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Handled: An MM Age Gap Contemporary Romance
The bottom simply ceased to believe in itself.
For twenty-five-year-old freelance designer Jamie Cole, that isn’t just a description of his cardboard moving box exploding across the second-floor landing of the Marlowe Building. It is an accurate autopsy of his entire life. Broke, deeply anxious, and running on nothing but cold brew and sheer panic, Jamie is convinced he is entirely too much work for anyone to handle.
Then comes the first-floor tenant.
Ethan Ward is a forty-year-old venue technician and the quiet, load-bearing heart of the building. He is a massive, patient man who moves with the unhurried precision of a craftsman. He carries Jamie’s heavy boxes, fixes his swollen apartment door, and—when the midnight panic attacks hit—holds the back of Jamie's neck, counting out breaths until the world finally goes quiet.
Ethan doesn't do temporary, and he doesn't do ledgers. He fixes things worth keeping.
But Ethan carries his own invisible mileage. Years ago, he poured everything into repairing someone who left him at an airport curb with nothing but a thank-you note. He built himself easy to leave, and he swore he would never let someone twist his care into a safety net just to fly away.
As a high-stakes design contract threatens to unravel Jamie's fragile stability, the old coping mechanisms flare up. Jamie's instinct is to run away quietly before he becomes a liability. Ethan's instinct is to lock down the shutters and carry the weight alone.
In a building where the thin floorboards keep no secrets, both men must face the ultimate structural admitting that needing each other isn't a failure—it's the only foundation that holds.
Handled features an unhurried, fiercely protective handyman hero with reading glasses, an anxious designer who needs to be grounded, an intentional slow-burn that detonates into high-heat, praise kink, and a secret shortcut through a closet frame. Escape to the Marlowe Building today.
For twenty-five-year-old freelance designer Jamie Cole, that isn’t just a description of his cardboard moving box exploding across the second-floor landing of the Marlowe Building. It is an accurate autopsy of his entire life. Broke, deeply anxious, and running on nothing but cold brew and sheer panic, Jamie is convinced he is entirely too much work for anyone to handle.
Then comes the first-floor tenant.
Ethan Ward is a forty-year-old venue technician and the quiet, load-bearing heart of the building. He is a massive, patient man who moves with the unhurried precision of a craftsman. He carries Jamie’s heavy boxes, fixes his swollen apartment door, and—when the midnight panic attacks hit—holds the back of Jamie's neck, counting out breaths until the world finally goes quiet.
Ethan doesn't do temporary, and he doesn't do ledgers. He fixes things worth keeping.
But Ethan carries his own invisible mileage. Years ago, he poured everything into repairing someone who left him at an airport curb with nothing but a thank-you note. He built himself easy to leave, and he swore he would never let someone twist his care into a safety net just to fly away.
As a high-stakes design contract threatens to unravel Jamie's fragile stability, the old coping mechanisms flare up. Jamie's instinct is to run away quietly before he becomes a liability. Ethan's instinct is to lock down the shutters and carry the weight alone.
In a building where the thin floorboards keep no secrets, both men must face the ultimate structural admitting that needing each other isn't a failure—it's the only foundation that holds.
Handled features an unhurried, fiercely protective handyman hero with reading glasses, an anxious designer who needs to be grounded, an intentional slow-burn that detonates into high-heat, praise kink, and a secret shortcut through a closet frame. Escape to the Marlowe Building today.
162 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 19, 2026
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