Lucky Boy

Summer's Pointe

by Summer Michaels

Official Description: JT Barrett and Adam Fourier have been best friends and neighbors since they were seven years old. Celebrating their graduation from Arizona State, Adam's world is turned upside down. With the fierce need to protect his best friend, JT takes Adam along with him to a job interview at Summer's Pointe. On an Australian adventure, will JT work up the nerve to tell Adam how he really feels or will he continue to bury his feelings?

Original Prompt:
Dear Author,
After being best friends since we were 7, and determined to celebrate our graduation from college together before our new lives separated us, we booked a weekend in a private resort. Waking up after napping on a sun lounge, I found that my best friend took advantage of me falling asleep to skinny dip in the spa. He never realized I was watching him, mesmerized by the sun highlighting his golden skin and jade green eyes. Just like he's never realized that I fell in love with him so many years ago.

Please help me to make him realize just how much I love him and to convince him to spend the rest of our lives together. I know I can make him happy.

Photo Description: A young man stands nude, with water nearly to his waist, in a outdoor spa. Sunlight and shadow play across his body and the rock wall behind him. His arms are raised, hands clasped behind his head, while he stares into the camera. A tattoo on his stomach is partly visible above the waterline.

This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Hot Summer Days" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

Download the story, read it here or find it in Don't Read in the Closet, Volume 3.
__________
Genre: contemporary
Tags: gay m/m, cock docking, friends to lovers, travel, virginal character
Word Count: 7,942

Genres: M M Romance, Contemporary, Friends To Lovers, Romance, Short Stories, LGBT, Gay

20 pages, ebook

First published July 20, 2011

About the author

Summer Michaels wrote her first story in the second grade, about a car-stealing potato. Thankfully, men in love with other men keep her muse busy and satisfied now. With a belief that love should be shared no matter what the form, Summer enjoys telling stories of rowdy cowboys, reunited lovers, and steamy shifters. When Summer is not reading and writing, she enjoys camping, hiking, water rafting, and giving the old woman in a shoe a run for her money.

Reviews

[Exina · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The setting of this story is the same island as in Sink or Swim, and we meet again Mr. Medina a.k.a. Havi.

Nice, sweet summer story, but nothing memorable.

Appears in Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Three anthology.

[Marte - Thunderella · Rating 2 out of 5]

** 2 meh stars **



----------------------------------------------------

A short story in the collection "Don't Read in the Closet, Volume Three" from the MM Romance Group Hot Summer Event 2011. 

Click HERE for the story online or  HERE to download the whole collection for your reading device.

Prompt:


Dear Author, 

After being best friends since we were 7, and determined to celebrate our graduation from college together before our new lives separated us, we booked a weekend in a private resort. Waking up after napping on a sun lounge, I found that my best friend took advantage of me falling asleep to skinny dip in the spa. He never realized I was watching him, mesmerized by the sun highlighting his golden skin and jade green eyes. Just like he's never realized that I fell in love with him so many years ago.

Please help me to make him realize just how much I love him and to convince him to spend the rest of our lives together. I know I can make him happy.

Genre: Contemporary 

Tags: Cock Docking, Friends to Lovers, Travel, Virginal Character

[CAS · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a LOT to love about this story.. best friends to lovers, a little jealousy, a little angst, a little bit of a misunderstanding (or two :) and a LOT of making it right! G'day!!!! :)

Both Adam and JT are quite easy to love as MC's. I love the tie in with Lissa and Xara's Hot Summer Days story, Sink or Swim which pretty much made this a double bonus. :)
Both stories are full to overflowing with very inticing verbal visuals of this fascinating world, giving us a pretty damn tempting teaser for what might very well be a long run of stories to satisfy every taste.

I'm sure I am not alone in my happy dance after reading that there ARE plans for more stories with these and other characters set on this same sex couples island resort known as Summer's Pointe. My recomendation: make your reservations now!

Loved this line:
He laughed at me, when I asked him to wear a pair of longer swimwear than the budgie-smugglers we wore in Cairns. I didn't care if he would be in a wetsuit or not, that's my budgie he was smuggling, and I didn't want anyone getting any ideas about it.

Loved this story.

Lots of lovin' sums it up pretty well..
Thanks Summer, ( and Lissa and Xara as well :) Hope to see you all again REAL soon.

[SueM · Rating 4 out of 5]

♥ ♥ ♥
Summer, I love it! Wow! Adam & JT were perfect together. I loved JT's strength and protectiveness towards Adam even as he was so uncertain of where things were going. Then once his confidence had kicked in again, I really liked the wedding rings/house building scene:
"My whole lifes savings is in this box. Please Adam, you are killing me here."

I am very happy with the end result - but now I want more! (Greedy of me, i know, but...) Perhaps you could get together with Lissa & Xara and start a series based on the island? That way I could read about how Adam and JT's relationship grows deeper (Beau & Abram too!) as well as new couples...

Thank you for my cameo role (well, I assume it was me?!) on the island as well as including Rockford's Black Shiraz... Made it very personal and special to me. And the rest of the Aussie touches were spot on too! Thank you so much Summer!

PS. I like the cover too!

[Bubbles Hunty Honest & Direct Opinions · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute free short story

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe a 2+ star story for me. This was an okay m/m short story about friends-to-lovers, but I thought the most interesting parts were the other characters and the island itself. The story was sweet, but the main characters felt generic. There were some extreme emotional reactions by each of Adam and JT at different points in the course of the story that seemed a little random or, at the very least, didn't seem to have much of a foundation for in their personalities and characters thus far. Also, while most of the dialogue was fine, sometimes there were parts where it felt stilted (e.g., a notable lack of contractions when it seems more natural to use "there's" rather than "there is"), which distracted me from what they were actually saying. Nevertheless, I appreciate the free read and the efforts these authors have gone to in order to provide us with so much great content. I think the island itself (and other characters) could be developed into an interesting sequel or series.

This story is available FREE in the GoodReads M/M Group's Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Three anthology. You can download it here.

[Wendy❤Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, Mr. Medina conjurs up images of Ricardo Montalban and Fantasy Island reincarnated with nothing but m/m! Add in the AussieBum visual and the temperature went up to sweltering:) Adam and JT are great characters. I hated what Brody did to Adam, but it did bring him together with JT and ultimately turned "Lucky Boy" into two very lucky boys! Loved it, Summer, and I'm so excited to hear about the potential for a series. Yay!!!

[Brenda Maldonado · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the setting, but the story was predictable and the writing style didn't quite work for me.

[Summer Michaels]

I wrote this story for the M/M Romance group Hot July Days event. Sue, a member of the group, posted a picture and asked the author for a story. I pounced on the picture and ran with it. This book is for Sue, who allowed me to use her name, favorite wine, and home country to center the story around.

This book is paired with Sink or Swim by Lissa Kasey and Xara X. Xanakas. Look for more books to come about the island, love, and mischief.

[L-D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a typical story of lifetime best friends taking that step into romance. It was pretty sweet although Adam irked me because of his promiscuous character. And there were a couple of angry blow outs for no reason that I could fathom. Other than that it was a sweet romance and a free download to boot.

Don't Read in the Closet is a collection of short stories published for free for members of the M/M Romance Group. The best part of this series of shorts is that they were based on a photo and a reader request for a story. Here is the photo and reader request that inspired this story (warning contains non-graphic nudity in a hot tub):

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

[Luta Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy Crap this was good. It had that best friends love angle but done oh so well. What really makes a story like this is detailed characters and high powered emotions. The author did this perfectly. Awsome job!

[Sadonna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely BFFs to lovers with a crossover to Sink or Swim. Want to see more of these two and this whole "world" - well Fantasy Island at least.

[DeWanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet story.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is wonderfuly sappy and has one of my favorite story tropes - best friends falling in love.

I want to live on that island.

[Gavin Stephenson-Jackman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just the little romantic getaway that I needed. Sun, sand, and Australia, what could be better.

[Dianne Hartsock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet and romantic. A nice read before bedtime.

[☆ Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhh...

[AliciaJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute short friends to lovers story.

[Rachel Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story about friends becoming more, a very hot read!

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute and hot story and damn - I wanted to read about docking for ages!!!

[Monika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ohhh! I would have really, really liked more of this little short. It was a very sweet best friends to lovers story.

Part of the Don't Read in the Closet Vol 3

[Kate Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 - I wanted to like this story more than I actually did. I found the premise unlikely why the angst about being in love with your best friend when you know he's gay and you don't seem to have any hang-ups about being attracted to him, even though he thinks you're straight? plus the whole gay island thing is both too trite and too close to home (esp. given that it's set off the coast of Australia...I remember the colony that tried to claim independence a couple of years ago) and I'm sorry but what businessman pays for young gay men to travel halfway around the world to work in his magical resort? There's more than enough cute Australian twinks, you don't need to ship them in from America! I like the characters, I just think the plot is too fantastical and I find the whole gay marriage thing heteronormative to the nth degree, but I'm a contrary queer and I would say that!

[Don Bradshaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed on Hearts On Fire... http://heartsonfirereviews.com/

This was a short but sweet friends to lovers story. JT and Adam have been close friends since they were seven years old. They have just graduated from college in Arizona with JT having a business degree and Paul a degree in culinary arts. The two men have always been sexually attracted to each other but were afraid to act on it. JT is in line for a job at a gay resort in Australia but what does he do about Adam now that they have finally connected? This is a pretty straightforward story with no real plot twists. I thoroughly enjoyed both JT and Adam as individuals even though the story was so short. The ending was HEA and just appealed to the romantic in me. I recommend this good short to anyone looking for a sweet romance story.

[Bettye Kanady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ha ha... I recognized Mr. Medina, Summerland, and On a Lark (the yacht!) I liked this story. Then I was able to see that Beau was still involved on the island (from Sink or Swim). I just happen to like that these stories are part of a series. JT and Adam; well, best friends since "you asked me if I wanted to play Transformers" and finally lovers, with the plan of marriage and a home at the end. I would like to see more about Mr. Medina (Havi) and Summerland; that would be good. I also liked this story because I live in AZ and it's always nice to see home turf in print! Yeah, I live in BF Egypt, but I know where Tempe and ASU is, so I feel a little pride there.

[Ahmed Elbaz · Rating 1 out of 5]

What can I say ? Really .. I don't Know . But , anyway ,I see .that I must read such Novels .. to know a lot of these unusual Relations between People .. but , I'm still confident , that such Relations " Man to Man or Girl to Girl - Relation " are very bad , regardless of its Prohibition in Religion .

[Sandhya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clearly I did not read the back of the book before I started to read this.

So this a short erotic (although I am not sure about the erotic part but it definitely has some steamy scenes) story about JT and Adam's friendship which blooms into a romantic relationship. It is sweet but very predictable.

[Katy Griffey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very good other than the fact that its pretty much 80% about sex that they have, if your over the age of 18 or looking for a sex story, this is for you. Im 15, and i read this in studyhall at school and i almost threw up. Ugh, i wasnt expecting that.

[Caroline Brand · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sweet short story about 2 men who have been friends forever.

Can they move it from friendship to love as they both have feelings for each other. Add in a beautiful Island and a chance at the start of a new kind of life...

[Britta ★ Nachteule ★]

***Read as part of the free Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Three anthology. Story #13***

[Serena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Three

My Rating System:
* couldn't finish, ** wouldn't recommend, *** would recommend, **** would read again, ***** have read again