mmromance – Page 5 – A. L. Lester

World Naked Gardening Day: Warning! Deep Water!

Warning! Deep Water! is my contribution to the Naked Gardening Day stories that are now out as a box set.

It’s part of a project with Holly Day, Nell Iris, K. L. Noone and Amy Spector. As regular readers will know, Ofelia Grand (who also writes as Holly), Nell Iris and I write together in the early mornings. This involves a fair amount of chat and discussion about what we’re working on.

As Holly, Ofelia writes stories to mark all the different holidays throughout the year and one day in December Nell and I were teasing her about what she should write next and joked that World Naked Gardening Day would be an excellent idea…and lo and behold, here are five of us writing on a similar theme. Our brief was that somehow, somewhere in the story, our MCs had to be naked in a garden.

Scroll on down to read an excerpt from Warning! Deep Water!

Warning! Deep Water is a 16,300 word novella set in England in 1948. When given half a chance I slip back in time, because as you know that’s my thing, pretty much. It’s set on a horticultural nursery in Somerset that’s a blend of the place I grew up and one or two other places I know personally or heard about from my parents and the people who worked for them.

It seemed natural to me to gravitate to somewhere like that when we had the idea. For me, gardening isn’t really about things that look pretty or are ornamental. I’m more a permaculture vegetables and banging things together with a bit of rusty wire sort of person.

The idea of actually gardening naked fills me with fear. What in hell’s teeth are people thinking? I mean, maybe it’s all right if you have an ornamental garden and can potter round wielding a pair of secateurs in a graceful fashion. But this most recent weekend my Apocalypse Gardening involved the supervision of helpers digging over and pulling up a four yard square patch of nettles and docks; and kneeling in the polytunnel picking out the tiny nettle plants from between the lettuce and spinach. Then we shovelled a load of rotted manure into the potato patch.

This morning, I’ve got soaked with muddy water trying to tape up a leak in my soaker-pipe watering system and a broody hen has scratched my arms as I moved her from her practice nest to the place I actually want her to sit.

Wafting round glamorously with my bottom on show to all is, quite frankly, against every health and safety guideline I have ever heard of.

However.

The concept of World Naked Gardening Day makes me giggle every single time it comes around. And I thoroughly admire anyone who does bare their all either for actual gardening purposes or just for cheeky photos. It was an absolute delight to collaborate with the others for these stories…they are unconnected, but they all feature someone naked in a garden somewhere, at some point.

I think mine is the only historical–the others are contemporaries–and I have had a great deal of fun both writing it and hanging out in the chat with the others.

With no further ado, let me introduce you to Warning! Deep Water!

Warning! Deep Water!

It’s 1947. George is going through the motions, sowing seeds and tending plants and harvesting crops. The nursery went on without him perfectly well during the war and he spends a lot of time during the working day hiding from people and working on his own. In the evening he prowls round the place looking for odd jobs to do.

It’s been a long, cold winter and Peter doesn’t think he’ll ever get properly warm or clean again. Finding a place with heated greenhouses and plenty of nooks and crannies to kip in while he’s recovering from nasty flu was an enormous stroke of luck. He’s been here a few days now. The weather is beginning to warm up and he’s just realised there’s a huge reservoir of water in one of the greenhouses they use to water the plants. He’s become obsessed with getting in and having an all-over wash.

What will George do when he finds a scraggy ex-soldier bathing in his reservoir? What will Peter do? Is it time for them to both stop running from the past and settle down?

A Naked Gardening Day short story of 16,300 words.

Buy the naked gardening day box set

Read an excerpt…

“You didn’t say you liked music,” Peter said, as they were sitting across the table from each other over a cup of tea, once he’d finally pulled himself away from the instrument and reverentially closed the keyboard.
“Well,” said Peter. “It didn’t come up, did it?” He paused. “Mother used to play a bit,” he said, eventually. “Not like that, though. Hymns, mostly. She was big on chapel.”
There was clearly a story there.
“It’s nice to hear it played,” George went on. “Instruments should be used, not just sat there as part of the furniture. And…,” he paused again and blushed, “And you play very well.”
“Well,” said Peter shuffling with embarrassment. “I learned as a nipper and just carried on with it. Dad wanted me to go and study somewhere, but I wanted to get out and earn. It would have taken the joy out of it if I’d had to pass exams and such.”
George nodded. “I can see that. And you’re good with your hands.” He blushed again and became very absorbed with mashing the tiny amount of butter left from the ration into his baked potato.
Peter coughed. “Well yes,” he said. He couldn’t help smiling a little at George, although he didn’t let him see. He forged on. He really didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. “I think mathematics and music sort of go together, you know? And I was always good with numbers as well…it’s a good trait in a joiner.”
George nodded, clearly feeling they were on less dangerous territory. “Yes,” he said. “There’s all sorts of things you can use maths for; but music is pretty rarefied, isn’t it?”
Peter nodded. “This way I get to keep the music and earn a living. There’s always work for a carpenter, like you said the other day.”
He gradually became less self-conscious about playing when George and Mrs Leland were in the house over the next few weeks. It made him feel like another piece of what made him a person was coming back to life.
****
What it didn’t do was make him any less confused about what was happening between him and George. Half the time he thought George was completely uninterested. But then something would happen that would make him reconsider. The comment about being good with his hands was a case in point. It was a perfectly commonplace thing to say and George shouldn’t have been embarrassed. But he had been. Which meant he’d thought of it in a context that might cause embarrassment.
Peter spent several very enjoyable hours spread over several evenings working through different variations of what the other man might have been thinking.
George was nobody’s Bogart. But he was decent-looking. Nice face, especially when he smiled. A bit soft round the middle, but otherwise hard muscled from the physical work he did day in, day out. Clever…did his own accounts. Liked music. Made Peter laugh with his dry commentary on things in the paper or local gossip and the social pickles the girls reported on in the break room.
Peter liked him a lot. And fancied him. After the third night of considering at length how he could demonstrate how good with his hands he actually was, he gave up pretending. He fancied George a lot.

Buy the naked gardening day box set

The World Naked Gardening Day novellas

The Naked Gardening Day stories are a collaboration between Holly Day, Nell Iris, A. L. Lester, K. L. Noone and Amy Spector. They comprise five MM romance novellas featuring being naked in a garden somehow, somewhere, to mark World Naked Gardening Day on 7th May 2022.

All the World Naked Gardening Day stories

Nell Iris Guest Post: It Rained All Night

Thank you so much, dear Ally, for allowing me back into your space to talk about my newest release It Rained All Night. (You are most welcome, Nell!)

This story features a trope I usually don’t write: class differences. I’ve written about it exactly once before, but that was in one of my rare fantasy stories, and it felt more natural in that situation. It Rained All Night is a contemporary story, and it doesn’t come naturally to me in this context. I’m aware that class differences are a real thing—both IRL and in books—but the poor MC meets billionaire MC isn’t something I read a lot, which means I don’t write it either.

But Henrik, the narrator in It Rained All Night, told me he was filthy rich, and I had to listen to his voice. He started as a regular gazillionaire (hah!) with a private plane at his disposal, but in the final edit, after I got my manuscript back from betas, he morphed into something more. He turned out to be nobility.

Sweden is a kingdom and has had noble, titled families for hundreds and hundreds of years, but in 1902 the last person became ennobled, and the nobility lost their official privileges, such as tax exemptions on July 1^st, 2003. They still enjoy some informal social privileges, and in 2022 there are still 657 noble families in Sweden.

And Henrik is one of them. His family still garners lots of attention from the press, and they’re very rich, not just from inherited money, but also from hard work. They’re always in the public eye, something Henrik doesn’t like, something that has kept him from trying to find a significant other because he doesn’t want to subject someone to a life of public scrutiny.

Then he meets Mikko, a regular middle-class, yoga-loving guy, and his life changes completely…

It Rained All Night

Can a chance meeting in the rain change someone’s life?

Meeting someone who can make him stop going is an eye-opener for Henrik. The man, Mikko, is his complete opposite, a steady rock in the wild rainstorm that is Henrik’s life, but the connection between them is both unexpected and instantaneous. Their encounter only lasts a few minutes, but before they part, they exchange phone numbers.

They live far away from each other, but soon they text and call daily, until Mikko is Henrik’s dearest friend and most trusted person. But a late-night question on the phone has Henrik re-evaluating his feelings. It’s impossible to love someone you’ve only met in person once…right?

Is the connection Henrik and Mikko forged long distance enough to sustain them when they meet again? And will their love be strong enough to give them the happily ever after they deserve?

M/M Contemporary / 7673 words

JMS Books:: Amazon :: Books2Read

Can a chance meeting in the rain change someone's life? It Rained All Night by Nell Iris.

Excerpt

It’s late when I finally get home. I tear off my white bowtie as soon as the door closes behind me and toss it on the entryway table. The peacock-y tailcoat suffers the same fate, and as I march through the apartment to my bedroom, I remove the cufflinks and the studs from my suffocating shirt, flip open the button on my pants, toss them on the bed after shimmying out of them, and by the time I reach the shower, I’m naked. I quash the guilt about throwing my fanciest clothes around like I was a teenager in a snit, but I’ll take care of them in a moment. I need to wash off the day first.
I turn the water to red-hot and step under the spray. I hate weddings. At least grand formal affairs that are mostly for show and less about celebrating love—the ones attracting the press like flies to a rotting corpse—the kind my family likes to put on. It’s not that I doubt that my cousin Emma loves her now-husband, but a white-tie wedding? Yes, we’re a rich, titled family, but we’re not the royal fucking family.
The warm water beats down on my tense muscles as I scrub off the ostentation of the evening, and I feel a little better after drying off. I pull on some soft sweats, take care of my fancy suit, then slip out onto the balcony. It’s chilly; spring has just sprung, and the rain-heavy air doesn’t help with the temperature. Raindrops are splattering against the glass roof, and the scent…the scent is intoxicating. It’s earthy and fresh, it’s washing away the old and dead to make way for the new and the budding.
I take a picture of the rivulets on the roof and send it to Mikko without a message. It’s late—a glimpse at the time tells me it’s close to one in the morning—and he’s probably already sleeping. He’s an early riser and never misses his yoga practice at five-thirty, so I don’t expect a reply. Instead, I sit on one of the chairs, dragging the other one closer so I can rest my feet on the seat, before reclining the back and closing my eyes, exhaling all the frantic energy of the day.
If I ever get married, it’s going to be a small affair. Just him and me and the witnesses needed to make it legal. No napkins printed in gold with our names, no long-winded speeches, no band playing, no press photographers. Just him and me and the I do’s and a light drizzling rain in a remote place where no one can find us…
I sigh. If I ever get married. I need a man for that, and I won’t find a man if I’m not looking, and I’m not looking because…
A gust of wind sprays me with chilly raindrops. I shiver but don’t go inside. Instead, I sink deeper into the chair and let the steady dripping on the roof soothe me.
I’m not looking because of Mikko.
I don’t know when it happened. When my feelings for Mikko veered from being friendly to something else. Something more. Something deep.
We stayed in contact after the yoga retreat; even though we’d exchanged phone numbers, I didn’t expect much, but he’s an avid texter and kept me updated about his long train ride back home after we parted. He was funny and thoughtful, and it didn’t take long until texting him daily was a regular part of my routine. Until I started expecting “good morning” messages with a picture attached of him contorted in one of the harder, fancier yoga poses. Until I started needing to chat with him for a few moments at the end of the day to unwind. Until he was the one I wanted to confide in, until he was the one I started to turn to when something important was going on.
Until he was the one I fell—
I push away the thought before I can complete it. It’s not possible to fall in love with someone you’ve only met once. It’s not.
Still, as I sink deeper into the chair, as the pitter-patter of rain against the roof chases away the stress of the day, I allow myself a second to acknowledge that I’m fooling myself with those kinds of thoughts.
But then my phone buzzes with an incoming call, I know it can only be one person. Only Mikko would call me at this hour.
“What are you doing up this late?” I ask as a greeting, as the tense set of my shoulders bleed away, leaving me relaxed for the first time all day.
“I was waiting for you to report back from the wedding of the century.” His voice is hoarse, sleepy, but happy.

JMS Books:: Amazon :: Books2Read

About Nell

Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bonafide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)

Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.

Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.

Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.

Find Nell on social media:

Newsletter :: Webpage/blog :: Twitter :: Instagram :: Facebook Page :: Facebook Profile :: Goodreads :: Bookbub

#SampleSunday: Warning Deep Water

For #SampleSunday this week, I have the first bit of Warning! Deep Water for you in a blatant attempt to tempt you into a pre-order now it’s up on Amazon :). Meet George and Peter, finding their feet again after the second world war.

Book Bingo! Warning! Deep Water. Gay romance, 1940s England, Hurt-comfort, swimming, cute dog, salad vegetables! Celebrate World Naked Gardening Day!

Chapter 1 – The Stranger – George

George wrote the final cheque, put it in its envelope and wrote the address on it, threw it in the stack to be posted, and pushed the pile of paperwork away with a sigh. There, that was it. The month’s bills paid. And a bit left in the bank. A good month, then, especially after such a long, hard, winter.
He rubbed his hands up over his face and into his hair, easing the tension out of his forehead by pulling at it. It needed cutting. He’d ask Mrs Leland to do it for him when she came back in the morning. For now though, he’d been inside all day…it was time for a walk round the place, check that the vents and doors on the greenhouses were closed, and stretch his legs.
“Come on Polly,” he said to the dog stretched out in front of the Rayburn as he stood up. “On your feet!”
She raised her head and looked at him enquiringly, not sure whether he was really going out and not just moving round the kitchen to put the kettle on.
“Walk time,” he told her. “I’ll put my boots on and we can go. I want to see how they’ve got on with planting the Christmas chrysants.” It seemed like it had been lettuces and tomatoes for interminable years now—they’d started growing them at the beginning of the war to feed the troops stationed locally and had only been allowed to keep a minimal amount of flowers planted every year to keep their stocks fresh. This was the first year he’d been able to plan for a Christmas flower crop since 1939.
Once Polly could see he wasn’t kidding her, she got to her feet and stretched as George collected the heavy ring of keys from the hook beside the door and got his boots out of the boot cupboard. She was an old dog now, going on twelve…he should probably think about getting a pup, but he was comfortable as he was and didn’t want the bother of training one. Just as well, for over the past winter they’d spent most of the time hunkered down by the fire when they weren’t trying to clear the snow off the glasshouse roofs to avoid collapse. Perhaps later in the year, if things continued to look up, he’d think about it more seriously.
He took his slippers off and slid his feet into his wellingtons. He didn’t bother with his jacket, it was quite warm for the front end of May, even though it was late in the evening, just getting dark. Polly snaked around his legs and out of the door, waiting for him on the path. “Come on then, girl,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
They wound their way idly down past the break room toward the packing shed first, enjoying the mild evening and the dimpsy light. The lettuces they’d picked today were stacked in crates, ready to take down to the wholesaler in the morning. He shut the door, with the little lift needed to ease it onto the threshold and get it to latch. Locked it with the big, bent key. Made sure the tool shed was padlocked. Shut up the hens.
He looked into the big boiler house they used to heat the houses they were using for tomatoes and threw a bit more coal in. It had been a clear day, warm for the time of year, but he didn’t want to let the boilers out quite yet, it was still chilly at night.
Shutting the doors and releasing the levers to lower the ceiling vents in each of the long glasshouses, he made his way around the looping path until it turned and he began to make his way back toward the house.
Polly ran on ahead as usual, her initial stiffness worked out of her joints by this point in their evening perambulation. As she got to the top of the path by the smaller glasshouse where they grew on the young plants, she began to bark.
It wasn’t her rabbit-bark or her squirrel-bark. It was her here’s something odd bark.
George lengthened his stride to catch up with her.
“What’s up, girly?” he asked. “Fox?” It wasn’t her fox-bark, either.
As he drew level with her and turned the corner, he saw what she was barking at. There was someone in the pump house with the big water tank, at the end of one of the houses of young tomatoes. He could see them moving through the glass walls.
“Oi!” he shouted, as he began to run toward them, wellies slopping as he ran. “Oi! What’s going on?” The figure inside, who hadn’t seemed disturbed by the dog, moved sharply, clearly swinging round to face him.
He reached the door and pulled it open. It was a man. He had just climbed out of the mossy, green depths of the ten-thousand gallon tank. He was dripping wet, and completely naked.
George slammed to a halt as if he’d hit a brick wall, staring open mouthed.

Buy the naked gardening day box set

The World Naked Gardening Day novellas

Guest Post: Ofelia Grand drops in to talk about The Blood Witch

Hello, everyone! Thank you, Ally, for allowing me to swing by again 🥰 (You’re always welcome!-Ally)

A couple of days ago, The Blood Witch was released. It’s a story I wrote for National I am in Control Day. If you don’t know me, I write stories for all those silly days out there – today, for example, it’s National Black Forest Cake Day. Always nice with an excuse to eat cake, right?

National I am in Control Day is observed annually on March 30th. It was created because when, back in 1981, there was an assassin attempt on Ronald Reagan, the secretary of state told everyone at a press conference that he was in control. Chaos erupted since some folks thought he was trying to take over after Reagan when he had no right to do so.

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to create a holiday 😄

I seldom read stories where the characters are royalty – some, of course, but I’ve never gone looking for a story with a king or a queen, and I’ve most definitely never written one.

I’m Swedish, and Sweden is a monarchy. The royal family is mostly there as decoration and a waste of money. In case you didn’t catch it in my tone, I’m not a fan. I don’t dislike the king as such, the poor sod never had a choice, and I would never want to trade places with him, but…

So when I decided to write a king, I also decided there would be no fancy clothes, balls, princesses in expensive dresses, and the king would not be there as some kind of ornament.

Conri is a werewolf, and he rules over Northbridge, a small city. The world is divided into areas, most pretty small, and the supernatural population are ruled by a king or queen. The supes have fewer rights than humans – they’re not allowed to own businesses, they’re not allowed any higher education, the legal system doesn’t treat them fairly and so on.

To make sure no supernatural being is lying about their race, there are blood tests when applying for school and other things.

Nick is a blood witch, and as a blood witch, he can change blood. This makes him a great asset to a kingdom, but blood witches are often kept prisoner by their kings or queens so they can be forced to work for them. Nick managed to escape his former king, and he has no plans of going back to working for a king ever again.

He’s managed to hide in Northbridge for six years, but one day he outs himself, and now the king demands he come and pay his respects.

I loved writing this one, and who knows, I might write more kings in the future LOL

Excerpt:

A blood witch—Conri had a blood witch in his kingdom, and it could earn him power and freedom beyond any king’s dreams. He wasn’t sure how it would work, but it was what he’d heard—a blood witch could strengthen a king’s power in ways no one else could.
Conri had promised no harm would come to the man who’d saved Cellica, but now the little shit refused to pay his respects, and Conri was running out of options.
People flocked around him. They came to Twilight, his nightclub, simply to be close to him. His bed never lacked lovers, and his schedule didn’t have any gaps unless he put them there—which he tried to do as often as possible. Everyone wanted to be close to the king, and when he summoned someone, they showed up. He did not beg for anyone’s attention. He didn’t have to. He was king. The fucking witch.
“I’m going to talk to him.” He grabbed his phone and called Urien, his second in command.
Most would frown at a werewolf having a vampire as his closest ally, but it worked great. Conri didn’t do packs, so he didn’t have a beta, and if he’d picked an alpha from another shifter group, all hell would break loose. Urien was a godsend.
As soon as the call connected, he spoke. “Will you be in soon?”
Urien slept through the day, so Conri couldn’t fault him for not being in earlier—it was the only downside with having a vampire as his second.
“I’m already in the building. There was some trouble by the stage. It’s sorted.”
Conri hummed. In one area of the bar, they had live performances during opening hours. If there was trouble, it often started there.
“I’m going out for a bit. You can reach me on my cell.”
He ushered Zephirah out of the office and locked the door.
“I’ll come with you.” Zephirah fluffed her hair.
“No, I’m going alone.”
She pouted. “But it could be dangerous.”
He gave her an impassive look until she snarled “Fine!” and stomped away. Conri feared she’d become a problem one day soon.
The closer he came to the house where the blood witch lived, the deeper his frown became. Blood witches were wealthy beyond belief, and yet this one lived in the worst part of the city.
Cellica lived here because the pack had shunned her. She’d broken a mating—no one ever did. The male she’d been mated to had been picked for her and wasn’t her true mate. He had personally made sure the mate wouldn’t come back. He could do nothing about how the pack treated her, not without becoming a member, and he wasn’t going to. He had tried to move her to a better area which she had refused, but she had allowed him to pay her rent a couple of times when things had been worse than usual.
He jogged up the stairs of the decrepit building where he’d been told the blood witch had his apartment and knocked on his door.
“Hello?”
Conri frowned at the door but didn’t reply. When the footsteps moved away, he knocked again.
“Yes?”
“Open the door.” Conri would not shout through a closed door.
“No.”
“Open the door or I’ll open it myself.”
“I’m calling the cops.”
Conri cursed. “I only want to talk to you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
Conri frowned again. He wasn’t patronizing. “I wasn’t.”
“How naive do you think I am?”
According to Cellica, the man was short, slim, and young-looking. Conri had been thirty-one when he’d become king, and he’d ruled this city for eleven years. When Cellica had said young-looking, he’d assumed the witch was in his early twenties—a pup. Someone he could intimidate and control. The months leading up to this day had told him the witch wasn’t easily intimidated. “Open the door.”
“I think not. Calling the cops now.”
Conri growled. “I’m the king.”
“I don’t care.”
For a second, anger flared in his chest, then he pursed his lips. “You’re not human, which means you belong to me.”
“I’m human. Now go away.”
A second later, Conri heard the witch talk on the phone, informing someone—the police most likely—there was someone trying to break into his apartment.
Conri growled. “I’ll be back.” He gave the door a soft knock before slinking down the stairs and out on the street. He walked to the back of the building and counted the windows. The tiny balconies didn’t look sturdy enough to carry his weight, but it was worth a try.

Buy The Blood Witch: JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/TheBloodWitch

About The Blood Witch

Nick Adore has been in hiding for six years. He does his best to pass himself off as human and only wants to be left alone. But one day, he walks in on a robbery. Instead of quietly walking away, he reveals himself as a blood witch, and now the werewolf king demands to see him.

Conri Biast is king. He has been the king of Norbridge for eleven years, but someone is trying to take him down. For months, he’s known there’s a blood witch in his territory who refuses to pay his respects, and that puts him on the top of his list of suspects. But when he goes to confront the witch, things don’t turn out the way he’d planned. The witch is his mate.

Nick doesn’t want to be anywhere near Conri. Being close to kings always ends with him getting hurt, but he finds himself sucked into the power struggle. Conri doesn’t know who he can trust, but he knows he needs Nick by his side. Together, they’re strong, but are they strong enough to keep the throne?

Gay Paranormal Romance: 43,009 words

Buy links: JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/TheBloodWitch

About Holly Day:

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.

Connect with Holly on social media:

Website :: Facebook :: Twitter :: Pinterest :: BookBub :: Goodreads :: Instagram

Release Day! Out of Focus

Ta-da! Today is the release day for Out of Focus and here’s a bit about it!

Enemies to lovers, a broken wrist, hurt-comfort and pining. A short contemporary gay romance set in a little Welsh theatre.

Out of Focus. Gay romance, Welsh theatre, hurt-comfort, enemies-to-lovers.

It’s the first of a new series, although it’s not actually a series because that would imply they are going to be in order. Instead I’m going to have a collection of different novellas about different people in the same small town, with the focus being the Theatre Fach or Little Theatre.

Welcome to the fictional town of Llanbaroc, on the north Welsh coast between the sea and the mountains! There’s a decent tourist trade, but there’s also a very close-knit local community, including resident hoteliers, the theatre/community centre, the hospital, the college, the hospital and the donkey sanctuary. There’s a livestock and produce market every Saturday and it’s a centre for the surrounding farming community.

Alex and Luke are well-liked employees of the theatre and have lots of roots in the town—Luke more-so than Alex, because he’s been there longer. I hope you like them as much as I do!

Out of Focus

Alex has never quite believed he’s good enough. Not as a person and not as a lighting technician. He hates that however hard he tries he can’t get his boss, Luke, to like him. In the two years he’s been in the job it’s become a Thing with him and he’s got a huge crush on the man. He needs to move on for his own sanity and his career and he’s just about to accept a job at a bigger theatre when one of the volunteers he’s bedded and dumped pushes him off a ladder.

Luke likes Alex a lot and has done since the day he walked through the door of Theatre Fawr two years ago. He doesn’t date his staff though, or do casual—and Alex is the epitome of casual. So Luke keeps his distance despite Alex’s constant flirting.

Will Alex’s injury give Alex and Luke the push they need to open up to each other? Or will Luke’s inadvertent discovery that Alex has a secret job offer push them further apart?

A 17,500 word short story in the new Theatr Fach universe.

Amazon US : Amazon UK : Everywhere Else: Goodreads

Read a snippet!

Luke was furious. Bloody furious. His theatre. His crew. Alex.
He’d got back after a leisurely look round a potential new supplier of scissor-lifts and harnesses followed by a pub lunch with the business owner to find the theatre in uproar. Alex had tipped over on the zargees…which was bloody ironic given it was the approaching new height restrictions about using ladders to rig that had sent Luke on his errand.
He’d gone straight to the hospital and found Alex about to check himself out against the doctor’s advice. Bloody Alex, as well.
Alex had been a thorn in his side since he’d started in post two years ago. It was a tiny theatre and the chief technician was responsible for anything with a plug on it as well as showing the film programme and doing the lighting and sound for shows. They’d done a panel interview and Luke, a couple of members of the board and Lacey the theatre manager had seen half a dozen people. Alex had come out head and shoulders above the rest.
He’d walked in on his first proper day on the job and looked at Luke from underneath his ridiculously long eyelashes and smiled and said something perfectly professional that Luke hadn’t heard, because he was gone. Gone, gone, gone. His heart had given a big thump, he’d flushed from his chest to his hairline and he’d taken an actual physical step back because otherwise he’d have done something stupid.
Everyone on the circuit knew about Alex Tilsom by reputation. Not his professional reputation, although that was solid. His unprofessional reputation, as Luke privately thought of it.
It was a small industry.
Luke had seen whole companies explode because people fell into bed with each other and the detonation when they fell out of bed again meant they couldn’t work together. He’d been at Theatr Fach for a long time now and although there were no actual rules against it, his personal tenet was to keep his professional relationships professional.
So he let Alex’s good natured flirting roll over him, he didn’t respond like he wanted to and he never, ever commented or ribbed him like the others did about his latest conquest. It was worse because strictly speaking he was Alex’s boss. He tried very hard not to be the older creep who letched on his staff.
Newsflash. In this case he did not always succeed.
It made him feel uncomfortable and itchy inside his own skin. Alex was a funny guy. He worked hard, he was good at his job. He charmed passing crew and volunteers into bed and out again with no drama before or after. He’d be gone in two or three years…he was the sort of person who saw Theatr Fach as a stepping stone to something bigger and more challenging.
All Luke had to do was hold on to that thought and not smile back.
He’d thoroughly fucked that up in the last twenty-four hours, hadn’t he? It was his job to go and see what was going on at the hospital. And he supposed he could argue it was his job to stay with Alex overnight if no-one else could, if the stupid arse wouldn't stay in hospital like he should have.
It wasn’t his job to mostly fail to sleep in the armchair in the corner of the man’s bedroom and creepily watch over him all night. Or was it? Was that on the right side of the line? Fuck it, who knew any more.

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