Don't want to receive emails from me? It's easy to unsubscribe! Just scroll all the way to the bottom of this message and click the link. You can always follow me on BookBub instead if you'd rather receive emails only when I have a new release.

hey, favorite people ❤️

My younger son, who's four and a half, chose Halloween costumes for the whole family. He will be a bat. Dad will be a rabbit. I will be a radish. His brother, who's six, will be a rat in a garbage can.

Last year, I made said younger son's requested costume: a pickle. That was a fun challenge, but he's really upped the ante this year. I will definitely be trying to buy rather than build costumes where possible. Though, I've already checked, and I'm SOL in the premade radish costume department.

All year, my kids ask when Christmas is, and I answer, "After Thanksgiving." The next question they ask is when Thanksgiving is, and I answer, "After Halloween." That's how we measure the entire year: New Year's Day, then kids' birthdays (they were both born in March), then Easter, then summer, then the Fourth of July, then the county fair, then school starting, then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas.

Right before Halloween is pretty much my only respite from "when is Christmas" questions. We love Halloween and it gets its own, exclusive anticipation for at least a few weeks. But even Halloween season hasn't been a respite from the tougher questions I've been getting lately from the boys. The older one has a new fascination with space, and the younger one has a new fascination with God.

That means that when they both get going at the same time, I'm faced with existential questions that I've been happily avoiding thinking about for about a decade. My favorites from the last few days have been "What is matter?" and "Did God love dinosaurs?"

If you have any tips, send them my way. I'll just be over here stitching my radish costume.

What I'm reading

I'm reading Pick Me by May Archer. I was lucky enough to get an early copy, and my cheeks basically have smile cramps. Are you a fan of May's, too? Almost nothing excites me as much as an author I love kicking off a new series, and I can't wait to see where this one goes.

What I'm writing

This month, I'm diving into As the Tallgrass Grows. I have been excited to write Johnny's story ever since Long Winter, and I know that a lot of readers feel the same way. One of the most common questions I've gotten about the series is some version of "WTF is going on with Johnny?!"

And soon, you'll know!

I've also been writing a chapter of Night & Day every Friday morning over on Discord. I am really enjoying writing closed-off Jonathan and heart-on-his-sleeve Ty as well as cheerful baby Isabel. For those who joined the mailing list more recently, subscribers voted on which story I'd write for the mailing list during a "pilot season" earlier this year. Every week another chapter is sent right at the bottom of this email, so scroll down to find it as well as links to the first nine chapters.

Have a great week!

xo,

Rachel

Website | Rachel's Party Barn on Facebook | Instagram | Discord

Books by Rachel Ember

Long Winter | Signs of Spring | Burning Season | As the Tallgrass Grows

Jaywalking | Sleepwalker

***

In case you missed it... Burning Season is here!

***

NIGHT & DAY

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

"Are you leaving?" Landry asked Jonathan, his shock written plainly on his face and his hands frozen on the lapels of the jacket he'd just been pulling on.

Jonathan had been walking past Landry's workstation on his way out. He paused and frowned at his colleague. "Well, yes." He glanced at his watch. "It's noon."

"You never take lunch."

"Oh, well," Jonathan shrugged, feeling strangely caught out, even though he was perfectly entitled to take a lunch hour if he wanted to. He usually didn't bother; restaurants were so hit or miss anyway, and trying to get in and out within an hour was an unpleasant rush. "Ty—that is, my—Ty brought Isabel to meet me. We're going to have a sandwich in the park."

Landry's expression softened. "Oh. That's sweet. I'll walk out with you. About time I saw the little bug in person." He reached for his bag.

"All right," Jonathan said. "But hurry up," he added when Landry paused to check his phone.

"Impatient," Landry observed, smiling as he slid his phone into his jacket pocket and circled his desk. "I'm right behind you."

They chatted about work matters as they rode the elevator to the lobby, and then the doors parted and there was Ty. His hands rested on the handles of Isabel's stroller like it was his anchorpoint in a dangerous sea. He was looking around at the atrium ceiling and bustling people as though he could be mugged by someone in a bespoke suit at any moment. The uneasy look on his face made Jonathan want to smile and tease him, and also pull him into his arms and kiss him...both of these were near-constant urges, but he tried to indulge one only occasionally and to pretend the other didn't exist.

"Is that...?" Landry asked, nodding in unmasked surprise toward Ty as they stepped off the elevator. "Is he in high school?"

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "He's only a year younger than you, Landry."

Landry's eyes widened further, his groomed eyebrows arching even higher. "Well, after you introduce us, I'll be quizzing him on his skincare routine."

The comment made Jonathan laugh, and the noise drew Ty's attention away from two women stalking past in pencil skirts and spiky heels and toward Jonathan, with an immediate, relieved-looking grin that it pleased Jonathan very much to see, though the expression wavered somewhat as Ty's gaze jumped to Landry.

"Hello," Jonathan said, hoping that the smile that came to his face automatically at the pleasure of seeing Ty and Isabel in the middle of the day wasn't too dopey, but he crouched down in front of the shoulder and focused on the baby, just in case. She blinked up at him sternly from under a lightweight wool hat, dressed for walking outside and looking cozy in a fluffy blue sweater. "Ty, this is Landry. He and I work together. And Landry, this is Ty, who I've been telling you about."

"Hello," Landry said, and Jonathan glanced up in time to see them shaking hands, made a little awkward by the fact that Ty didn't appear to have much practice in the gesture. "I'm his paralegal," Landry added, "but he never says it like that, because he doesn't want to sound like a snob."

"Hi," Ty replied. "I'm his nanny."

Landry laughed, but Ty's answering smile still looked uneasy.

"And this is Isabel," Jonathan added pointedly. "You asked to meet her, so you have to at least pretend to be interested."

"Oh, right," Landry said with another laugh, crouching down next to Jonathan so their shoulders pressed together as they both leaned over the baby. She furrowed her brow, as though startled by Landry's sudden appearance, then when he tweaked her socked foot, she flashed a gummy smile. "Aw," Landry said. "Look, she likes me."

"You sound surprised, but you’ve always said that everyone likes you," Jonathan reminded him, amused, as he straightened back up.

Landry rose too, grinning. "Well, yes, but I've never been sure babies are actually human. I guess this is proof." He winked at Ty, who looked shocked. "Have a nice lunch, you three."

Waving at a departing Landry, Jonathan turned to Ty. "Ready to go?"

Ty nodded, still watching Landry walk off. "Yeah. Where's that sandwich place you mentioned?"

"It's over here." There was an upscale lunch place in the building, though some of what it offered was ordinary enough to be park-suitable, as a chunk of its business was providing to-go lunches to the many professional offices in the building.

They ordered their sandwiches with small bags of chips and bottled water, and then went back outside. Ty was noticeably tense until they were back out in the open air, when his hunched shoulders finally lowered a few inches, but Jonathan didn't comment on it, waiting to see what Ty might volunteer.

The impulse surprised him a little, indicating as it did that he'd gotten to know Ty, developed a sense of how to best communicate with him. It had happened quickly, but maybe it shouldn't be a surprise. Over the past week and a half of having Ty with him full-time, they'd fallen almost instantly into a routine that felt much more comfortable than the one that Jonathan had been plodding through before Ty came alone. Maybe more comfortable than any routine Jonathan had had in his life, including the years he'd considered himself happily married.

He shrugged off that dangerous thought. Over the past week and a half, he'd also come to terms with his feelings for Ty, such as they were. He’d tried and failed to browbeat himself out of having them, and he'd decided that they were fine so long as he never, ever acted on them.  

"I knew you had a pretty serious job," Ty said. "But seeing you in the middle of it was still kind of weird."

The lobby on the ground floor of his building wasn't exactly the middle of it, but Jonathan just nodded, trying to understand what Ty was getting at.

"Is a paralegal, like, an assistant? Is that what Landry does?"

"Some paralegals might be like assistants, but not Landry," Jonathan said with a rueful smile. He glanced up and caught Ty giving him a narrow-eyed look, but the younger man quickly turned away, focusing firmly ahead as he pushed the stroller over the crosswalk toward the park on the opposite side of the street. But the park looked to be boiling over with people, so Jonathan looked down the block, struck by a thought.

"Why don't we go walk around on the campus?"

Ty looked surprised. "Is that allowed?"

"Sure. I know people who run there in the mornings, too. It's an open campus."

"Okay, then."

Jonathan knew that Ty was waiting to hear back about his application for enrollment for the following semester, and he hadn't decided whether to tell him that Jonathan had an old friend in the admissions office who he'd called with a personal recommendation. Maybe that was a detail he would just keep to himself.

Jonathan enjoyed the way that Ty's eyes turned wide and bright as he studied the stately buildings they passed. For a newer university, the architecture was thoughtfully designed. It wasn't quite like the storied halls that had towered in the Ivy League university he'd attended, but it still had the feeling of a college, which he'd always found pleasing. 

"We could sit here and eat," Jonathan suggested, nodding at a bench set off from the paved walkway and beneath a tree. When Ty nodded and steered the stroller that way, Jonathan followed, sitting down and fishing his sandwich from the bag, then handing Ty the other. But while Jonathan unwrapped his own lunch, Ty left his sitting in his lap, fiddling with the sticker that secured the wax paper wrapper.

"Landry likes you," he blurted at last.

Jonathan swallowed the bite that he'd just taken with some difficulty. "Excuse me?"

Ty looked up at him, jaw set. "He likes you. Did you know that?"

"I..." Jonathan had no idea what to say. "We're friends, if that's what you mean." But he knew that wasn't what Ty meant.

Ty's eyes narrowed. "No. He likes you."

"That's ridiculous," Jonathan said, and immediately realized he'd said the wrong thing when Ty's cheeks flushed.

"No, it's not. I may not know about the law or how to paralegal, whatever that even is, but I know people, Jonathan." He looked away. "Anyway, it's not my business, obviously. I don't know if you're even...I mean, you're married, so."

"Technically I'm married," Jonathan muttered, winding the paper back around his sandwich. But presumably only until he found Natalie, and then he'd be more than willing to un-marry her, the way she'd asked.

"And to a woman," Ty added pointedly.

The pieces clicked in Jonathan's head. He thought over what to say, while Ty busily shredded one end of the strip of paper in his lap, not looking at him.

"I am not interested in Landry, but not because he's a man. Just because I'm not interested."

He watched Ty carefully, noticing how some of the tension eased from those shoulders, which were still thinner than Jonathan would have liked, his shoulder blades sharp as wings against the thin fabric of the long-sleeved shirt he wore, curled over his lap.

"Are you cold?" Jonathan asked, already rearranging the food to the bench beside him so that he could shed his jacket.

Landry blinked at him, seeming surprised when the light wool garment settled around his shoulders. Jonathan had almost expected him to refuse the offer, but instead he wordlessly slipped his arms through the sleeves.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I...well, I do know why, but..."

"Don't worry about it," Jonathan said hastily. Unlike Ty, and if his claims were to be believed, Landry, Jonathan wasn't good with people, at least not in the interpersonal manner. Still, he was almost sure he knew what Ty had been going to say. Something that might echo Jonathan's own feelings. He felt a thrill at the suggestion that Ty might think there was something to be jealous about if Landry were interested in Jonathan.

And as much as he'd be delighted to have that suggestion confirmed, the thought terrified Jonathan, too.

Ty nodded and tucked his sandwich back in the sack. "I don't think I'm that hungry right now."

"Me either," Jonathan agreed. "But should we keep walking instead?"

"Sure. Isabel will probably start fussing if we don't get a move-on, anyway."

***

That night, Jonathan wasn't sure what kind of mood he'd find Ty in. He hoped it wasn't the same melancholy one that Jonathan had been suffering with all day, and he was pleasantly surprised when Ty met him at the door with an enormous smile.

"I got into UMKC!" he exclaimed. He had Isabel in one arm, and his phone in his other hand. He held it up and waved it as though Jonathan could possibly see whatever evidence he had of admission on the screen.

"That's wonderful!" Jonathan was sure the warmth he was feeling on his flushed skin was mostly just the relief of being indoors after a short walk from the car through the brisk evening air, sans jacket, which he'd insisted Ty wear home. But it also had something to do with Ty's beaming face, so close beside Isabel's grin, as she reached for him with her dimpled hands. He took her from Ty, and then, while they were close and before he could stop himself, he slipped an arm around Ty too and squeezed him briefly against his side. "Congratulations."

Even Isabel went still in the next, frozen moment, while Jonathan lingered with his arm around Ty's narrow waist, and his hand curled around his hip, sharp under the denim waistband of his jeans and his thin shirt, and his face tilted up to look into Jonathan's.

Then Isabel unfroze, and yanked Jonathan's hair.

"Isabel—ow!" He cried, which made her laugh and pull harder. He clutched at her with both hands, releasing Ty in the process, who had begun laughing too.

"Aw, and I thought that she only pulled my hair. So much for feeling special."

Jonathan rolled his eyes, wincing as he pried her hand free and then held it firmly in his own, but he was smiling, too, and inordinately relieved to find that whatever had flared between them at the park appeared to be behind them now.

Relieved, yes. That was surely the feeling.