Blog of bestselling m/m author
A great thank you to fans and authors who participated in my birthday month. Sheri will be posting winners tomorrow for the various contests. I’ll have to come up with something amazing to do next year since I will be turning 50. If you have any ideas please post them below. 2020 is around the corner and I have lots of ideas to get down and share with my fans. I can’t wait to write them all!!!
Happy Birthday Amber! Thanks for the invite to the party! I’m KC Burn and I’m stoked to be here again.
Memorable birthdays… I’ve sort of downplayed my birthday for years, so I really had to think about this one. When I was ten I met a couple of girls and I’m pretty sure we’ll be friends for life. I mean, it’s been over 35 years now, and I see no reason to change it up at this late date. Anyway, our birthdays are all in about a 3 week span of time, so once we were teens we more or less started celebrating together, which suited me fine. My hubby, whom I met when I was 19, has his birthday 6 days after mine, so we often celebrate together too, and my birthday tends to take more of a back seat. This past year we did 4 escape rooms in one day which was so much fun. But memorable? I don’t much do memorable birthday celebrations.
I mean… there was the time I had to travel for work on my birthday. Or that time I took an intensive self-editing course.
There was also the year I turned 18 when my mother lost her damned mind and rented plastic penguins for the lawn and arranged for a dude in a bear suit to sing happy birthday to me at work. Memorable, yes, but if you knew my mother… just too, too weird.
However, for our 40th birthday, my girlfriends and I took a long weekend and met up in Boston (I’d been living in the US for a few years at that point and they were both in Toronto). That was an awesome trip. We walked all over Boston, saw Boston Common, visited Harvard, went to museums, took a boat trip to Salem, and ate all the things including (unexpectedly) the best and biggest damn cannoli I’ve had in my life. It was such a good trip and in a couple years I’m hoping we’ll be doing a similar weekend for our 50th.
In honour of that birthday cannoli, let me know what’s your favourite birthday dessert and one random commenter will win a $10 Amazon gift card.
A Cowboy’s Christmas Luck blurb:
Jonah Beecham is a down on his luck cowboy, stuck in Vegas with no money, no job, no friends, and Christmas rapidly approaching. Although he’d been promised a job as a bullfighter, the job falls through, and he’ll be sleeping in his truck for Christmas. In a fit of desperation, he drops a coin in an old-fashioned slot machine and wins enough to put gas in his truck… plus a little something extra. Rather than press his luck, he decides to leave the casino, but the universe isn’t done with him yet.
Zach Evans is a television writer from Los Angeles who loves all things cowboy. He’s in Las Vegas to do some research at an end of year rodeo event. Too wary to approach any of the sexy cowboys he sees, he finally takes a chance when he bumps into Jonah.
Spending the next week in Zach’s bed might seem like Jonah’s luck has changed, but when Jonah realizes he’s falling for a man who lives in a city where none of his skills are employable, he’s got a choice to make. Fear of the unknown will cost him Zach, but accepting that the universe has more luck in store for him might be more than he can handle.
Available at Amazon.
About KC
KC Burn is a Canadian transplanted to California who writes happy-ever-afters about men loving men, whether they’re psychics, space travelers, aliens, professors, construction workers, cops, amateur sleuths… you name it, she’ll probably write it. She’s got a pair of black cats, aka muses/nuisances, and a supportive, understanding hubby.
Visit KC at her website: kcburn.com, on Twitter: @authorkcburn or on Facebook.
Happy Thanksgiving if you are in the US and celebrate.
Today we are going to run a contest to win a $10 Amazon gift card. To enter to win tell us, what is one thing from 2019 that you are really proud of and why?
Hi everyone! I’m so tickled to be here to join in Amber’s November Blog Birthday Bash.
Aren’t birthdays just the best? We have so many important ones in our lives. That sweet sixteen, when we turn eighteen and then twenty-one. Many people feel that hitting thirty and/or forty are causes for celebration as well!
As someone who has seen all of the previously mentioned special days, I can say that they all were incredible in their own ways. I’d have to say that my most significant birthday was when I hit fifty.I really began to understand myself and my dreams when the big five-oh rolled around. It was then that I decided to try my hand at writing professionally and am I ever glad that I did!
My life has changed so much since I decided to give being an author a whirl. I’ve met so many wonderful people and been able to spin a few darn fine tales of romance along the way! I’m hoping to still be sitting here at my desk writing stories for many birthdays yet to come.
To win a copy of Coast to Coast, Arizona Raptors #1 tell me what your favorite childhood birthday gift was. One winner chosen randomly. Good luck!If you’d like to check out my latest release here’s a bit of info about it—
NOW IN KU and written with RJ ScottAcross the Pond (Arizona Raptors 2)
Amazon US | Amazon UK |Amazon CA
The greatest journey isn’t from England to the States, it’s the one that two men take on the way to find each other.
Sebastian Brown is on a mission to rescue the Arizona Raptors and a vow he made to a friend in college. Either that or he’s on vacation. He’s not entirely sure that he’s made up his mind yet. Either way, traveling from England, to the arid desert of Arizona isn’t exactly a picnic, particularly with the doubts and worries he takes with him. He’s turned even the worst of companies around, but faced with the challenge of improving the reputation of a hockey team that everyone seems to hate, he knows his work is cut out for him.
Focus is key, but that is easier said than done when Seb is sent into a tailspin by the intriguing Alejandro. Seb’s entire marketing plan hinges on making Alex a poster boy for equality and fair play. But with Alex’s utter dedication to the game, and his dark secretive eyes, the gorgeous Alex is stubborn, opinionated, doesn’t want any part of being the team focus, and worst of all, doesn’t appear to like Seb at all. It takes everything that Seb has to keep his hands off of Alex, but things get out of hand and Seb’s life might never be the same again.
Alejandro Garcia has had to work hard to get where he’s at. Born to Mexican immigrants, his siblings and himself have never had it easy in this new country their parents dreamed of calling home. A native son of Arizona, Alex has always been the odd man out on the ice but he’s not going to let a stupid thing like his heritage get in the way of his dreams. He’s now a Raptor and he plans to put all that training and collegiate hockey experience to good use. Working hard comes naturally to him. It’s something his parents have instilled in him from the time he was a toddler. Being one of a handful of Latino hockey players makes him strive for success with even more determination. His first pro season has had some ups but a lot more downs, but Alex is one stubborn young man and failure is not an option.
As the Raptors struggle to rebuild not only their team but their core values, Alex finds himself drawn to one of the owner’s friends, a tall, lanky Brit with the face of an angel and an accent and attitude that bewitches and befuddles him. Sebastian is everything he thought he would never be attracted to but he can’t push the sexy, older, fun-loving man out of his thoughts. If ever there were a man he would not be able to take home to his parents – not that he can bring a man home since he is deeply closeted – it’s Sebastian, but desire knows no socioeconomic, age, or international borders. The heart wants what the heart wants and Alejandro’s wants Sebastian.
The Birthday Where I Said, “Let’s Do”
Hi! I’m so happy to get to share Amber’s birthday! I hope it’s the best one yet. I’m Tara Lain and I write the Beautiful Boys of Romance. I’m especially excited because Amber invited me to come visit today, which is the release day for my new romance, LOVE AND LINGUISTICS.
This book asks the question, “What if Eliza was a guy and he fell in love with Henry?” Yep, this is my contemporary MM homage to My Fair Lady! But more about that in a minute.
Amber asked us all to share our very best birthday. This is hard for me because I’ve had some amazing birthdays. I’m a Libra and we believe in celebrating. My honey says I don’t have a birthday, I have a birthday season! So I’ve had amazing trips to see the New England fall colors, cruising through the Panama Canal, seeing Madame Butterfly and the Marriage of Figaro at the Met in New York and lots more, all in celebration of my birthday over the years. But when I think about it, I realize that my most amazing birthday was far more low-key.
Back thirty plus years ago, I met this guy. Well, actually I’d known him for a few years as part of a yoga center we both belonged to. Both of us had been married briefly and neither of us planned to do it again. Then in August we ended up sitting across from each other at a group dinner in LA when a bunch of us were going to see a play. We chatted. I knew he was an architect and had always thought he was handsome, but at dinner he admired my new hairdo, the first personal thing either of us had ever said to each other.
A few weeks later, the woman I worked with in an ad/PR agency decided to buy a small building for our company and was wondering if the one she had in mind could be built-out the way she wanted it. I told her I knew an architect who might be able to help, and called this handsome guy. He came over to see the building and I showed him around. We joke that the walls went away and someone started singing “Some Enchanted Evening” in the background. We discovered that the next weekend we were both volunteering to work at a retreat site our yoga center owned and we decided to go together. That was the beginning –of meeting each other’s families, sharing hopes and dreams, having dates and fun.
On October 9th, less than two months later, we went to his favorite beach in Laguna. He bought me a cute bikini for my birthday since he said all my bathing suits were dowdy. We played in the water and sat on the sand. At the end of the day, we looked at each other and said, “Well, shall we do it? Shall we get married?”
We decided yes, called a few friends, and two months later, on Dec 5th, we had a wedding near the ocean for about 400 of our closest friends. LOL.
That was 38 years ago on my wedding anniversary, which is 9 days from now. My honey and I have had many wild anniversaries since then, including the one where I hobbled out of the hospital after cancer surgery ten years ago. We’ve also had many amazing birthdays, but none was as much of a to do as the one where we said, “Let’s do” and I got the best birthday present of my life that has kept giving every day since.
Now, about that new release. Below is an excerpt from LOVE AND LINGUISTICS plus a link to a Rafflecopter where you can enter to win an Amazon GC.
Just for Amber’s pals, I’ll give one winner chosen at random your choice of an audiobook code (US only) or an ebook of RETURN OF THE CHAUFFEUR’s SON, the first book in my Movie Magic Romances and my homage to Sabrina. Just leave me a comment below. (If you have both the ebook and audiobook, enter anyway and we’ll work something out!)
I hope you love LOVE AND LINGUISTICS.
Thank you again, Amber and HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY!
In his neighborhood, El Martin stands out, and that can be life threatening. Against the odds, he’s managed to graduate high school and then master IT. Now he’s desperate to get a good job to free his drunken dad and himself from the control of gang leader M2 and the drugs he sells. But with his piercings and his slang-ridden speech, El looks and sounds like a Bronx gangbanger, and potential employers won’t give him a second look. So when El hears about Henry Fairhaven, PhD, linguistics researcher and wealthy New York socialite, El takes his life in his hands to escape from M2 and ends up sleeping in the stairwell at Henry’s building, hoping to learn how to speak.
To Henry, who wants to prove himself as a scholar and not merely a rich dilettante, El isn’t only the most beautiful man he’s ever seen—he’s also the key to getting a paper published on Henry’s ground-breaking linguistics methods before a competitor beats him to the punch. But Henry doesn’t tell El the truth, and El thinks Henry’s helping him because he cares.
El’s dreams collide with Henry’s ambitions at the elegant Met Gala, where El captivates a prince of Silicon Valley. But the real collision comes when M2 tracks El down and Henry has to choose between the validation he craves and a future with the man he’s come to love.
Intro Line / Tag Line: What if Eliza was a guy – and then he met Henry?
Release Date: November 26, 2019
Excerpt of Chapter 1: https://taralain.com/books/movie-magic-romances/love-and-linguistics/
Today’s author unfortunately couldn’t be here since they are feeling poorly.
So I am going to do a contest for a $5 Amazon gift card, what is your favorite comfort read when you are sick?
Cold Water—a Jackson and Ellery Story
By Amy Lane
*note—These events take place after Fish on a Bicycle and contain some spoilers.
Necessary Journey
“I don’t want to leave Billy Bob,” Jackson said mulishly.
“Cat’s fine.” Ellery labored to throw both their carry-ons in the trunk. He’d packed Jackson’s with cargo shorts, tees, and hooded sweatshirts and tennis shoes, because that was pretty much all he wore anyway.
“Aren’t I supposed to go back to work in three—”
Ellery got into the passenger seat of the Lexus and sent Jackson a deeply tired look. “Finish that sentence,” he said, the exhaustion hurting his bones. “I dare you.”
Jackson took a deep breath—a gratifyingly clear deep breath—and nodded.
“I’m sorry, Ellery,” he said dutifully.
Ellery let out a cracked laugh. “You got out of surgery a week ago. You’re doing fine. You just… just need to relax, and you’re not doing it at home. Can we…” He looked at Jackson in honest supplication. “We’re the bosses, and I say we take a vacation.”
Jackson nodded. “You’re planning to work during my mandatory naptime, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Ellery said without repentance. “But we have a rental by the ocean, so it will feel like a vacation.”
Jackson smiled faintly and yawned. “You just need to not worry about me for a week,” he said, and that new understanding he’d shown when his heart murmur had really started getting bad hadn’t gone away yet.
Ellery was grateful.
“Yes,” he said gently.
Jackson regarded him with narrow eyes. “Am I going to get sex? Finally? Because the doctor said I could go as soon as I felt up to it—”
“And when do you feel up to it?” Ellery closed the door and started the Lexus, drowning out Jackson’s automatic “Always!”
“I’m sorry,” Ellery said, holding his hand to his ear. “I didn’t hear that.”
“You did too, you big baby. How do you know it’s not true?”
Ellery took one more look at him before backing the car out. He’d gained a little weight back, and since the surgery clearing out the scar tissue from his aorta, his cheeks were a normal color again. But Ellery had almost lost him so many times, the idea that he could lose Jackson now, to Jackson’s stubbornness, still filled him with fear.
“It’s true when you’re not trying to prove something to me,” Ellery said, his face relaxing a little. The garage door was open, they were going to see free air. “I don’t just want you for the sex—and yes, it’s a perk. I really really need to know you’re okay.”
Jackson closed his eyes, the shadows under them indicating he’d about used up his awake time for the moment. The doctor said he’d sleep a lot in the first couple of weeks, but as long as he kept up a regimen of moderate exercise, and ate well instead of like a fifth grader running away from his parents, he would be back to five miles a day and a hundred miles an hour in no time at all.
Ellery needed him to sleep.
“You have said that before,” Jackson said softly.
“Which part?” Ellery backed out and hit the button for the garage door. Jade and her boyfriend Mike would be by to water Ellery’s plants that evening, and Henry would be by to take care of Billy Bob in the mornings. Between the two of them using the pool and taking advantage of the air conditioning and the privacy, the house should look well lived in for the next week. Ellery wasn’t worried about it.
Jackson on the other hand… Ellery would never not worry in that direction.
Never.
“That you don’t need sex from me.”
“I don’t! I—”
“No, no.” Jackson held up a languid hand. “I believe you, Counselor. I… I just need to remember I have to work at being better company.”
“You do not! That’s the point! You don’t have to work at being anything but yourself!”
Jackson let out what might be a laugh when he woke up. “I’ll parse that in a few hours. Are you sure you’re up for driving?”
“Monterey here we come.” Ellery had literally pulled it out of a hat. Jackson had loved the beach in San Diego, but they needed someplace cooler. Some place Jackson wouldn’t be tempted to surf, swim, or otherwise dive into the water.
Some place they could walk easily, not sweat too much, and eat clam chowder, and Ellery could remind him that his entire existence was more than his ability to solve mysteries or sex Ellery up.
Not, of course that the sex would be unwelcome—it was just that Jackson needed to remember that he was loved.
He’d come through the surgery with flying colors—and too many people worried about him. Once everybody had gone away, he’d been alone with the voices in his own head, and a body that wouldn’t let him outrun them. Ellery had learned all sorts of things about being in a relationship with this man over the past year, but as he drove out of Sacramento and down toward the Monterey Peninsula, he thought that maybe the biggest thing was that Jackson didn’t have a roadmap for how a normal life looked.
Ellery needed to give him some pointers—and he couldn’t do that in a place where every breath was measured against how he’d felt healthy and how he’d felt dying.
A week in Monterey sounded like the perfect getaway. And every time they’d gone out of town before now, they’d had a case. Ellery was really curious to see what they could manage without one.
Getting a room at the hotel in the center of downtown Monterey, overlooking the bay, was expensive and ostentatious and Ellery didn’t give a shit. He had princess diamond tiara status or whatever in the hotel chain, and he wanted Jackson to wake up ever morning and look out at the crystal waters of the bay.
He’d never really wanted to abuse his wealth until he’d loved someone who had grown up not having enough to eat.
Jackson had looked around with shy appreciation as they took the elevator to the top floor. “There’s a skyway across the street,” he said.
“Yeah—that’s sort of Monterey’s main street,” Ellery told him. “There’s shops, tourist kitsch, antiques, fudge.”
Jackson laughed softly. “We can walk to the aquarium,” he said. “It’s the one they had in Star Trek IV, but they called it something else.”
“You want to go?”
“Go see about the smart fish? Yeah, why not. I hear they have a mantis shrimp there—do you know those little bastards have twenty-five color cones in their eyes? They can practically see sound. The can power punch through six inches of fiberglass. It’s like a little karate death underwater butterfly. I want to see that.”
Ellery looked at him, appalled. “You want to go see a karate death underwater butterfly?”
“I hear they have otters too.” Jackson smiled sleepily, the combination of little kid wonder and snarky asshole almost irresistible.
“Tomorrow,” Ellery told him. “We can go tomorrow. And maybe drive up the coast some the day after. The shopping in Carmel is really wonderful.”
Jackson grunted. “Shopping?”
“We can get my mother’s Hanukah gift early.”
“Sure.” Jackson wrinkled his nose. “And yours, I guess. And your birthday gift while we’re at it. I sucked at your birthday gift.”
“You got me a very nice tie.” It had Siamese cats on it, like Billy Bob except with four legs. Ellery sort of treasured it, as tacky as it was, because Jackson had tried—hard—to reconcile their two different worlds.
Jackson’s laugh cracked. “I got a pass because last year was fucked way up. No more passes. I have to give better gifts.”
No. No you don’t.
“Then we have to go shopping together,” Ellery said, voice thick. “It’s a skill.”
Like resting.
“What are we going to do this evening?” He said it with bright interest, but his steps dragged. People don’t like to admit that traveling is exhausting—particularly people like Jackson who felt like they were cheating at life when sitting still.
“You’re going to go sleep some more, and then we can go walk around and find a restaurant.” And Ellery could research the three cases they’d gotten in the past week. He’d be super excited about how he and Jackson kept attracting media attention with their high profile cases, if it didn’t mean Jackson ended up in the hospital all the fucking time.
“Aw, come on Counselor. At least let me use my Google Fu and help you brain words.”
That was actually not a bad idea. Jackson’s instincts—whether he was up and around or not—were usually spot on.
“Fine—nap first.”
“Lay down with me?” And Ellery might have said no if Jackson had done that suggestively. But he didn’t. Instead, it was couched as a simple request, bare and particularly vulnerable.
Ellery couldn’t ignore those. Jackson so rarely made them.
“Sure.”
Jackson lay down dutifully as Ellery set up their luggage—Jackson’s battered duffel, his Samsonite roller board. Ellery put both their shaving kits in the bathroom and came back to the bed, kicking off his loafers and arranging himself neatly on the bed next to Jackson. Jackson had brought a blanket from home, something he’d owned before they’d gotten together that he’d picked up at a craft fair, and he was curled up underneath it, watching Ellery with hooded eyes. His hand on Ellery’s middle was warm and welcome, and Ellery closed his eyes, relaxing into the comfort he’d insisted upon.
“Going to nap with me?” Jackson asked. “The traffic was pretty awful on the way down.”
Yes, it had been. And, well, Jackson needed a roadmap—it was up to Ellery to provide. He slid lower on the bed so their heads were even on the pillows.
“You’re good at that,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Taking care of me when I’m trying to take care of you.”
Jackson smiled faintly, allowing his eyes to close all the way. “I do my best,” he said. “You’re just difficult.”
Ellery chuckled and as he drifted into a truly necessary nap, he realized that it had been a while since he’d laughed.
Appreciating the Scenery
Jackson regarded the giant cephalopod with wonder. “Look,” he whispered, not wanting to disturb the guy—he was, after all, just sort of chilling. “The sign says he’s super smart. He changes colors when his favorite people are nearby.” He could swear the thing was regarding him with a friendly eye.
“Is that favorite as in friends or favorite as in foods?” Ellery asked, and while he tried to sound persnickety, Jackson had the feeling he was charmed too.
“As in friends.” Jackson scowled at him, but mischief was in his eyes. “They’re really gentle creatures, you know. A little shy, and they don’t like light or loud noise—hey!”
That last part was aimed at a kid—maybe eleven—who had elbowed his way in between Jackson and Ellery to take a picture with his phone. Without compunction, Jackson stuck his hand over the flash.
“Hey!” the kid yelled, and Jackson shushed him.
“Buddy—as I was just saying, this thing is sensitive. When you flash him like that it hurts his eyes—and yelling is just as bad. It’s like throwing a rock concert with a baby in the house. It’s rude.”
The kid sneered, a blond, blue-eyed master of the universe in the making. “You’re rude!” and he set up to take another picture.
Jackson took the phone from him.
“Hey!”
“You want it back?” Jackson asked, eyes flat.
“Yeah, man—gimme my fuckin’ phone!”
“Go get your parents and bring them to this spot—but do it quietly or I might lose the phone before you get here.”
“My dad’s a cop—he’ll kick your ass if you don’t give me my damned phone.”
Jackson’s turn to sneer. “And I look forward to that,” he said with sincerity. “Now scoot. We’ll be here when you get back.”
The kid took off through the aquarium, screaming, “Dad!” at the top of his lungs, and one of the docents, a young man with ebony skin and gentle eyes, stepped forward in relief.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “I hate it when kids do that—the giant squid is really shy. If someone flashes him, he disappears for days. And he cries.”
Jackson raised an eyebrow. “No, seriously.”
“Okay—we can’t tell if they’re shedding tears from their one big eye, but he turns… just gray. And sad. And it’s just nice to see someone speaking up for him.” The young man turned toward a group of seven or eight year-olds getting ready to tap on the glass. “Please don’t do that,” he said. “It really hurts their ears.”
The kids backed up and nodded, eyes big. “Sorry,” one of them whispered.
“I know you want to get its attention,” the docent told them. “And it’s great that you want to know more—but these creatures are out of their element here. We try to make them comfortable, but when they have to people too much, it stresses them out.”
“My little brother is like that,” a little girl said. “We’ll be nice. We promise.”
They gathered closer, talking in low voices, and Jackson grinned at the docent, who smiled back. It was good they got a reminder that not all kids were little assholes, because as soon as they had that moment, that kid came back with his father in tow.
Dad was ginormous—six-five, three-hundred pounds of ball-playing muscle with bristly black hair from pale skin, and he did not look happy.
“Did you take my kid’s phone?”
Jackson gave his best party smile and hoped he didn’t look like he wanted this guy to eat a sea urchin in the shell. “Did you ask your son what he was doing with it before I did?”
Dad’s eyebrows went up, and he turned toward his son, who suddenly looked sullen. “I was just taking a picture.”
Jackson pointed at the sign in the cephalopod area that read, “NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY”
The docent took a deep breath and addressed the situation. “We are actually authorized to ask anybody hurting our animals to leave,” he said with a swallow. “Please—the flash hurts them, and that’s no fun for anybody.”
“Trevor, we paid eighty bucks a piece for these goddamned tickets. If you get us kicked out because you can’t keep your phone in your pocket, I’m making you pay that back with your allowance!”
“But Dad—”
“I’ll take the phone, sir,” his father said, extending his hand.
Jackson met his eyes solidly, and Dad looked at his kid again.
“Don’t worry—he won’t get it back.”
“But you said it was so I didn’t get lost—”
“Well you’re not leaving my side now are you? Mom’s got the little kids, and you and me, buddy, we’re like glue. It looks like you need to learn how to read again, doesn’t it?”
The kid’s eyes got huge, and his face got red, and Jackson turned the phone over, feeling reassured.
“Thanks,” he said soberly. “I don’t like it when people hurt the defenseless.”
The guy nodded. “I’m a cop. It’s my job to protect, so I get what you mean.”
Jackson stared at him as he retreated, his kid complaining bitterly with ever step. It looked like Dad was holding firm though, and Jackson let out a deep breath.
“A cop,” Ellery said, his first words in some time.
“Yeah, I know. Surprised me too.”
Ellery was looking at him like he did sometimes, his eyes wide and a little glossy, his face open and full of wonder. Jackson didn’t understand that expression—he didn’t know what he’d done to warrant it.
“Surprised the hell out of me,” the docent muttered, and Jackson grinned at him.
“Well, may we all meet more cops like that,” he said, thinking that his own attitude may be a teeny bit biased against law enforcement, given what he’d been through in his life.
“May there be more cops like that,” the docent said. “I’ve got to go—but thanks so much for the assist.” He smiled fondly at his friend the giant squid. “Buddy here is grateful too—he just doesn’t talk the much.”
Jackson chuckled, and was surprised by Ellery’s grip on his hand.
“What?” he asked, turning to him again.
“Nothing,” Ellery said, eyes bright. “You just… you just do things like that. It will never cease to amaze me.”
Jackson was about to shrug him off, make light of that way he was looking, pretend he hadn’t done anything.
But the thing he’d just done—trying to fix something small, teaching someone something valuable about the world—it was apparently one of the reasons Ellery stuck with him through fifty-dozen trips to the hospital and the unpacking of copious stacks of emotional baggage.
He swallowed, and disregarding any curious onlookers, he linked his fingers with Ellery’s as the two of them wandered through the darkened environs of the rest of the cephalopods.
“What?” Ellery said softly, and Jackson squeezed his hand. Maybe a younger, friskier, Jackson would have pulled him into a corner and kissed him—and maybe an older, healthier Jackson would do just that. But this Jackson, in this moment, was just so happy to know he’d done something real, something that made Ellery look at him like that.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “That’s kind.”
Ellery paused in a dark corner and tugged on his hand until he kissed him softly. Jackson regarded him in the black light of the aquarium and smiled slightly.
“What was that for.”
“I am so in love with you.”
And Jackson didn’t flinch or shrug or get embarrassed. “I love you back, Counselor. I’m so glad I’m good enough for you to love.”
Another kiss, and then they separated, mindful of the bustling families and excitable children around them. They kept their hands linked, though, as they wandered the aquarium, open to the experience of wonder.
That night they ate practically downstairs from the hotel, consuming big bread bowls of the best clam chowder in the world. They took their bowls to a concrete wall that overlooked the beach below, watching children as they ran in and out of the waves. The ocean was too cold to go swimming—even Jackson knew that now. He’d been hurt too badly, plunging his feverish body into brutally cold water, to ever take his heart for granted again.
For the moment, he would welcome the man beside him, and the sun sparkling off the sea, and this moment in the sun.
That night as they walked into the hotel room, he tugged on Ellery’s hand and took him to the window.
“What?” Ellery asked, his voice as wondering as a child.
“The view’s nice. I… you know. Wanted to share it with you.”
“Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we make love tonight?”
Jackson kissed him gently, like it was their first time. As Ellery opened his mouth and gave underneath his hands, his heart beat loudly in his ears and he was grateful for how strong it sounded. How alive.
Their clothes disappeared, and they laid on the bed, skin to skin. Their hands were reverent and every touch sang. Ellery, thick and hard in his hand was as important to the moment as Ellery’s touch on his own cock. Jackson’s stroke grew harder, faster, and Ellery sighed. Jackson kept it up, bending to catch Ellery’s spend in his mouth.
Ellery arched and came, and the joy of it was enough to send Jackson over into Ellery’s fist.
Jackson rested, his head on Ellery’s stomach, and Ellery stroked his hair.
“Jackson?”
“You love me,” Jackson said, confident of it as he never had been.
“For quite some time,” Ellery said, his voice thin. “And you love me.”
“But I think I finally believe it. Believe there’s a reason you’d love me.”
Ellery let out a strained and broken laugh. “There’s several. God you’re dumb.”
“Yeah. I am. I’ll try not to be so dumb in the future. I don’t want to miss any moments like this.”
Ellery’s breath quickened and Jackson looked up in time to see him wipe under his eyes.
“What?”
“You could have. You could have. So many times.” His voice shattered, and Jackson moved to pull his face against Jackson’s neck.
“I can’t do that anymore,” he said. Oh Ellery. You deserved so much better. The least Jackson could do was give this man the healthiest, most real person he could be.
“No,” Ellery whispered. “Please, baby. We have so many more moments like this. Don’t end them before you have to, okay?”
“Not if I can help it.” Jackson kissed his temple, and the darkness protected them like it had protected the giant squid. Sometimes you needed the dark, because the light hurt too much, and sometimes you needed it so you could see the light in your lover’s heart.
And sometimes it was both.
