Title: Freedom to Me

Author: Sidney Quinn

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 06/16/2026

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 220

Genre: Contemporary, gay romance, contemporary, blue-collar, bartenders, criminals, interracial, tattoos, slow burn/UST

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Description

London native Felix Brixton, rich and sheltered, leaves his old life behind on a whim to pursue his dream of running a tall ship tour boat. A midlife crisis brings him to the small Southern California town of Carino Bay, where he buys a ship, the Freedom. What Felix doesn’t know is he’s also buying a dark secret and complicated history.

Jay Valdez, tattooed and leather-clad, lays eyes on the sweet, buttoned-up new guy in town and is intrigued. He can’t resist the temptation. But Jay has personal demons which may cost him everything he holds dear.

Carino Bay, a queer haven full of misfits like him, offers Felix a new start in more ways than one. But he uncovers deep-seated crime and corruption closely tied to the man of his dreams.

No matter how intensely their attraction pulls Jay and Felix to each other, the town’s history and their complicated lives threaten to keep them apart.

Excerpt

Freedom to Me
Sidney Quinn © 2026
All Rights Reserved

“Come on then, Brixton. It’s just up this way.”

Felix Brixton, recent arrival from London to the Californian seaside town of Carino Bay, followed a few steps behind his old school friend, Nicholas Sommers.

Well, friend was a mischaracterization. Nicholas and Felix had attended the same boarding school where Nicholas had been one of his most prolific and cruel bullies. As they traveled in the same high-society circles, they’d had cordial relations once they reached adulthood. He was the only person Felix knew in the entire state of California. Besides, going to a house party at a posh beach house seemed an ideal way to meet the local community.

“All right, Nicholas, all right. I’m coming.”

Felix’s stylish boat shoes didn’t handle the sandy pathway well. They could have taken the neat boardwalk up to the two-level house, but Nicholas, ever impatient, led them on the most direct route. Nothing about the way Felix was dressed—or the way he was as a human—was built for anything like rough terrain.

Felix was the absolute picture of a flamboyant English gentleman. Though not particularly tall, he was reasonably fit, well-proportioned, and well-suited for the high-end and colorful clothing he favored. His impressive coif of hair was not naturally blond, but the color suited him. It was, in fact, a very expensive dye job that blended ash-brown roots into cornsilk blond, which had the knock-on effect of hiding any gray hairs threatening to make their presence known. He was reasonably handsome, in a quirky, offbeat sort of way, with high expressive eyebrows and blue eyes set just a little bit too far apart.

He was the kind of man who was easy to remember and easy to pick out in a crowd, for better or for worse.

Nicholas Sommers, shorter, broader, with mouse-brown hair and prematurely balding, stood in sharp contrast to Felix. If Felix was the quintessential British gentleman, Nicholas was the banker or parliamentarian. He’d been handsome in his youth, but midlife had bitten him hard and fast. He looked closer to his fifties, even though both of them were in their early forties.

By the time they made it up to the stone walkway, sand caked Felix’s white linen pants around the cuffs. He paused to try to brush them off and empty his shoes.

“Get a move on,” said Nicholas in an impatient tone. “We’re already late as it is.”

Felix carried his shoes up the back porch, tapped the sand out of them, and popped them back on. He followed Nicholas into the packed party full of well-dressed people. A woman in a cocktail dress stepped past him, dropped something into one of the bowls at the table, and scooped up a name tag.

Nicholas grabbed Felix’s hand and dragged him over to the table. “Here. Give me your keys. Write your name on a sticker and stick it on the back. Oh, and wear a name tag.”

“Is this some kind of…don’t drink and drive thing? Because I wasn’t planning on having more than a drink or two, and it’s not that far of a walk if I…”

“Just do it, Brixton. Don’t be such a killjoy.” Nicholas grabbed the keys that Felix was holding, wrote his name on a sticker, and took a minute to examine the six different bowls sitting on the table.

Each was a different color, and each held different quantities of keys.

Nicholas looked him over with a sneering, cruel-edged expression Felix recognized from dozens of childhood pranks and dropped his keys into a baby-blue bowl. He pressed the adhesive name tag on the chest of Felix’s tailored pink flamingo button-up, smirked, and nodded toward the bar. “Let’s get a drink, ay?”

Nicholas’s interest in Felix vanished about ten minutes after they had their first drink. “Stay here. Mingle. I’ve got some people to say hello to.” He disappeared into the crowd, toward a cluster of well-dressed people in their thirties and forties.

Nicholas never came back. But Felix did spot the occasional glance and snickering look cast his way.

It was not lost on him that Nicholas wasn’t wearing a name tag, nor had he dropped his keys in a bowl. Roughly half the people at the party of various genders had name tags on, while the other half didn’t.

Felix sipped his drink of rum and pineapple juice and squeezed himself into a corner. He was usually an outgoing and personable man, but something about Nicholas turned him into a scared, bullied child again. He thought about leaving, but he didn’t want to earn a reputation as a killjoy days after arriving in town.

A moment later, Felix lost sight of Nicholas altogether. Some of the keys began disappearing from the bowls, and the party seemed to be thinning out. He looked down at his watch and sighed. “I should’ve known better.” He shot back the rest of his drink and moved back to the bowl that contained his keys.

Felix pawed around in it for a moment, but he couldn’t find his keys.

“The Jolly Rover, I presume?” came a voice from behind him.

Felix turned to find a tall, handsome man with rich brown skin made deeper and warmer by the sun, and dreadlocks that would have skimmed his shoulders if most of the locs hadn’t been pulled up into a high ponytail. Monochrome tattoos covered his arms, some of sea life, some of patterns and symbols Felix couldn’t place. A silver barbell pierced one of his eyebrows, and he wore silver hoops in both ears. His clothing—a black, loose-cropped tank top and dark-wash skinny jeans with a chain belt—had a biker edge to it. He looked to be either Felix’s age, or perhaps slightly younger.

“P-pardon?” Felix stammered. Something about the stranger was instantly magnetic, even though he and Felix couldn’t be more different in style and color palette.

The new arrival held up his keys and displayed the keychain, which read Jolly Rover Tours. He flipped it over, eyed Felix’s name tag, and then the sticker with the name written on the back. “Felix?”

“Yes, I am. Ah, I was looking for those…” Felix reached out for his keys.

The stranger caught Felix’s hand and shook it firmly as he made eye contact. “I’m Jay. Pleased to meet you. Would you like to have some fun?”

“I’m not sure what you mean?” asked Felix. He’d noticed that people all around the room had started to pair off or, in some cases, group in trios, and filter to the stairs or toward their cars. Not everyone did so, but the party was certainly less populated than when he’d arrived.

Slowly, everything clicked into place. Felix turned pink and swallowed, and his eyes got big. He leaned into Jay and whispered. “Is this…is this a key party? I didn’t know people actually did those.”

Jay grinned and shrugged, wobbling a little. “Well, yeah. Dinah has these once a… Hold on. Who brought you?”

“Ah, an old schoolmate of mine. Nicholas Sommers?”

Jay snorted. “That guy’s a dick. No offense.” He held up a hand.

“Oh, none taken. Especially since this all seems to have been a hilarious joke on me to trick me into coming to a sex party.” Felix sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s all a misunderstanding. He dragged me here and made me throw my keys in the bowl. I honestly didn’t know what I was in for.”

Jay tapped the keychain against his palm and considered it. He leaned in. “Listen. I think we can help each other out. There’s no one left that I wanna go home with. That dick, Sommers, will think he’s won if you leave alone. So why don’t we…go for a walk or something? And then, when no one’s looking, go our separate ways?”

Felix took a moment to hold Jay’s gaze. He had warm, kind brown eyes. There was something about him, despite the biker edge, that made Felix feel comfortable and at ease. “All right,” he murmured. “Can we steal a drink for the walk?”

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Meet the Author

Sidney loves genre fiction of all kinds and loves combining those genres with queer romance. Expect plots that excite and propel, intriguing mysteries, unconventional romance, and vivid worlds where the setting itself is a character.

Sidney has lived in many places across Canada but now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia with two cuddly cats. One of these days, the cats will be compelled to pay rent or at least stop causing so much destruction of property—though that’s probably wishful thinking.