Treading Water - Dean Robert Holmes

Being a 38-year-old pool boy is pathetic. As is your boyfriend dumping you for a younger man, or divorcees discarding you after fulfilling their fantasies. And not being certain you're a "boy" in the first place is even worse. It's why Westy McLeigh doesn't believe he's worthy of love. 

That is, until life puts a jiggly redhead in his path.

Like the rocks she adores, Suzy Klein is precious and strong as hell. But between snark costing her a job, ailing joints, and her mother's constant criticism, Suzy's hard surface starts chipping away.

Until a slip of fate lands her in the arms of a lackadaisical pool manager.

From smoking weed in the storage shed to rock hunting at the North Shore, Suzy and Westy's days are full of sunshine. But as time brings poverty, trauma, and tragedy, the pair struggles to keep the shadows at bay.

With circumstances weighing down their relationship, will crystals form? Or will Suzy and Westy's love be crushed into dust?

Treading Water is a high-heat/heavy angst/happy ending contemporary romance about real-world problems featuring a genderfluid bi guy wrestling with his identity and a fat babe battling chronic pain, written in third person POV from multiple perspectives.