Straight Until Him

MM Bi-Awakening Romance
by Jace Wilder

Free with Kindle Unlimited

Pairing: MM
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Inferno
Tropes: Bi Awakening, Roommates to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Age Gap, Praise Kink, Found Family, Single Dad, Blue Collar

He was straight. His roommate was patient. Their shared wall was thin. And everything Jake thought he knew about himself was about to come undone.

Jake Miller is a recently divorced dad with a garbage bag of clothes, a cracked windshield, and exactly zero plans for the rest of his life. When his younger coworker offers a cheap spare room, Jake moves in out of desperation — and immediately discovers that sharing a bathroom, a kitchen, and a very thin wall with Evan Torres is going to be a problem.

Evan Torres has a type, and his type is a disaster. Broad shoulders. Rough hands. Straight men who make him feel like he’s thirteen again. He’s been watching Jake at work for two years and filing every observation under Do Not Touch. But now Jake is in his apartment, using his shampoo, cooking in his kitchen, and looking at Evan’s mouth in ways that are very, very hard to misread.

One storm. One shared bed. One kiss that changes everything. Jake’s late-in-life bi awakening collides with Evan’s three-heartbreak rule: he will not be another man’s secret. Jake has to choose — the closet that kept him safe, or the man who makes him feel like himself for the first time in thirty-eight years.

You’ll love this book if you enjoy:

✅ Late-in-life bi awakening with a divorced dad hero
✅ Roommates to lovers with forced proximity and thin walls
✅ Younger confident gay man x older “straight” guy
✅ Dad bod appreciation and body worship
✅ Praise kink, guide/teacher dynamic, switching
✅ Found family with the best eight-year-old in fiction
✅ Scorching heat that EARNS every scene (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — graphic, explicit, emotional)
✅ HEA guaranteed

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⚠️ Content Warning: This novel contains explicit sexual content (graphic MM scenes), strong language, depictions of internalized homophobia, divorce, and identity crisis. Intended for readers 18+.

📖 Read Chapter One Free

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Chapter One: New Arrangement

The last box was the heaviest because it had Lily’s drawings in it.

Not the stuff I’d framed—those went with Megan, stayed on the walls of what used to be our house and was now just hers. These were the extras. The ones Lily cranked out on rainy Saturdays, crayons worn down to nubs, construction paper curling at the edges. Dinosaurs with too many teeth. Flowers taller than houses. A stick-figure me with enormous square hands, which, fair enough.

I set the box in the truck bed next to a garbage bag of clothes and a toolbox that was worth more than everything else I owned combined. Eight years of marriage, and this was the settlement: a 2014 F-150 with a cracked windshield, a stack of monthly payments I couldn’t afford, and every other week with my kid.

The front door opened. Megan stood on the porch in yoga pants and the oversized cardigan she’d started wearing like armor sometime around year six of us pretending we were fine.

“That everything?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She crossed her arms. Not angry—just done. We’d been done for a long time before we made it official. The paperwork was almost a relief, like finally pulling a splinter you’d been ignoring for months.

“Drive safe,” she said.

“I will.”

“Jake.”

I stopped with my hand on the truck door. She looked like she wanted to say something important, then didn’t. Just shook her head and gave me the tight-lipped smile I’d been getting since the papers went through.

“Text me when you’re settled.”

I nodded. Got in the truck. Pulled out of the driveway of the house I’d painted, re-roofed, and re-plumbed with my own hands over the last decade. Didn’t look in the rearview.

That’s a lie. I looked once.

She was already inside.

Evan’s apartment was on the second floor of a complex called Ridgewood Terrace, which was generous branding for a cluster of beige buildings off Route 9 with a parking lot that doubled as a pothole obstacle course. Unit 2C. I’d been here exactly once before, three weeks ago, when Evan had offered the spare room and I’d been too desperate to say no.

The “too desperate” part still sat in my throat like something I couldn’t swallow.

Evan Torres was twenty-seven, a logistics coordinator at Barrett where I’d worked maintenance for two years, and the kind of guy who made a room louder just by walking into it. We weren’t friends, exactly. Friendly. Break-room-conversation friendly. He’d ask about Lily, I’d ask about whatever chaos his family was stirring up that week. Easy. Surface-level.

Then the divorce went through and I mentioned to no one in particular—just venting in the break room, staring into bad coffee—that I needed a cheap room fast because the house was Megan’s and motels cost more than my dignity could handle. Evan had overheard. Texted me that night.

Spare room’s yours if you want it. $600/mo, utilities split. Only rule: don’t eat my leftovers.

I’d said yes before I could think of a reason not to. Six hundred was half what a studio would cost, and the alternative was my truck or Derek’s couch, where his kids would climb on me at six a.m. asking why Uncle Jake smelled like sadness.

So here I was. Thirty-eight years old, hauling boxes up a concrete stairwell that smelled like Pine-Sol and someone’s burned microwave popcorn, moving into a room rented from a guy eleven years younger than me.

Rock bottom had beige carpet, apparently.

I was on the second trip up—garbage bag of clothes over one shoulder, toolbox in the other hand—when the door to 2C swung open and Evan appeared in basketball shorts and a faded T-shirt that said BÉSAME across the chest in cracked letters.

“There he is.” He grinned like I was doing him a favor. “The eagle has landed.”

“Don’t call me the eagle.”

“The pigeon has landed?”

“Better.”

He reached for the garbage bag. Our hands didn’t touch—his fingers closed around the plastic above mine—but I was suddenly very aware of the space between his knuckles and my wrist. He had a tattoo on his forearm I hadn’t noticed before. Geometric, clean lines, like something architectural.

“You need help with the rest?” he asked, hauling the bag inside with one arm like it weighed nothing.

“There’s just the one more box.”

“You pack light.”

“Didn’t have much to pack.”

He looked at me then—a quick, assessing glance that I pretended not to notice. Whatever he saw, he kept to himself. “I’ll grab us beers. You get the last box. Then I’ll give you the grand tour, which will take approximately forty-five seconds because this place is not grand.”

I went back down for Lily’s drawings.

The apartment was small but clean. Evan kept it better than I expected—or better than the stereotype I’d built in my head about twenty-seven-year-old guys living alone. No dishes in the sink. Actual hand towels in the bathroom. A candle on the kitchen counter that smelled like something expensive, cedar or sandalwood, I didn’t know the difference.

“Okay. Tour.” Evan pointed as he walked. “Kitchen. Don’t trust the left burner, it runs hot. Living room.” A couch that had seen better days, a TV mounted on the wall, a bookshelf stuffed with paperbacks and framed photos. “Bathroom.” He opened the door—small, one sink, a shower-tub combo with a clear curtain. “We share this. I shower in the morning around six. If that’s your time too, we’ll figure it out.”

“I’m usually up by five-thirty.”

“Perfect. I’ll just never see you conscious before noon.”

“I’m up early. I just don’t talk.”

“Noted.” He moved down the short hallway. “My room.” He pushed the door open enough for me to glimpse an unmade bed, clothes on a chair, string lights looping across one wall. It looked like someone actually lived there—messy but deliberate. “And yours.”

He opened the door across the hall. My room. Bigger than his, which I’d tried to argue about when I first saw the place. He’d waved me off— I’ve got less stuff, I don’t need the space, take it. There was a full-size bed frame with a mattress that looked newer than anything I owned, a nightstand, a closet with actual hangers in it.

“Mattress is from my cousin’s guest room,” Evan said, leaning against the doorframe. “She upgraded. It’s clean, I swear.”

“It’s great. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You’re paying rent. This is a business arrangement.”

But he smiled when he said it, easy and warm, and I felt something shift in my chest that I immediately filed under gratitude and moved on.

I set the box of Lily’s drawings on the bed and stood there for a second, taking stock. This room was roughly the size of the walk-in closet Megan and I had shared. The walls were off-white, the carpet beige, the window overlooking the parking lot. If I pressed my hand flat against the wall to my left, Evan’s room was on the other side.

I didn’t press my hand against the wall. Why would I think about that.

“Beer?” Evan called from the kitchen.

“Yeah.”

We sat at the kitchen table—a two-person setup pushed against the wall, barely enough room for both our elbows—and worked out the logistics over Bud Lights that Evan apologized for.

“I usually drink better stuff. This was on sale.”

“I’ve been drinking whatever’s cheapest since July. You don’t need to apologize.”

“Fair.” He tipped his bottle toward mine. Clinked. “To roommates.”

“To roommates.”

He walked me through the rest of it. Wi-Fi password (TorresTime27, which made me snort). Laundry in the basement, quarters only, dryer takes two cycles to actually dry anything. Garbage goes out Wednesdays. The neighbor below them, Mrs. Petrov, was mostly deaf but complained about noise anyway on principle.

“Rent’s due to me by the first. I pay the landlord. Electric is split; it’s on auto-pay, I’ll Venmo-request you. Fridge—top two shelves are mine, bottom two are yours. Freezer’s a free-for-all.” He paused. “Anything I’m missing?”

“What about…” I gestured vaguely at the apartment. “Rules. Like, for the space.”

“Rules.” He leaned back in his chair, considering. He had a way of sitting—loose, open, one arm draped over the back of the chair, knee spread wide—that took up more space than his body should’ve occupied. I noticed this because I notice how people arrange themselves in rooms. Maintenance guy thing. Spatial awareness.

That’s what I told myself, anyway.

“No hard rules,” he said. “If you’re having someone over, shoot me a text so I don’t walk out in my underwear. Or don’t text me, and I’ll walk out in my underwear. Either way.” He grinned. “Same courtesy from me. If I’ve got company, I’ll let you know.”

Company. Right. Evan was gay—openly, casually, the way some people are left-handed. It wasn’t a secret; it wasn’t a statement. He’d mentioned boyfriends in break room conversations the same way anyone else mentioned their weekend plans. I’d never had a problem with it. I’d never had a reason to think about it twice.

So I didn’t know why my stomach tightened when he said company.

“Sure,” I said. “Sounds fair.”

“And Lily’s welcome whenever. I love kids. I’ve got nieces and nephews coming out of my ears.” He took a swig. “I cleaned the bathroom top to bottom before you got here, so if your ex does a drop-off, she won’t think you’re living in a frat house.”

That hit me somewhere soft. I hadn’t even thought about Megan seeing this place, judging it, worrying about where Lily would sleep on my weeks. Evan had.

“That’s… I appreciate that.”

“Told you. Business arrangement.” But his eyes were kind when he said it, brown and warm under dark lashes, and I looked away first.

I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking, which took about forty minutes because I owned almost nothing. Clothes in the closet. Toolbox in the corner. Phone charger on the nightstand. Lily’s drawings—I spread a few on the bed and picked the best one to tape to the wall. A crayon velociraptor wearing what appeared to be a top hat. She’d written FOR DADDY in wobbly letters across the bottom.

I stood there looking at it for longer than a grown man should stand in a rented bedroom staring at a crayon dinosaur.

Then I showered—and learned immediately that the bathroom situation was going to be a problem. Not because of the space. Because of what the space contained.

Evan’s stuff was everywhere. His shampoo, something coconut-scented that filled the whole room with steam and sweetness. His razor on the sink ledge. A stick of deodorant, uncapped, and I caught myself leaning toward it before I caught myself and straightened up like I’d been shocked.

What the hell was that? I was smelling his deodorant now? Jesus Christ, Jake. You’re thirty-eight years old and your life is in a garbage bag. Get it together.

I showered fast, cold for the last thirty seconds because I needed the reset, and came out in sweatpants and a Barrett Logistics T-shirt with a hole in the collar. Evan was on the couch, legs tucked under him, scrolling his phone.

“I was thinking tacos,” he said without looking up. “There’s a truck on Fifth that’s open late.”

“I can cook something. If you’ve got groceries.”

He looked up. “You cook?”

“I feed an eight-year-old fifty percent of the time. I cook.”

“Color me impressed, Miller. Most guys I’ve lived with think cooking is microwaving a Hot Pocket.” He unfolded from the couch, and I tracked the movement without meaning to—the way his T-shirt rode up, a strip of brown skin above the waistband of his shorts, the lean line of him as he stretched.

I blinked and turned toward the kitchen. “What’ve you got?”

We had chicken, rice, a lime, and half a bottle of soy sauce. I made it work. Evan sat on the counter—literally on the counter, legs dangling, bare feet swinging—and watched me chop.

“You’re good with your hands,” he said.

I almost cut myself. “What?”

“Chopping. You’ve got that knife-skills thing going on. Like a cooking show.”

“I just… I’ve done it a lot.”

“Sexy.”

He said it the same way he said everything—light, throwaway, half a joke. I knew it was a joke. The flush that crawled up the back of my neck didn’t know it was a joke.

“Thanks,” I muttered, and focused very hard on the chicken.

We ate on the couch because the kitchen table was too small for plates and elbows. Evan put on some action movie I didn’t follow, and we ate in comfortable silence punctuated by his commentary on every fight scene and my occasional grunts of agreement.

It was easy. That was the problem. It was too easy, sitting here in this small apartment with this guy I barely knew, eating food I’d cooked in his kitchen, our shoulders not touching but close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. It felt like something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

It felt like home. And I’d just lost my actual home twelve hours ago, so my calibration was clearly shot.

By ten, I was done. The kind of tired that goes past muscle and into bone—moving-day tired, divorce tired, starting-over tired. I said goodnight to Evan, who was still on the couch scrolling through something on his phone, and went to my room.

I lay on the cousin’s mattress in the dark, staring at the ceiling I didn’t know yet. No water stains to map. No familiar cracks. Just flat, blank white, like a page I hadn’t written on.

Through the wall, I heard Evan talking on the phone. His voice was low and easy, the cadence shifting in and out of Spanish in a way that made it sound like music. I couldn’t make out most of it—the walls were thin, but not that thin.

Then, clear as anything, in English: “Yeah, he just moved in. No, Mom—he’s not like that. He’s just a guy from work.” A pause. A laugh. “I mean, he’s a big dude, yeah. Kind of quiet. Has a kid.” Another pause, longer. “Mom. Mom. Relax. It’s just a roommate thing.”

Just a roommate thing. Right.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and breathed.

This was temporary. A few months to get back on my feet, save enough for first-and-last on a place of my own, something small with a room for Lily and a kitchen where nobody sat on the counter and called my knife skills sexy.

This was fine.

My phone buzzed. A text from Megan: You settled?

Yeah, I typed back. Place is good. Roommate’s good. All good.

Lily drew you a picture of a moving truck. I’ll send a photo tomorrow.

Thanks.

I set the phone down and stared at the ceiling some more. On the other side of the wall, Evan’s voice had gone quiet. I imagined him in bed—and then I stopped imagining him in bed, because there was no reason to imagine that, because he was my roommate, and I was a thirty-eight-year-old recently divorced father of one who was definitely, absolutely, without question straight.

I’d been straight my entire life. I’d married a woman. I’d made a child with a woman. I’d only ever been with women. The fact that I sometimes noticed men—the way they moved, the way they filled out a shirt, the way Evan’s laugh hit a specific low register that vibrated somewhere behind my ribs—that wasn’t attraction. That was observation. That was what guys did. They noticed other guys. It was normal.

It was normal.

I rolled over, punched the pillow into shape, and closed my eyes.

Through the wall, faintly, Evan started humming something. I didn’t recognize the song. It was soft, absent-minded, the kind of sound someone makes when they think no one is listening.

I listened.

I fell asleep listening.

And in the morning, I told myself I didn’t remember what he’d been humming. But I did. I remembered every note.

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Blue Shutters — First Night — A scene TOO HOT for Amazon

Jake and Evan move into their first house together. Lily’s at Megan’s. The boxes aren’t unpacked. The bed frame isn’t assembled. And the christening of the new master bedroom — on a mattress on the floor, in a house that’s finally, completely theirs — is the filthiest, most emotional night of their lives.

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