#ThrowbackThursday: Little Pauses

 

A few minutes later, glassware clinks down on the counter. He glances over expecting his mother’s disappointed face, and instead finds Tommy, folding back the sleeves of his sweater.

“What are you doing?” Lawson asks, stupidly.

“Move over. You cooked, I’ll wash.” He steps into Lawson’s space and hip checks him over. Plucks the sponge from his hand.

“You don’t have to,” Lawson says.

“Yes, I do.” Tommy plunges his hands into the soapy water. “You can dry if you want.”

Lawson pulls a clean towel out of the drawer, and Tommy thankfully doesn’t ask why they’re doing this by hand rather than loading the dishwasher. They do have an appointment with a repair guy, for next week in fact; they’ve replaced the motor in the thing twice, and they ought to spring for a new one. If Lawson says this, he’s sure there’ll be a Lowe’s delivery truck in the driveway tomorrow, so he takes the clean, dripping plates from Tommy and dries them.

They work silently at first, nothing but the low murmur of the TV from the next room and the slosh of the water in the sink the only sounds.

When Tommy starts in on the pasta pot, he says, so quiet Lawson leans closer to hear him, “I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

The near corner of Tommy’s mouth hitches upward, and it’s a sad sort of smile he bestows upon the pot in his sudsy hands. “What it’s like being here with your folks. Your family is…”

“Hanging by a thread?” Lawson suggests. He at least feels that way, most days.

“Warm,” Tommy corrects. “They love you, and they love each other, and I always felt…” He trails off, and shrugs. “I always felt like I was wanted, when I was here.”

Oh. Oh, damn. “You were.”

I love the high-octane action stuff; the mysteries, the car chases, the showdowns. All of that. But my absolute favorite scenes to write are always the quiet domestic ones. A good action scene is all about choreography; it's okay to go a little crazy.

But the slow beats are where the heart of any story lies, and that's where you have the chance to make a story real for your readers. Knowing when to push forward, and when to pull back is a delicate balance in scenes like these; walking that line of saying just enough to get the meaning across without the characters word-vomiting. Life is full of so many little pauses, and the challenge of writing those in a believable way is my favorite aspect of the craft.

College Town, and its Tommy POV follow-up novella, A Cure for Recovery, are available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo. 

Happy Book Birthday to College Town

 

It's Valentine's Day, and the one-year bookiversary of College Town. Mired deep in the middle of writing Lord Have Mercy, at that stage in a book that size when it feels as though it will never end, I was struck by a sudden burst of unrelated inspiration, and ended up writing a standalone M/M romance that not only helped me work through some sticky places in LHM, but became my favorite project of the year. 

It features a second-chance romance between childhood sweethearts, some mafia action, and a surprise twist ending. You can grab a copy here, or at B&N or Kobo, and there's also a follow-up novella told from Tommy's POV, A Cure for Recovery. Both are perfect short and spicy-sweet V-Day reads. 

Blurb:

Welcome to Eastman, home of the Eastman University Eagles. They’ve got twelve bars, twice as many coffeeshops, and Lawson Granger’s probably going to die behind the counter of Coffee Town, watching all the bright young people in town get their degrees and get on with their lives. He’s not miserable, exactly, but between working retail, writing books that’ll never get published, and helping take care of his infirm father, his life’s running a little short on joy. He has his family, though, and his best friend, Dana, and dreaming about being published is somehow better than accepting that he never will be.

Then the boy who broke his heart twenty years ago walks into the shop one day and throws Lawson’s entire small world into chaos. Tommy Cattaneo grew up handsome. And rich, clearly, judging by his suit, and his watch, and his chauffeured Lincoln. If Lawson’s shocked to see him, Tommy is dumbfounded. Lawson’s happy to pretend they’re strangers, despite the traitorous racing of his heart, but Tommy is adamant that they talk. He wants to explain why he left town suddenly…and returned twenty years later, with a beautiful fiancée, and a mansion, and a wardrobe that costs more than Lawson’s car.

When it becomes clear that Tommy means to stay in town for a while, and that he won’t take no for an answer, Lawson agrees to hear him out. Just once, and then he can lay his old heartache to rest. It’s probably a stupid excuse, anyway. I mean, t’s not like Tommy’s in the mafia…right?

A Book For Autumn Sundays

This book released back in February, but it takes place in autumn, and I think it's the perfect snuggle-up-with-a-coffee binge read for a day like today. 

College Town began as a writing exercise: a way to keep my writing "muscles" engaged and responsive while I slogged through Lord Have Mercy. It quickly grew legs, and became not one, but two writing challenges I was excited to meet: a present-tense narrative, and a standalone novel, one not limited by the actions, storylines, and style of books that came before it. I ended up enjoying the heck out of it. In fact, upon reflection, it's my favorite project of 2024. 

Aside from loving Lawson and Tommy, which I do, College Town gave me the chance to step outside the comforting, if limiting boxes of my ongoing series, and proved to me that I can write standalones. It was a necessary creative push, one that's given me the confidence to push some more. 

I've made (purposefully) vague mentions in some recent posts about taking a step back, and reimagining what my writing future looks like. I am doing just that, and waiting to hear back (fingers crossed) about some work opportunities. I'm not currently working on an original project, but I don't see myself ever not writing; hopefully, I'll have the time and energy to still write for myself on weekends or holidays in the near future. But as to what I'll be writing...well, let's just say that spending six months to a year on a massive book like Lord Have Mercy is not a wise investment financially. Maybe somewhere down the line my series will enjoy renewed interest and a renaissance of sorts, but for now, I'm enjoying Instagramming, blogging, reading, and sharing books with you all. It would be fun to explore smaller, self-contained standalones when I get back to sharing my writing. The new format is still in flux, but I'm definitely not going anywhere, and I'm really hoping I can use my writing in new and exciting ways. (And hopefully some that are good for my wallet, too!)

College Town, and it's novella follow-up, A Cure for Recovery, are available now at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo for all your fall afternoon reading needs!  

Lighter Side

 

“I spent twenty years trying to get back to you, and I promised myself I’d do everything I could to make a life for us. To make you happy.”

Lawson blinks, and his eyes glimmer with welling tears. “Yeah.” His voice goes raspy. “I read your letters.”

A Cure for Recovery has been live in the wild for one week, proof that I can, in fact, write smaller, more self-contained stories! Sometimes. If I work really hard at it. 

Okay, that's not true - the working hard part. Cure felt like a welcome indulgence while I was writing, a happy time at the computer during every writing session. 

I have a confession: I'm not sure how well I judge what constitutes "dark" when it comes to fiction. I've been largely desensitized after a childhood spent reading and watching stuff that was way too scary for children. My favorite author is Stephen King, and I'm spending this year reading all of his works I haven't gotten to yet. I've always been drawn to horror, and mystery, and thrillers, and most of my favorite fictional characters are "problematic," sometimes in the extreme. This is all ironically hilarious because I'm a very cautious, apprehensive, downright boring person. And over the last few years, while I continue to read dark stories, I find that I watch less and less dark TV. I plan to binge the new season of House of the Dragon as a reward for finishing Lord Have Mercy in a few weeks, but otherwise, all I watch in the evenings are cooking shows, home reno shows, garden shows, or old sitcom reruns. I've noticed an uptick in my overall anxiety, and most days, while I'm writing about Mercy's monstrous exploits, I've got Modern Family or The Office streaming in the background to keep me company. No matter what I'm writing, November and December are Hallmark Christmas movie months. It's like the darker I go creatively, the more I need sunshine, and flowers, and animals, and nothing more stressful on TV than a game show. 

I do genuinely love lighter, softer, lower-stakes stories. Domestic dramas, and sweet romances, and wonderful little slices of life. But when I sit down to write that sort of thing, it always winds up warping into something much more violent and high stakes. For instance, I consider College Town to be one of my "lighter" offerings, but I still managed to work some mafia action in there, lots of cursing, sex, gunshots...

Turns out my lighter side isn't as light as I'd like to think. 

Thank you so much to everyone who's taken a chance on Lawson and Tommy! If you're on the fence, rest assured that though it might be a small town, second chance romance, it's far from staid and saccharine. 

Start with College Town, and then check out the new epilogue, A Cure for Recovery, at one of the links below. 

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

A Cure for Recovery: Debriefing

When they get back in, the sun is setting lavishly through the skyscrapers beyond their window, liquid orange and glittering with eye-watering ferocity off every metallic surface across the span of city that separates their thirtieth-floor room from the river. Tommy’s drawn to the window; his breath fogs the glass as he stares out at the vista, the cars crawling below like ants, boats moving on the Hudson. He counts five rooftop gardens, one strung with fairy lights that snap on as he watches, tiny people gathering at a table and toasting one another with tiny glasses.

Even at his most miserable during their twenty years apart, he always found a kind of bittersweet comfort in the sheer busyness of the city. The knowledge that, even if he was pining and lonely, there were so many others out there, just beyond his window, living, and loving, and enjoying themselves.

Now, he gets to be one of their number.

He catches the ghost of his own smile in his reflection as he turns, and puts his back to the view, and focuses instead on the view that’s for him only. 

I'll keep it brief - ha - because this is a novella and not a big doorstopper, but there are lots of little truth bombs and tender moments in A Cure for Recovery that make me happy I took the time to pen it. 

When I was wrapping up College Town, I wanted to dig a little deeper into Tommy's recovery, and the challenges therein, but ultimately decided to end the book on a high note. The story had reached a natural denouement, and I felt like digging too deep into "what comes next" would throw off the pacing of the rest of the narrative. But his recovery - and recovery in general - was a topic I wanted to write about, so here we have A Cure for Recovery, which is essentially 38k words of domestic fluff and angst, without the mystery/suspense angle of the original novel, but with its own kind of muted, what I think of as a very real-world plotline. 

While I'm very happy with the way College Town ends, I don't think it allowed Lawson or Tommy the chance to unbox their leftover anxieties with regard to finding a true permanence in one another's lives. Lawson's still worried that Tommy will wake up one day, wonder what the hell he's doing, and go back to New York. And Tommy's worried that, after twenty years apart, and finally getting together, Lawson's going to resent having to play both husband and caretaker, furious at his own body for what he sees as "failing" him. 

Their circumstances in College Town were a bit extreme - the forced separation, the deception, the mafia plot - and Cure feels like a chance to step back and approach the practical, day-to-day aspects of their relationship. Making things work when lives aren't on the line, and it's just drinks at Flanagan's and career frustration. 

As a writer, I don't know that I ever truly leave a project, a story, or a couple alone. There's always ideas left dangling. In this case, Cure was a chance to share some of those in a coherent novella, and to help my brain work through some of the more domestic challenges of Lord Have Mercy. I'll put Lawson and Tommy to bed - for now. No promises I won't ever revisit them again. And I really hope you enjoy their epilogue, which does, never fear, feature another happily ever after. 

You can purchase it here: 

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

New Release: A Cure for Recovery

The way they’re leaning together, it’s impossible to tell which of them has trouble balancing; who’s the steadying presence, and who needs help.

Lawson’s legs work fine, but they both do need steadying, even if it’s not of the same sort.

Tommy thought, at first, that their rings, and their vows, and their hands laced together in front of a hospital chapel altar would banish all doubts, all guilt. That each of them would be sure of the other’s commitment and love and willingness to stay and stick out the rough spots. Seven months, but most especially the past few weeks, have taught him that’s not the case. The rings, vows, and interlaced hands were a big and vital step toward the rest of their lives…but they’ve both been in recovery that whole time: from heartache, for one, and from almost dying, in Tommy’s case; in Lawson’s case, he supposes it’s a recovery from whatever future he envisioned when he thought Tommy wouldn’t pull through.

There’s not a cure for recovery. Only the slow, day in and day out work of nonlinear progress. And love. Love carries more than its fair share of weight.

“Do you wanna go in?” Tommy asks, and realizes Lawson is studying their reflection, too, expression heartbreakingly tender. 

“Yeah.” His voice is a little uneven, but Tommy doesn’t comment on it; strokes his arm, instead. “Yeah, let’s go in.”

It's here! The College Town follow-up novella, A Cure for Recovery, went live for Kindle yesterday, and is now available across the board this morning.

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

The novella picks up seven months from where College Town left off, and this time it's Tommy who steps (cautiously) into the role of narrator. He and Lawson are married, living and working in Eastman, and Lawson's querying his project and working on another. Tommy's going through physical therapy, and struggling to come to terms with the fact that he might not ever be able to walk and live the way he once did. It's a story about the ways that we can be so happy and thankful for the lives we have...but how that doesn't necessarily mean that we're "okay" all the time. It's a little bit slice of life, a little bit of domestic angst, and lots of love.

It's not a standalone, so you'll need to read College Town first:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

** M/M romance

**explicit content

Coming Soon

 

Oh, the wonderful, bittersweet relief of typing "The End." I finished A Cure for Recovery today, and I should be able to order my proof copies this weekend! It topped out at 38k+ words, and 155 5"x8" paperback pages. Lengthy for a novella, but a quick read. 

If you haven't read College Town yet, now's the time. Be on the lookout for this follow-up novella very soon. 

Synopsis: 

"Tommy’s been a Granger instead of a Katz or a Cattaneo for almost seven months, and he’s still not tired of signing his new legal name on documents, or seeing it printed in his email signature. He especially likes the sight of it in the elegant script of Leo and Dana’s wedding save-the-date cards.

But even the charm of his new name, and the new life it represents, can’t make up for the drudgery of yet another doctor’s appointment." 

Tommy survived a shooting, retired from the NYPD, and married the love of his life, but recovery, he's learned in the seven months since, isn't as straightforward as physical healing. Set after the events of "College Town," A Cure for Recovery tells a domestic story of love, and frustration, and working through tough times with the people you love most. A story of family, and the fears and joys of a future you never thought you'd get to live.  

This M/M novella is not a standalone and must be read after "College Town." 

An Epilogue

 

He slides his hand in the crook of Lawson’s elbow. “Hey.”

Lawson’s head only half turns, his gaze askance, wary.

Oh, Tommy thinks. I’ve really messed up.

Voice gentle, he says, “I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t something new. I’ve been dealing with it off and on the whole time.”

“I thought–” Lawson starts, then shakes his head, and looks away again.

Tommy sits up, which isn’t as effortless as it used to be, his muscles gone soft and unsteady from disuse. And isn’t that stupid? He should have been working on his stretches, on his Pilates, his upper body exercises, and instead he’s kept putting it off. When I’m better, he always thinks. When I’m healed.

But maybe he never will be.

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned I was playing around with a Tommy POV follow-up to College Town as a writing exercise while I worked through the last part of Lord Have Mercy? It's officially a novella, now. As usual with me, the story grew legs, got up, and started running around, and what am I to do but follow? It's a look at what comes after the happy ending - the domestic joy and angst of moving past a major, life-altering event, with plenty of sweetness and spice, and a trip to NYC. Much like with the Russells, and then Hal and Luke in Walking Wounded, I found I wasn't ready to let go of Lawson and Tommy just yet, and had to add a little epilogue. 

It's titled A Cure For Recovery, and should be available soon! 

If you haven't read College Town yet, now's the perfect time. It's got:

• small-town setting
• childhood sweethearts
• friends to lovers
• twenty years later
• second chance romance
• mafia vibes
• suspense
• plot twist ending
• banter
• explicit steamy scenes
• happy ending 

It's available in all the usual places:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

#CollegeTown: Rude Reunion

The following post contains spoilers for my new standalone romance, College Town, which I've placed beneath a cut for safe keeping. If you haven't read the book yet, and don't want to be spoiled, backspace now and come back later. If you're looking for a copy of the book, it's available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo.

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Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Tommy’s brows quirk, but he says, “Okay. I was going to find a way to contact you, though. So we could…”

“Talk? Yeah. You’ve said.”

“Lawson. Please.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Can…” Tommy glances across the alley, pained. When he looks back, there’s a pleading tilt to his brows that Lawson remembers all too well; it doesn’t work as well as it used to, but it hurts to look at. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

Lawson lifts his brows and gestures to the building he’s propped against.

“Fine, a cookie. You always liked the cookies here when we were kids.”

“My break ended two and a half minutes ago.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, huffing a little. “A drink, then, later. Tonight. There’s two dozen bars in his town.”

“You gonna bring the little missus?”

Tommy flinches hard.

“That’s who she is, right?” Lawson presses, though it makes his chest ache, makes his hands tremble where he’s tucked them into his armpits. “The ring’s hard to miss. You guys, like, match or whatever.”

Tommy’s lips press tight together, and two bright flags of color stand out along his high, narrow cheekbones. He looks small; his bespoke suit seems to swallow him a moment. After a moment, he says, slow but firm, “Let me buy you a drink. Just the two of us.”

“What if I say no?”

His chin juts out, an old familiar, mulish angle. “Then I’ll come back tomorrow and ask again.”

One of the many magic things about fiction is the chance to explore, and even enjoy, situations you don't want anything to do with in real life. I know that, personally, I don't want to be a part of a romantic relationship that begins contentiously, barbed with insults and misunderstandings and resentments...but boy are those sorts of relationship beginnings fun to read about. 

Friday Update 3/8

Day whatever-the-heck of being sick with...covid? Super covid? Recurring covid? Stomach bug? Just my general crappy immune system plus, ahem, monthly stuff? Who knows. But I am upright! I'm even at my desk. I even had coffee. It seems like every time I get on a real roll with working and getting farm stuff handled, I get sick. I think stress - I'm a chihuahua in human form at the best of times - gets my system down, and then I catch something, and then the roll grinds to a halt. 

So. Slow news week around here. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things this weekend, but still taking it fairly easy today. 

I managed to make some really good headway on Lord Have Mercy before I got sick, so I'm not too worried about the scheduling there. If you're waiting anxiously, and haven't had a chance to read it yet, I'm going to gently nudge you toward College Town, which is very different, but also very soft and sweet beneath its bristled surface. 

There's a strong dash of organized crime action in this one, but lots of domestic, small-town aesthetic, and I'd forgotten how much I missed writing that sort of novel. I'm definitely seeing more romance standalones in my future. 

I hope you'll give it a chance. It certainly hasn't a different feel and flair than, say, Dartmoor, or my fantasy/paranormal books, but it's a fun read. Tidy, tight, steamy, with a surprise twist ending. You can grab it in paperback and ebook. 

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Kobo

#CollegeTown: Insecurity

 

Lawson opens his door and climbs out because he can’t take Tommy’s pitying look any longer. “Come on if you’re coming,” he says, slings his bag over his shoulder, and doesn’t wait up. “Let’s get this over with.”

The car door shuts behind him, and Tommy’s fancy shoes grit over the loose patch in the concrete of the driveway.

Lawson’s spurt of defiant bravery lasts all the way up the (not a ramp) back steps to the door, and then he pauses, and rattles his keys in his hand, and wonders if he should have called ahead. He entrusted Dana with his parents, with the explanations, and though he’s had two days to think of it, he still has no idea what he’s going to say.

He lets out a long, slow breath as he stares at his haggard expression in the little square windows set in the door.

A hand lands in the middle of his back, a specter of a supportive touch, quickly withdrawn.

He fits the key in the door and lets them in.

Today’s Thursday – is it really only Thursday? – which means that Mom will be elbow-deep in alterations today. As expected, the kitchen is cool, and clean, the breakfast dishes in the drying rack by the sink, the pan she fries the eggs in still soaking inside it. He hears the TV on in the living room, some old rerun with a laugh track, which means that Dad was still wakeful after breakfast, and is in there with her while she works.

Lawson stands a moment by the table, looks reluctantly over at Tommy to see what his reaction is. He expects more pity, or even disgust. How could someone who dines at exclusive restaurants and wears fifteen-thousand-dollar watches be anything but disgusted by this suburban time capsule?

But Tommy is smiling. It’s a small, private thing at first, but as he takes a slow turn and gazes around the room, dark eyes flicking back and forth in quick snaps, it grows and grows, and he’s flashing teeth by the time he gets back around to Lawson. “It’s the same,” he says, like that’s a good thing, giving a disbelieving, but obviously delighted shake of his head. “The curtains! And, look.” He goes to the molding around the pantry door and taps at the old marker lines where Mom used to measure Lawson’s height as he grew. “You were never this little,” he chuckles, bending to tap the lowest line.

Lawson swallows, and swallows again. “Yeah, well, you still are,” he says, weakly.

Tommy chuckles some more. 

College Town is, at its heart, about home, and about happiness. About the ways home and happiness look different to different people; the ways our own insecurities can lead us to assume that someone living somewhere else, doing something else, will find the place we lay our heads to be lacking, to be insufficient. That sort of insecurity shapes so much of what we fear, and what we present to the world. I've seen readers say they want their book protagonists to be confident, but it's insecurity - and learning to live with it, and learning not to listen to it so much - that provides tension, and, therefore, a story. 

College Town is live for all your contemporary, second chance, standalone romance needs; it's a perfect Sunday night indulgent read. You can find it here: 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

#CollegeTown: Let's Go Home

 The following post contains spoilers for my latest novel, College Town, a standalone, second chance romance. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you can grab it here:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

The final chapter of College Town is one my favorite chapters out of all my projects. It goes back and forth between Tommy's hospital stay and subsequent release, and the night of the 20-year high school reunion. 

“You know,” Lawson says, “when I first got this email, I was dreading this party.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But it was fun.” 

Chapter one opens with Dana breaking the bad news to Lawson that she agreed they would co-host the reunion, so it was fitting to close the book with the party itself. Lawson's world looks completely different than it did when he first started dreading the event; he and Tommy went through a whole heck of a lot in a short amount of time. It's a well-earned happy ending. 

I had a reader ask me several years ago if I felt "pressured" to write a happy ending for each of my books. College Town being a proper romance, it of course had to have one: that's one of the non-negotiable hallmarks of any romance novel, the happy ending. But I write happy endings for all my books, romance or otherwise, not because I feel any sort of pressure to do so, but because I don't have any interest in writing an ending that isn't happy. I've certainly read books with melancholy, bittersweet, and even haunting endings that were fantastic...but, personally, I always want to leave readers with a sweet, warm feeling as the book closes. I do enjoy torturing my characters with drama and angst, but at the end of the story, I want to reward them for hanging in there. 

One of the things I've always asked myself with regards to sad endings, or major character deaths is: Aside from "reflecting reality," does this tragedy actually enhance the story? Or is it simply a means of adding grit? As a younger writer, when I was in college, my peers were very into realism, and I admit to getting swept up into that idea, too. Real life isn't always happy; a story can't be good unless it's strictly realistic. But the older I get, the more strongly I reject that idea. Life is hard, sometimes it sucks, and there's no shortage of real-world heartbreak - why can't our stories be an escape from that? 

I enjoyed Lawson and Tommy - and their friends; the girls were the real MVP of this book - so much that I could have easily written another dozen chapters of domestic bliss and day-to-day activity, but I'm very happy with where I left things for them. They're going home, in more ways than one. 

#CollegeTown: Setting

College Town has been live in the wild for one week! Honestly, at my current level of fatigue, it feels more like a month. I've been spamming the heck out of y'all with promo posts, and I can't claim I'll be quitting that anytime soon. It was a delightful book to write, a great way to stretch and grow as a writer, and a story I'm really proud of. You can find it here:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

In today's debrief, I want to talk about setting, and my different approach to it with this novel. Turn back now if you don't want to read any spoilers.

#TeaserTuesday: Reveals

 The following post contains spoilers for my new standalone romance, College Town, which I've placed beneath a cut for safe keeping. If you haven't read the book yet, and don't want to be spoiled, backspace now and come back later. If you're looking for a copy of the book, it's available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

“Can’t have that.”

“Lawson. Do you have any idea how amazing that is?” He tips his head back toward the laptop.

“It’s weird.”

“Yeah, and that’s why it’s amazing. It’s you!”

“Because I’m weird. I get it.”

“No.” Tommy rolls his eyes. “Because it’s unique, and it’s full of your voice, and it’s alive. Your characters feel like people I know.”

“To be fair, there’s a fair bit of you in the Luke Thomas character.”

“Yeah.” Tommy snorts. “That’s kinda hard to miss.”

#CollegeTown: The Unbearable Burden

The following post contains spoilers for my new standalone romance, College Town, which I've placed beneath a cut for safe keeping. If you haven't read the book yet, and don't want to be spoiled, backspace now and come back later. If you're looking for a copy of the book, it's available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Thusly warned, proceed. Breaking my debriefing for Fortunate Son down into smaller, thematic chunks was much more enjoyable and manageable than my usual info dump, so I'm doing that here as well. Ready? Let's go.

He's the Same #CollegeTown

 

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When they were teenagers, Dana and Tommy were the pool sharks of their group. Dead-on-balls accuracy, trick shots, patience, and killer stares. They consistently wiped the felt with the other kids at Stardust until it wasn’t even fun any longer.

One night, Dana’s uncle – good old childless Uncle Trey, never opposed to sneaking them a beer or a joint or a handy excuse to feed their parents – brought them right in here to Flanagan’s, a memory that, like the play, assaults Lawson with savage poignancy. It was a Friday, the place packed to the gills, the air thick with cigarette smoke because the practice hadn’t been outlawed indoors yet. Trey offered to play a guy for use of his table, and then handed the cues over to Dana and Tommy, which inspired uproarious laughter from the guy and his friends.

“They’re just kids!”

“You shouldn’t have any trouble beating them, then.” Trey slapped a twenty down on the edge of the table, and clapped a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “My girl here’ll break.”

Sparkles...I mean, Stardust

 As much as I enjoy writing all the drama, and violence, and chaos of my series, be they biker or dragon or vampire, there's something really special - to me at least - about writing the domestic details of a story. That's where I sometimes-sneakily, sometimes not-so-sneakily work tidbits of my own real life into a story that is otherwise not at all about me. 

I like to think it was a universal Nineties Kid experience to go to the roller-skating rink. That was Sparkles where I grew up, which serves as the direct inspiration for Stardust in College Town. All the local schools had their own designated night, and inevitably, without fail, I woke the next morning with a horrific stomach bug. It turns out that if you skate around for hours holding a boy's sweaty hand, you will wake up puking later that night. Worth it. 

Sparkles gave me rotavirus, but it also gave me the incredible childhood memory of my friend Drew trying to show off, slipping, and falling butt-first into the fluorescent-orange cheese of the nachos he had set aside for safe keeping. Oh, Drew. Poor Nacho Butt. Wherever you are out there in the grownup world, I hope you haven't fallen into any more Velveeta nachos. 

College Town was, overall, a real Nineties Kid experience, and more than a little bit of a current "what am I doing with my life writing books?" experience, too, and that's part of what makes it special for me. 

It took two whole weeks for the Cattaneo twins’ story to come out: hinted at in fits and starts by Noah, while he went pale and rubbed at the back of his neck, and finally revealed in full, in a very flat voice accompanied by an uncomfortable little shrug by Tommy when Lawson tried to invite him to Stardust Roller Rink for Eastman Middle Night.

“Everyone goes, not just me and Dana. We take our own rollerblades, but you can rent skates for free on Middle Night if you’re not afraid of catching gangrene and losing both feet.”

“What? Gangrene, that’s not how…” Tommy sighed and shook his head, and glanced away down the sidewalk as they walked toward the buses. “Whatever. I’ll…” The shrug. “I don’t know if my mom will let us come. She’s been…” A fidget of his backpack strap.

Lawson was trying to watch him only in his periphery, trying not to stare, but he turned his head when he caught the shift in his voice. The way he went airless, and uncertain; that clench of pain low in his throat. “What?” he prompted, as gently as he knew how.

The shrug came again, and Tommy took a deep breath that he let out in a rush. After, as if by rote, without any emotion, he said, “You know how we moved here from New York? Well, the reason was because my dad died, and my mom got scared, and moved us all the way out here, and now she’s really overprotective of us, and wants us to come home right after school. And.” He stalled out, and chewed at his lip.

Tommy’s hand swung along at his side, small and curled-tight and lonely-looking.

Lawson said, “Hey, man, that’s okay. Even if you can’t make it, I still wanted to invite you.” When Tommy glanced over – brows lowered, skittish – he offered his best smile, and after a beat, Tommy’s brow smoothed, and he returned it, crookedly.

Later that night, Lawson tried and failed to prove that he could skate backward, landed hard on his butt on the polished wood of the roller rink, and felt his face go up in flames. Mark and his friends laughed and whooped as they flew past, and Dana shot them the bird before she offered Lawson a hand.

When he was upright again, he turned, face still hot with shame – and then hot for another reason, when he saw a familiar pair of figures at the carpeted bench that ran the length of the rink. One tall, one short, both with brown hair gleaming green beneath the neon lights. Both were in the process of tugging on pairs of shitty rented skates, but Tommy paused, and caught his gaze, and grinned, still a little crooked, but wider this time, eyes big and black in the dimness of the room.

“Oh,” Lawson murmured, before he could catch himself. “They came.”

Dana dug her knuckles into his spine. “Don’t just stand here. Go tell him hi.”

He did. 

College Town is available now across all platforms! Links below:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo