short story – A. L. Lester

Second Wind is out now! Read an excerpt.

Are you looking for a low angst gay romance with a trans MC set in a little Welsh town? With a truly terrible community orchestra? I’ve got you covered.

Second Wind

What do a shy French-horn-playing accountant and a single-dad trans trumpet player have in common other than both being members of the community orchestra at Theatr Fach in the little town of Llanbaruc?

Gethin’s been more or less hiding from life since his marriage broke up a couple of years ago. He’s joined the orchestra because his sister told him he needed a hobby rather than sitting at home brooding about his divorce.

Martin is careful who he dates because of his gender and his teenage daughter. He came to Llanbaruc as a stage manager for the Theatr Fach twelve years ago. He’s got a good set of friends here. Shannon’s a good kid. They’re a team.

Martin and Gethin hit it off. Will their mutual baggage prove too much to sustain a relationship?

A gentle m/transm romance in the Theatr Fach universe.

Buy Links: Amazon US : Amazon UK : JMS Books : Everywhere Else

Excerpt

“Martin!” Julie, the lead violin, waved him over. “This is Gethin,” she said, her hand on the arm of a tall, thin man nervously clutching a French horn and peering out from behind a thick pair of glasses. He resembled a nervous heron. “He’s new,” she added unnecessarily. “Can you take him under your wing a bit?”
Martin shot her a look. She was a very competent, friendly woman with no tact at all.
“Of course,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, Gethin,” he held out a hand and Gethin took it. “I’m Martin. Trumpet.”
“Gethin Jones,” the thin man said, shaking his hand a little too hard. His palm was warm and firm and he was clearly apprehensive. “Erm. French horn.” He waved his instrument vaguely at Martin. “As you can see.”
Martin smiled. “Come on,” he said. “Brass is over here. Let me introduce you around.” They started picking their way through the chairs. The brass section was made up of Martin and Alan on trumpet, Tim and Lucy on trombone, and Portia, a ten year old who played a tuba almost as large as she was. They were setting up music and gossiping about their week when Martin and Gethin reached them.
“Hullo hullo,” Martin said. This is Gethin Jones.” He waved vaguely at Gethin beside him. “Gethin, this is Tim, Lucy, Alan and Portia.” Everyone made noises of greeting. The room was beginning to echo with the sound of instruments being tuned and scales being played. It was a familiar cacophony.
“Are you Marion’s Gethin?” Lucy asked suddenly, leaning toward them to be heard over the cat-like screech of a young violinist and a burp from Portia’s tuba.
Beside him, Gethin tensed. “Not any more,” Gethin said brusquely, nodding. “But yes. I used to be.”
Lucy nodded, blushing. “Sorry,” she said. “My sister is Penny Wright. They went to school together. Penny told me what happened.”
Gethin nodded again. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, again. He didn’t add anything else. He seemed almost paralytically shy. But then, Martin would be reticent if he knew everyone was talking about his private business.
“I’ll go and get you some music,” Martin said, forestalling any more awkwardness. “Here, stick your horn down on the seat and grab yourself a music stand from the stack in there”. He gestured at the open door of the cupboard behind them.
The spare sheet music was on the table at the front. He made his way across the room, wending around chairs and people offering greetings until he could pick up a sheaf.
Julie met him there. “Is he all right?” she hissed at Martin, glancing past him over his shoulder at Gethin, an anxious expression on her face.
“Yes? Why shouldn’t he be?” Martin asked, frowning at her, puzzled.
“He’s Posey Morgan’s brother,” Julie hissed some more. “You know. Posey the health visitor?”
Martin shook his head. “Not my area,” he said apologetically. “Never met her.” He couldn’t remember who Shannon’s health visitor had been. An older woman though, no-one who could have been the sister of someone Gethin’s age.
Julie scowled at him, apparently blaming him for his lack of knowledge. “Well, she said he needed to get out of the house,” she continued, still hissing. “His wife left him two years ago and he’s become a recluse, she told me. I suggested he come along here to help take him out of himself.”
Martin bit his lip. As a gentle first step back in to a social life, he had his doubts about the suitability of the orchestra. One of it’s other activities was going to the pub after practice on a Friday and drinking steadily ‘til closing time. And there was a country-dancing-for-exercise sub-set of members he tried to avoid ... they’d invited him along to one of the sessions and he’d been crippled for days afterwards.
“So?” he said. “He seems perfectly normal.”
“The wife took off with his best friend,” Julie told him, shooting another guilty look over his shoulder at the brass section, who were settling the newcomer in their midst like a chicken in a nest of ferrets. Martin stopped himself turning properly to look at them, watching out of the corner of his vision.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Martin promised. “Does he actually play?”
“He brought it in to the shop to have it serviced,” she said. “He seemed to know what he was doing. And Posey said he played at school. But I don’t think he’s done much of anything for a while.” She pulled a face. “He’s an accountant.”

Buy Links: Amazon US : Amazon UK : JMS Books : Everywhere Else

New Release: The Naked Gardening Day Box Set!

The Naked Gardening Day Box Set is out on 5th November!

Remember the five gay romance stories we released back in May to celebrate World Naked Gardening Day? Well we have gathered them together in a box set. We had a bit of to-and-fro-ing about what to use for the cover, but eventually we all agreed this was a superb image–radishes and forearms! What more could you want!

They are all MM romance novellas featuring being naked in a garden somehow, somewhere, to mark World Naked Gardening Day on 7th May 2022.

You can read a bit more about each story here or buy it here!.

Back when they came out, we did some visiting of each other’s blogs to chat about our stories. You can find everyone’s guest posts here on the blog with a little bit about each story and an excerpt.

I love these stories and it was a such a fun project to do. We are currently discussing what to do next year!

#SampleSunday: Sleeping Dogs

I finally got Sleeping Dogs out in time for Halloween! Here’s an excerpt so you can see whether you fancy a slightly spooky low-heat short sapphic short story. It’s $1.99 on Amazon and also in KU.

Sleeping Dogs

Alice doesn’t think she’s ready to start dating again. Or even to make new friends in the village where she’s come to live with her sister’s family. Will a rainy autumn day and an encounter with a mysterious black dog, a beautiful woman, and a fox cub change her mind?

A 10 500-word Halloween short story in the Celtic Myths Collection. With dogs, bats, a camper van with a woodburning stove, and a fox cub.

Available at Amazon and in KU

Excerpt from Sleeping Dogs

As she picked her way down the steep, stony path toward the stream, she was pulled out of her thoughts by a dog barking in the distance. And, perhaps… someone shouting? She stopped and cocked her head as she listened. Where was it coming from? Difficult to say but she thought it was in front of her, down in the valley. It could be echoing around though, bouncing off the hills. She pulled a face and hurried down the path. As she moved forward, both the barking and the shouting got louder and as she rounded the corner that finally took her to the stream, the culprits came in to view.
It was a woman, and the barking was coming from a black Labrador. The woman wasn’t shouting any longer, but she was holding the dog’s collar apparently to prevent it from lunging into the water. On the other bank stood a fox, with three fat cubs ranged behind her, snarling back. Between them in the water was a fox cub, struggling against a rock in the middle of the stream, trying to scramble out of the current. It was having problems and was getting weaker as she watched.
“Can you help?” the woman gasped, struggling with the dog. “I think it’s hurt. I can’t let the dog go because she’ll go for the vixen.”
Alice was already stripping. She didn’t bother to say anything. She ripped off her coat and boots and plunged in up to her hips, gasping at the cold. She could just… just… reach it. She overbalanced and nearly lost her footing as she grasped the struggling cub, but she recovered her balance and backed out as carefully as she could. The fox was limp in her hands.
She passed it up to the woman before scrambling out. “I think it’s dead,” she said. The woman had to let go of the dog before she could take the cub and instead of running off after the vixen, it lay down and crossed its paws. Oh! Her memory tumbled into place like a key in a lock. The dog was the one from yesterday.
And the woman was Morwenna.

Available at Amazon and in KU

#SampleSunday: Out of Focus

The second Theatr Fach story, Blown Away, is coming out in November. But in the meantime for #SampleSunday, here’s a snippet from Out of Focus for you.

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.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, A BROKEN WRIST, HURT-COMFORT AND PINING. A SHORT CONTEMPORARY GAY ROMANCE SET IN A LITTLE WELSH THEATRE.

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.

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 Theatr Fach universe.

Amazon US : Amazon UK : Everywhere Else: Goodreads

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

World Naked Gardening Day: Perfect Rows by Holly Day

Chickens!!! Erm… I mean hello, and thank you, Ally, for allowing me to drop by today. I’m here to talk about my new story, Perfect Rows, which was released yesterday. It’s part of our World Naked Gardening collaboration – World Naked Gardening Day was also yesterday. If you missed it but still want to give it a go, watch out for the nettles 😉

My excitement about chickens is that I have baby chicks, and this spring I’ve had one broody hen who’s been sitting on eggs. I know very little about broody hens other than that they’ll try to kill you if you get too close. We have two rows of nesting boxes, and she of course decided to have her babies on the second floor. Sigh. So we’ve had a couple of fun nightly adventures where we’ve gone out in the pitch dark to move her and her eggs. She’s been gracious about it – not! But after two tries we managed to get her settled in her own space where the nesting boxes are on ground level so no chicks will fall to their death.

In case you didn’t know, I’m slightly obsessed with chickens. This is a rather new thing for me. I’ve only kept hens for about three years, so I’m essentially a newbie. I often pester Ally, who’s an expert on the matter, with questions.

Sometimes when you write a story, you add little things for your own amusement. In Perfect Rows, Grayson wants to have chickens. He’s all about food security and sees the benefits of having chickens. He can feed his food scraps to his hens and get eggs for him and manure for the garden in return.

He has big plans.

Camden has big plans too. He wants a beautiful garden with lots of flowers. He pictures plants growing in perfect lines where nothing is out of place. He wants sweet fragrances and buzzing bees. And he most definitely doesn’t want any chickens. No crowing roosters are gonna interrupt his mornings.

The problem?

Camden and Grayson share the garden. They’re living in two cottage-style houses facing each other that once belonged to Grayson’s grandmother and her sister. Between the houses is an old kitchen garden with large raised beds, a greenhouse, and a barbeque area.

Grayson’s grandmother and her sister didn’t have any problems sharing the space. Grayson and Camden… there are some problems. The chicken issue is just one of them.

I had so much fun writing this one, and in case you didn’t realise, I’m on team Grayson. It’s not that I dislike Camden; it’s just that he’s wrong. Everyone should have chickens LOL

Perfect Rows

Everything would’ve been perfect if Grayson Dawe hadn’t been forced to share his garden with Camden Hensley. Grayson has everything he needs in life – a job, friends, a house he loves, and a garden. He wants to grow enough vegetables to cover his needs over the summer, and he has a plan for how to achieve it.

Camden Hensley loves his garden. He loves beautiful flowers in perfect rows, sweet scents and buzzing bees, but his neighbor, Grayson, messes everything up. He mixes vegetables with flowers in the growing beds and is incapable of placing plants in straight lines. And when Cam pulls out the plants growing in the wrong place, Grayson snarls at him.

Grayson doesn’t want to fight with Camden, but he’s completely unreasonable. Cam only wants Grayson to stop creating chaos and to grow flowers instead of vegetables. Neither of them is willing to back down, and days in the garden usually end in shouting matches, at least until Grayson realizes he can shut Cam up by kissing him. But will they ever be able to agree about what plants should grow where?

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/PerfectRows

Read an Excerpt

Camden Hensley watched Grayson stalk off and blew out a breath. That was one fine ass; too bad it was attached to an ass. The garden could be lovely, it was lovely, but it could be truly beautiful if Grayson could only find it in himself to be a little more organized. Everything was higgledy-piggledy with Grayson. Everything. The way he dressed, the mess in his car—he mixed black T-shirts with white when he washed, for fuck’s sake. Though, Cam guessed he should be glad he washed at all.
A painter.
Who wanted to paint walls all day? And this obsession with chickens... He shook his head. It had started as soon as Grayson had moved in. He hadn’t been there more than a day or two before he’d approached Cam about wanting to build a chicken coop.
They would not have chickens running around, roosters crowing at dawn—no, thank you.
Cam loved his home, loved the garden, and the peace that came with living outside the city. But everything had been so much better when Frances had been alive. She’d been an adorable little lady and instead of criticizing everything Camden did in the garden, she’d been pleased.
He couldn’t believe Grayson was her grandson. They were nothing alike—not in appearance, not in manner, and Frances had never snarled at him. She baked cookies and used them as bribes to get him to sit with her in the garden and chat for a bit. She was easygoing, satisfied with life, and it was a welcome break from the ugliness of the world.
The garden had been his oasis until Grayson had moved in. Loud, demanding Grayson. He towered over Camden as if he believed his size would intimidate him. It did, but he’d never admit it.
Cam remembered Grayson from school, though he doubted Grayson remembered him. He’d been the rail-thin kid in the corner with unwashed clothes whose mother forgot to pack lunch on field day. She forgot to serve dinner too, but it wasn’t as obvious as the lack of lunch on field day.
Grayson had been wild. Not mean, but loud, though Camden had been terrified of him. He’d spent more time roaming the corridors than he had attending lessons, and then one day he’d been gone. Cam didn’t know what had happened, but someone had said he was working at his uncle’s painting firm, and since he was a painter now, Camden assumed the rumor had been true. He’d been fifteen then, so Grayson had been sixteen.
Camden looked at the house Grayson had stormed off to. Twenty-one years of painting walls, no wonder he was growling all the time. Cam would’ve died of boredom. Perhaps he should give in on the chickens simply to give Grayson something new in his life—no. No chickens. No noise. No mess. If Grayson wanted more excitement in his life, he could go back to school and get himself a better job.
He glanced at the house again. Had Grayson put on clothes?

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/PerfectRows

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 :: Newsletter

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