Enter The Ox (The Long Shadow Series by Duncan Gaye, #2)

Part of The Long Shadow Series by Duncan Gaye
Benny Cerone has always felt like the odd one out. Sensitive, artistic, and adopted into a powerful Chicago family with secrets darker than they let on, he's spent his life playing it safe—until now. At nineteen, he's finally free, starting fresh at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, surrounded by music, freedom, and the promise of becoming who he really is.
Then he meets Ox.
A towering, quiet presence with a haunted past and a job that keeps him firmly tethered to Benny's family, Ox is everything Benny shouldn't want—and everything he can't stay away from. As their connection deepens, Benny is pulled between two lives: the one he's creating on his own terms, and the one he thought he left behind.
Set in the vibrant heart of 1980s Chicago, Enter the Ox is a tender, slow-burn romance about chosen identity, first love, and the quiet ways two people can change each other forever.

Duncan Gaye lives in River Forest, Illinois. He believes magic can be found anywhere, even the suburbs. He writes the kind of love stories that sneak up on you—queer, tender, and just a little strange. His books are full of burly big-hearted men, tall tales, impossible odds, and the kind of endings that leave you wanting more.
When not writing, he likes to read, travel and relax with his adorable senior dogs, Spotty and French Fry.
The Long Shadow Series by Duncan Gaye is a thematic anthology series of stand-alone LGBTQ+ novellas and novels that tell love stories shaped by the extraordinary. Blending elements of speculative fiction, magical realism, tall tales, and literary drama, these are stories where intimacy and identity meet epic strength and emotional vulnerability.
From the mythical to the mundane, each book explores larger-than-life characters—strongmen, bodyguards, super soldiers, and other giants. For fans of emotional intensity, queer desire, and stories that stretch the boundaries of realism, this series offers a new kind of legend.