Up to Code

A novel by Brady Fulmer

He ghosted the best man he ever had. Now he needs his signature.

Brady Hart came home to Larkin, South Carolina (population 700, one stoplight) with everything he owned in the back of a car. Six years later he's a high school teacher sleeping in his childhood twin bed, with a closet full of lamps and dishes for a house he hasn't built yet.

He's drawn every inch of it. Way back in the woods. Bedroom as far from the door as it will go. He just never thought about who would have to come out and look at it.

Owen Tate is the county building inspector. He is exacting, fair, and impossible to bribe with baked goods. He is also the man Brady left in 2020 without a word, and he has six inspections to perform on Brady's house: footings, slab, framing, rough-in, insulation, final.

There's a rule. Owen can't so much as sit down to supper with a man whose house he's signing.

There's a town. It has a bench outside the hardware store, a chalkboard keeping score, and a pickle jar taking bets on whether the inspector stays for supper.

And there's a daddy who doesn't say much, a mama who says all of it, and a best friend who has been waiting six years to say I told you so.

Brady knows how to leave. He's done it to a bank, a chorus, and a whole city. What he's never once done is walk up to a door with nothing in his hands and knock.

Up to Code is a warm, funny, second-chance gay romance with:

• a small Southern town that knows your business before you do
• a careful man in ironed jeans, and the one who ran from him
• a slow burn with a rule attached
• both men telling it
• a house built from the footings up
• open-door heat and a guaranteed happy ending

Nobody passes everything the first time.