumpster. When Nicodemus runs after him, all he can find is a squirrel.
Deneb found a nice little forest behind a thrift store to hang out in. Had he known people stayed in the building overnight, he wouldn’t have shifted where he could be seen. Nicodemus is almost sure the naked man and the squirrel are the same, but how to get him to show himself to Nicodemus? Bribe him with macadamia nuts?
Excerpt
Nicodemus took the turn into Get It or Get Out’s parking lot a little too fast and almost scraped his car at the gate post. Unacceptable. He stopped the car right outside the main entrance of the thrift shop, and even before he got out, Nicole pushed through the doors.
“He jumped out, had some clothes slung over his shoulder.”
Nicodemus met her gaze but said nothing.
“He’s most likely homeless and needed some clothes.”
“Homeless people don’t walk around naked.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh… No, I guess they don’t. Maybe he’d gotten wet and needed…” Her voice died away. It hadn’t rained. The summer had been unusually dry. Authorities had pleaded with people to be mindful of the water, to not water their lawns or fill up swimming pools, and so on. Nicodemus assumed it would change soon. Fall was normally a wet affair, but for now, he didn’t think the man had been caught out in the rain and needed dry clothes.
Then his heart softened a fraction. The first frost hung in the air. It would only be another week or two, so if he were homeless, he might need clothes.
It didn’t give him the right to scare his girls, though.
“I’ll go tell him he can’t be here.” He walked toward the corner of the building, Nicole jogging by his side to keep up with him. He wanted to tell her to go inside, but he’d known her long enough to know she wouldn’t.
They rounded the building to where the Dumpster was, and Nicodemus scanned the area. He couldn’t see anyone.
“He disappeared into the woods.” Nicole’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Nicodemus inhaled. He didn’t have as good a sense of smell as wolves did, but he believed it was better than any human’s. Had the man been bleeding, he’d be able to pick up on it. Blood he scented without any problem at all.
He walked in on the narrow trail but slowed as soon as he spotted bright pink in one of the trees.
“He grabbed them from the Dumpster. I threw them away earlier today.”
Nicodemus didn’t reply. Instead, he walked closer to where the clothes rested on the lowest branch. Women’s yoga pants or whatever they were called, and a Barbie top. “Are you sure it was a man?”
“He had the attributes, but maybe they’re a woman with a dick.” She shrugged, and at first Nicodemus believed she was joking, but when she didn’t smile, he considered the statement.
“Maybe.” He peered between the tree trunks and inhaled again. It smelled of forest, the crisp scent of fall battling summer, and there was a hint of squirrel. No wolves. They had bear shifters around Doson too, but it wasn’t smelling of bear either.
He looked up into the canopy. The aspen trees had already dropped their leaves. He guessed the drought had hurried the process along, and the green of the other trees was giving way to yellow. He couldn’t spot a squirrel, but they were pretty good at hiding.
“Do you want me to stay for a bit, make sure he doesn’t come back?” Nicodemus didn’t look at her, he kept scanning the branches.
“Nah, the more I think about it, the less dangerous I think he is. I was shocked at seeing a naked man. I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime, but… he wasn’t a big person. Not a kid, but—” She ended the sentence with a shrug, which didn’t help Nicodemus much. Did she mean smaller men weren’t as threatening? He hadn’t asked her much about her situation. She was hiding from an ex, as so many of the women he took in were. Sometimes he wished he could rid the world of the pitiful human males. So few of them realized how lucky they were to have a life partner, but instead of cherishing the person they were with, they destroyed them.
An owl hooted in the distance, and an instant later, there was movement in one of the trees ahead. A squirrel scurried across a thick branch, jumped over to a neighboring tree, and dove into a hollow Nicodemus hadn’t noticed before. Ha! He’d known there had been a squirrel somewhere.
“Poor thing.” Nicole was watching the squirrel too.
Nicodemus didn’t answer.
“You can head back home again. The man appears to be long gone now anyway.”
Without clothes. Nicodemus walked over to the tree where the clothes were hanging and plucked them off the branch. “I’ll walk you inside.” He didn’t think the man had gotten into the shop, but better to check than to end up regretting it, and Nicodemus was a little peckish. He could go a few more days without feeding, but if someone had broken into his building, then they were more or less inviting him to bite them.
About the Author
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.