We Are Just Us

"I saw you naked."
"That was an accident."
"Still counts. I figure the Universe likes symmetry."

Kieran Doyle is a liar. Small ones, mostly. "I'm fine. No one special. Everything's great." The kind of lies you tell the people you love when the truth feels like a weight only one of you should carry.

He drove nine hours south with two dogs, a box of his mother's ashes, and thirty-two years of silence finally behind him. Encinitas wasn't the plan. Neither was accidentally saluting the shirtless man next door like a soldier reporting for duty.

Rory Kline surfs at dawn, keeps aloe in the fridge like a functioning adult, and looks at Kieran like he might actually mean it. He's also built his life around something Kieran doesn't yet understand-and wanting him might be a mistake.

But the walls of a duplex are thin. Conversations happen over fences. A jellyfish sting, a Taco Tuesday, and one catastrophic perineum sunning incident turn accidental glances into staying the night-and then wanting more.

And when the truth finally surfaces, Kieran has to choose between doing what he's always done, or staying long enough to be known, disappointed, and loved anyway.

We Are Just Us is a contemporary queer romance about grief, late-life coming out, and what it costs to stay.