Spinning Out

Sweetening the Deal Romance in Iron Range #1 Small-Town M/M Romance Mal Trevino Copyright © 2023 Mal Trevino All rights reservedThe characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.Cover design by: Mal Trevino Contents Title Page Copyright Also by Mal Trevino Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Epilogue Sneak Peek: Sweetening the Deal About The Author Books By This Author Also by Mal Trevino Romance in Iron Range This Racing Pulse Finding Sideways Spinning Out Sweetening the Deal Join my mailing list to be the first to know about new releases, giveaways, and to receive bonus content! Chapter 1 Levi Jarvinen crept out of his parents' house like he was a guilty teenager sneaking off to an illicit house party. Not that he had ever been that kind of teen. Instead, he was twenty-seven, it was barely ten o’clock, and he only intended to go as far as the barn. A man needed some privacy sometimes, and no one got it by living in their childhood bedroom again. The floorboards were silent under his feet as he made his way to the stairs. Funny how he still knew the house: which boards creaked, which stair was just a little bit loose, how far he could open the front door without causing it to squeal. (He really needed to take some WD-40 to those hinges.) Even after being away for eight years, so little had changed. The frigid November air seized Levi’s lungs. He had to will himself into a false kind of calm before he could take a full breath. You’re fine, he told himself, you’re home. He stood on the front porch for a long moment to steady his breath. Then he shrugged into his flannel coat and crunched through the snow toward the old barn. Around the back, he found the familiar wooden crate and dropped down onto it. He let his head fall back against the barn wall. Above him, the sky was clear and dotted with stars. No moon. Levi had loved growing up out here. No big city lights obscuring the night sky. Hardly any cars on the county road after six in the evening. Just quiet fields stretching out toward the tree line. Tonight, they were blanketed in snow with more in the forecast for Thanksgiving, just like every year. Reliable, familiar Iron Range. He had worried that eight years in the army would muddle those memories. That he would forget what his hometown was really like. But Levi had left and been deployed to different parts of the world for almost a decade, and he had come back. He remembered everything. A single oak tree stood in the middle of the field behind his parents’ house. Levi watched it, moonlit, as an owl lifted from its branches with a whisper of wings and float down to the ground. A scuffle followed, a ravaging of the smooth snow cover. Some kind of rodent, if Levi were to guess. A mouse or a vole. He slipped a folded square of paper out of his jeans pocket and carefully opened it up. It was only about six months old, but he had folded it and unfolded it so many times that the creases were beginning to wear. He smoothed it out on his thigh. I think about you all the time. This could be more. We could be more, if that’s what you wanted. With shaky fingers, he folded it back up and returned it to his pocket, trading it out for his cellphone. He brought up the only number he had called for the last three weeks. “Levi,” his friend answered on the second ring. “Hey.” “Hey.” Levi let out a long breath, the tension sifting out of his neck and shoulders. He closed his eyes and swallowed. “It’s been a rough day.” “I’m sorry.” Levi shrugged, though no one could see it. “I fought with Matti again,” he said, cringing as he thought about the argument with his brother. “He wants me off the crew, which makes sense, and I’m not mad about it. But he still won’t talk to me. He treats me like I’m some interloper in his life. Charlie, I just don’t belong here anymore.” He groaned. “I don’t know. I’m not thinking right.” The air crackled over the phone. He was lucky to get any signal out here at all. That was one thing that had changed since he had left. He and his brother used to walk up the road to the open field to make a call. “So come out here,” Charlie said, his voice calm and certain. Levi didn’t say anything. Out in the field, the owl lifted back off the snow and returned to its previous branch. Full and content. “I keep telling you I’ll come get you whenever you want,” Charlie continued. “I can’t ask you to do that. North Dakota is fifteen hours away.” “I want to. Let me.” Levi slid the tip of his tongue back and forth over his bottom lip, thinking. He had tried, he really had. He had given his family, his hometown a chance, and he just kept feeling like a drifter here in Iron Range. Untethered, unmoored. His parents treated him like a teenager, not a wounded veteran. He just kept fighting with his brother. What was left for him here? He