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Hey amazing people!

I know I usually email you on Mondays, but I had to wait this time so that I could tell you about the HUGE event over at Romance Bookworms! It's ONE DAY ONLY, so head on over there to find over five hundred books, totally free! The lineup includes dozens of books with LGBTQ+ protagonists, among them, Long Winter!

No email signups, no strings attached, just hundreds of authors coming together to thank their readers for being awesome.

www.romancebookworms.com

I'm going to keep it short so that you have plenty of time to find a free book and dig into it, but there is another chapter of Night and Day at the bottom of this email. 😘

This week my sons, ages four and six, conned their dad into getting them toy light sabers, even though it's neither Christmas nor their birthdays any time soon. A couple nights ago, they were leaping off the furniture to knock their illuminated plastic weapons against one another. My younger son was apparently the Sith lord, complete with a terrycloth bathrobe, hood raised. My older son, wearing only a pair of Spiderman briefs, was the unadorned Jedi. I was about to tell them to take it easy before they broke an arm or a vase, when my older son turned to me and held his glowing light saber up, gazing at it in total rapture.

"Mommy," he asked, in an awestruck voice, "doesn't it look beautiful in the dark?"

The combination of the sheer physical chaos of these kids, combined with their moments of total sweetness, stuns me sometimes.

I need to take a moment and say thank you once again to those who responded in such a gracious way to my email last week where I shared a few of my personal fears. It was really wonderful to connect with you, and I'm humbled that you took time out of your day to share advice or entrust your own stories to me.

xo,

Rachel

More free reads!

Falling Into Love LBTQ+ Romance Giveaway

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Books by Rachel Ember

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

Jaywalking | Sleepwalker

***

NIGHT & DAY

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Ty

It had rained earlier in the day, and Ty's part of the city was still wet.

He’d become aware of certain things as he began splitting his days between his neighborhood and Jonathan's. He'd lived in the Kansas City metro his entire life, but he'd spent the majority of his time in specific parts of it. The tall, narrow house where Ty lived on a pothole-ridden street in Kansas City, Kansas was about as sharp a contrast as he could imagine from Jonathan's upscale townhouse on the other side of the river in Kansas City, Missouri.

When it rained in KCK, water sat and went fetid in the streets and the sidewalks for at least a day, and the air took on an unpleasant, oily kind of smell. Ty was used to it; might have thought nothing of it, if he hadn’t come to the Missouri side and found that the streets were dry within an hour of the rain stopping. The perfume of the KCMO wetness was the clean, green scent of damp grass.

He tramped up the steps to Jonathan and Isabel's, yawning into his hand and then sweeping his palm over his face, like he could rub some wakefulness back into himself. He was still struggling to adjust to his new sleep schedule. He lay down when he got home each day, closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep, and he was only successful about half the time. Today hadn't been one of the successful days, so he'd cleaned the house instead, finally burning through his manic energy in the early afternoon. Then he'd crashed only to wake up to his alarm a few hours later.

The door opened before Ty could brace himself, and there was Jonathan, with his smile that was so subtle, Ty had had to learn to notice it over the past four days. He was still dressed for work, as he generally was when Ty arrived. Ty was glad that he'd been wearing more casual attire during his interview, because he'd been distracting enough in khaki pants that appeared to be tailored for his long legs and a button-down. In the suits he wore to work, he was almost too much.

"Hey," Ty said, with a rueful smile at having been caught in a yawn.

"Hello," Jonathan said, that little smile growing tentatively into something that anyone would notice, which made Ty feel inordinately proud. "Come on in." He stepped back to hold open the door for Ty. As he came inside, Ty looked for Isabel, and smiled to himself when he found her dozing in a rocking cradle by the kitchen table, where it looked like Jonathan had been halfway through a sandwich. "I should have asked sooner how you're adjusting," Jonathan went on, keeping his voice pitched soft, as he closed the door again. "Have you ever worked nights before?"

"Not really. I did dishes at a bar for a while. They closed at two. But it wasn't the same. I'm doing fine, though. I just didn't get to sleep very quickly today, is all, but it'll get easier."

He fought the urge to pick up Isabel. He didn't want to wake her up, but it was hard to only say hello by crouching down next to her cradle and gently pushing his thumb against the dimpled knuckles on the back of her perfectly pudgy hand. He looked over his shoulder at Jonathan, who had stopped in the doorway and was watching him with a strange look on his face.

Their eyes almost met, but Jonathan's gaze skated away. Ty thought again about the moment that morning when he thought he'd seen Jonathan...well, check him out. But surely that had just been wishful thinking?

Because of course Ty had a crush on his boss. It had happened immediately—Jonathan was handsome, and a little stern, and though he was obviously bewildered by his daughter, he was heart-breakingly gentle with her too. At the very beginning, Ty had been in denial about his reaction to Jonathan. Over the course of a few days, he'd given up denying it.

There were a hundred reasons why he should squash his feelings, and though he was working on it, he wasn't there yet. He tried to distract himself from the memory and his own useless musings with a bright, untroubled smile and a neutral, whispered question.

"How did she do today?"

The strange look vanished and Jonathan shook his head and answered in a bemused tone. "According to the dozens of notifications I got all day on my phone, she's had regular diapers and feedings, and was carried through a nature trail."

Ty smiled and breathed out a silent laugh. "I bet she was fast asleep through the whole walk. They mention that?"

Jonathan smiled again, this time much more easily. "Well, the app also tracks total minutes of sleep, so I happen to know she logged even more today than she did yesterday."

Ty sighed, getting to his feet and putting his hands in his jeans pockets so they wouldn't take on a mind of their own and grab her. He couldn't help it; there was just something about any baby that drew him in, and now that he knew Isabel personally, he could barely resist the urge to cuddle her at all times. He almost hoped she never got on a better sleep schedule, because if she slept the night through, he'd barely have time to play with her. But it would be better for Isabel, which brought him back to being vaguely annoyed with Jonathan's fancy daycare.

"I wish they'd at least try to keep her awake. It would make my job easier." Ty spoke offhand, then caught himself and glanced at Jonathan, wondering if he'd be offended.

But Jonathan was nodding in agreement. "You'd think when I'm paying twenty-five hundred dollars a month in what they call 'tuition,' they'd at least want her to be awake for her courses."

Ty could almost feel his eyes bugging out of his own head. "Are you being serious?" He was so surprised that his voice broke out of the low murmur he'd maintained for Isabel's sake, and she made a snuffling noise, stirring in her rocker but not waking. He hastily shuffled further away from the kitchen table, propping his hip against the countertop, and looked at Jonathan with both eyebrows raised.

Jonathan nodded. "Yes, they really do call it tuition."

It had been the number, not the word "tuition," that had shocked the hell out of Ty, but he decided not to clarify. It was kind of funny, except that the fee was also higher than the tuition in the UMKC course handbook that Ty had been looking over again and again. If the program fees were higher at Isabel's center than Ty's would be for college courses, then they probably should be called tuition. Damn.

"I hope she makes good on your investment and becomes the valedictorian."

Jonathan laughed, flashing the easiest smile yet along with it, and then he seemed as surprised by his own reaction as Ty had been. He glanced quickly at Isabel’s rocker, but the outburst hadn’t fazed her. He pitched his voice low again. "So far it looks like she's getting a straight A in diapers, anyway. They're always coded green for 'highly regular.'"

Ty grinned, then yawned. “Sorry,” he told Jonathan when the moment passed and he could speak again. “Didn’t sleep well today.”

"You know, there's no reason you can't sleep while she's sleeping, if you'll wake when she does," Jonathan pointed out. "There's a daybed in her room."

Ty knew about the daybed. It was one of those beautiful pieces of furniture that was hideously uncomfortable. Even just having perched on it a time or two, he'd noted that it was approximately as yielding as a slab of stone. Still, he appreciated Jonathan pointing out that he wasn't expected to stand vigil over a sleeping baby all night. His role was just to be sure that if someone had to get up with her, it wasn't Jonathan.

"Thanks," he said. "Hopefully she sleeps through the night, but I'm guessing as soon as I transfer her to the crib, she's going to wake up."

"Leave her where she is for now, then," Jonathan said, and then added with a sidelong look that Ty ordered himself not to misinterpret, "I was about to have a drink. Do you want one?"

Ty swallowed so his voice wouldn’t be a squeak when he answered. “Yeah, sure.”

They went into the living room, where Isabel was still in seeing and hearing range, but they didn't have to be quite so careful not to disturb her. As they stepped out, Jonathan paused to dim the lights in the kitchen area. Ty sat stiffly on the edge of one of the sofas. This one was slightly more comfortable than the one in the nursery, but not by much. Or maybe it only felt that way because tension was filling Ty’s whole body as he watched Jonathan open a bar cart placed against the wall.

"What would you like?"

Ty bit his lip. He wasn't a big drinker, and when he occasionally went out, he usually drank whatever was cheap. The special, or if there wasn’t one, vodka sours because they were tolerable and never more than a few dollars for a single, the places he went. He found himself wondering what Jonathan would think of his drink order. He imagined that Jonathan drank something sophisticated, with no care for the cost. "Um, I don't know. What are you having?"

"Just a little whiskey. I don't want to get carried away, but I hate ice."

"I'll have that, too," Ty said, and with a nod, Jonathan dispensed a bright amber liquid into two tumblers. Ty wrinkled his nose as the smell wafted toward him, pleasant, but strong. He'd had whiskey before, but only in shots, and he didn’t remember it being so aromatic. Jonathan set his glass on the coffee table in front of him instead of handing it to him, then sat down in the chair that faced the sofa, sinking back against it with a long sigh.

Ty picked up his tumbler, mostly to stop himself from staring at Jonathan's throat under his loosened tie, and inhaled tentatively again. It really did smell good. But when he took a sip, his eyes watered and he could barely swallow the mouthful, which was like liquid fire.

Jonathan hadn't failed to notice, and he looked torn between amusement and concern. He set down his glass without a word and went into the darkened kitchen while Ty tried not to gasp and clutch his throat. Jonathan returned with two glasses—one with just ice, the other with ice and water.

"Here," He said, bending over at the waist to lean closer to Ty.

Ty looked up into Jonathan's face instead of taking the proffered water glass. And their eyes locked. It was just like that morning, except up close, it was so much more powerful than it had been with several feet of space between them, and in the warm glow of the lamplight, so much more intimate than it had been in the light of day.

The whiskey's fire had turned smooth in Ty's palate and was a slow burn in his stomach, a pleasant heat that combined with the heady feeling of Jonathan so close. Ty could smell him—the subtle notes of his cologne and pomade commingling into something utterly delicious. With Ty's lower lip tingling from the kiss of the whiskey, he'd never wanted someone's touch, their mouth, more.

But of course, Jonathan didn't touch him, only hesitated until he realized Ty wasn't going to take the water, and then set it on the stone coaster where the whiskey had been. Then he took Ty's whiskey out of his hand, still without so much as a brush of their fingertips, and put the ice from the second glass into the tumbler. "Here," he murmured, not looking at Ty as he arranged the whiskey on a second coaster beside the water. "Try it with ice."

Was it wishful thinking, or did Jonathan's voice sound rough? Was it possible that there was reciprocation of feeling between them after all, and not just in Ty's imagination?

But those questions went unanswered, as did the one of whether Ty could better tolerate whiskey on the rocks, because the quiet in the kitchen was abruptly broken by a bellow from Isabel.