Are pumpkins vegetables? 🎃
Oct 22, 2020 6:30 am
According to my very reliable google search, pumpkins are considered a fruit! But once you carve a face on them, I think they're technically
Hello, amazing human!
I've had the terrible honor of doing remote learning two days a week with my oldest son. He's only five, so it's not like I have to do algebra or anything else that I've deliberately erased from my brain, but it's still been something of a challenge. I do feel lucky that my day job affords me the flexibility to make sure he's getting his school tasks done, when I know so many other parents are struggling.
What I've been reading.
This week I read all three books currently available in Gregory Ashe's Borealis Investigations series, and I can't wait for the next one. At least, I assume there will be a next one! If not, I'm still happy to have read them. If you like best friends to lovers with mutual pining, lots of heavy angst and heavy subjects, and you're into mysteries, then these books will be perfect for you.
My next book.
I've also been writing as fast as I can, in an effort to finish the novel I'm working on when I'm not creating the next chapter of Undertow (like the one linked below!) and trying to get things in order for it to be ready for a January release date. That story features (authentic!) cowboy hats, fireside cuddles, getting stuck in the snow together, childhood crushes, and all kinds of emotional hurt/comfort...
Robbie swears, hits the brakes as hard as he dares, and holds the wheel in a double vice grip. The truck slows abruptly, its brakes vibrating as the tires skid on the packed snow, and then they slide a solid four feet even with the brakes locked. The closest cow, a big, black creature with a band of white around her midsection, stares at them placidly like she’s well-versed in the laws of physics and knows she’s safe, but Robbie’s heart is in his throat until the moment the truck is still.
His hand is back on Lance’s shoulder. Robbie realizes it, then looks over without taking it away. This time, his forefinger extends past the collar of the coat, and the pad of it is just brushing the warm, smooth skin of Lance’s neck. Lance is looking back at him, his lakewater eyes wide, and his lips are parted. Robbie doesn’t remember his lips being such a delicate, pale pink color, but he’s very aware of this knowledge now, his gaze fixed there, where he can see small white teeth, one very slightly crooked lower incisor, and the tip of a red tongue.
The cow moos loudly at them, and Robbie jumps, taking his hand off Lance and pushing the heel of it hard into the middle of the steering wheel all in one motion. The horn blares, and the cows hike up their tails and scatter. Robbie tests the gas, and is pleasantly surprised when the truck inches forward. As they slowly coast, he rummages in his jeans pocket for his phone.
“I don’t remember anyone having cattle around here.” Lance’s voice sounds steady, but maybe a little quieter than it was before, like he feels the charge in the air from moments ago as keenly as Robbie. Robbie hopes not. He hopes he’s alone in this strange awkwardness, which he ascribes mostly to how he’s tripped all over Megan’s old rules where Lance was concerned: Don’t touch him too much. Don’t spend too much time alone with him.
Don’t encourage his delicate young feelings, that had been the spirit of the rules. But the rules seemed silly back then, and they seem even sillier now. Before, he’d capitulated mostly because he wanted to appease Megan. Robbie himself had always known that Lance would outgrow his crush on his own, and he’d been right. Look at Lance now. Obviously he’s left such things behind him. He is, objectively—Robbie hesitates to say it, even in the relative safety of his own head—gorgeous. Not at all the sort of person who needs to pine for anyone; instead, the sort of person who only has to crook his finger to bring anyone he wants running.
“The old Cane place changed hands a few years ago, and the new owner runs some cows.” Robbie gives the careful, political answer, then remembers how long he’s known Lance, and relaxes enough to add, “If you want to call it that. He’s kept them alive, and they’re in the pasture slightly more often than they’re out.” With a sigh, he rubs his palms on his thighs. “Can I borrow my coat?”
“Oh, sure,” Lance says, cheeks going a little pink. He leans forward and struggles to get his long arms out of the sleeves in the cramped cab, like he’s no more accustomed to being tall and lanky himself than Robbie is to seeing him that way. When he hands over the coat, Robbie is careful not to let their hands touch, and then ignores the fact that the lining is warm from Lance’s body when he puts it on himself and gets out of the truck.
He’s more than a little baffled by his physical reaction to Lance. That’s as new to him as Lance’s short hair and sudden height, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
You’re just lonely, he assures himself, and that might have made him feel better if his subconscious didn’t add snidely, and sex-deprived. He trips a little and blames it on the snow, catching himself with one hand on the hood of the Chevrolet, then pushes all thoughts of the young man waiting for him in the truck from his mind, and focuses on guiding the cows that are lingering in the ditch toward the low place in the ancient barbed wire that they stepped over to get out.
I hope you're excited to read more! I can't wait to finish it and get it polished up and out in the world.
Chapter Five of Undertow!
And here's the next chapter of Undertow, the serial novel built with all the tropes you chose in our surveys last month. Just last month, can you believe it? I hope you enjoy seeing Aron finally catch a break. Or does he...?