FREE Gay Excerpt: Uncertainty
I've been remiss about posting excerpts from my books, and I often get lost in new projects I'm working on and I tend to forget something the moment it gets published. I know that's not the best way to promote, but the truth is it's not easy to find a balance between too much promotion and not enough. I think I get paranoid because I see so many who over-promote themselves.
So I'm posting an excerpt from my latest release,
Uncertainty, below...with a few links. It's available as an e-book or you can get it in print.
Here's the blurb:
When Gus Baldwin realizes that his gay dad is serious about marrying a
much older man for safety and security instead of love, he concocts a
plot that he hopes will change his dad's mind. Even though his other dad
has been dead for over a year, Gus wants his surviving dad to find love
and happiness someday with a new husband. However, their financial
situation is about as bad as it gets and they're on the brink of losing
their grand old Victorian home, and everything about their perfect lives
is threatened. So Gus winds up putting his own marriage on hold with
the guy he's been in love with since high school. It's so bad he's even
thinking of quitting college to help support his dad and his younger
brother just so his dad won't have to marry the older man. After Gus
convinces his dad to take a road trip in their vintage 1950s station
wagon to their getaway cabin in the mountains, along with his younger
brother, his future husband, and their nineteen year old dog named
Special, their lives change in ways none of them ever anticipated. And
even though the future is still uncertain in some respects, they
discover a few things about themselves on this trip they never could
have predicted.
Angry Fans Chase Gay Artist Off Social Media
This is disturbing because I see it all the time. Once they gang up on someone it becomes a form of online mob culture and there's no turning back.
A gay storyboard artist for the children’s TV show Steven Universe has deleted her Twitter after being harassed by fans.
They accused Zuke of ‘queer-baiting’ them with a same-sex relationship on the show, according to the Daily Dot.
You can check out the rest here. The article goes into more details that you might find surprising.
Cher On Donald Trump and Gays
Before I even start his part of the post, I'll say it again. I only post these things in an objective way. I'm not taking sides or offering opinions. So if you are an LGBT Trump supporter, don't take it out on me. I respect everyone's opinion, I don't force my opinions on anyone, and I try to remain fair and balanced here on the blog at all times.
With that said...
When Donald Trump
promised to protect the LGBTQ community in his fear-mongering speech at
the RNC this year, only the most gullible fell for it. Count Cher as
among those smart enough to know a conman conning when she sees one.
You can read the rest here.
First Responder To Orlando Massacre
This is very painful to read, but I think it's important to never forget, and to see how some people are still dealing with what happened in Orlando.
Two months since the attack, Realin tells The Orlando Sentinel that he still sees “all the red.”
Realin was one of seven members of the Orlando Police Department’s
hazmat team assigned the horrible task of removing each body from the
nightclub; a duty he says they carried out with “dignity.”
He's now dealing with PTSD from that night and he's not sure if he will be able to work.
You can check this out here.
FREE Gay Excerpt: Uncertainty
As they rounded the corner and
approached the house, Gus glanced at the "For Sale" sign on the front
lawn and frowned. This had been the only home he'd ever known, and now Henry
was forced to sell it because of all the liens Roberto had put against the
house to keep the restaurant going. Gus wasn't sure where they would move
either. The only viable alternative at that point would be to rent a small boxy
condo in a subdivision on the edge of town called The Hunter's Run.
Gus's family home was the largest,
grandest, and oldest on Buckleberry Street, with a white picket fence and
neatly manicured boxwoods. It had been built in the late 1800s by a Doctor
Palmer, who was one of the original descendants of the Palmer family who had
founded the town of Palmer Hill. Roberto and Henry had purchased it in complete
disrepair and renovated it to what it had once been. As with everything he did,
Roberto spent more money than he actually had at the time. At a glance the
house resembled a Victorian castle, with tower rooms, turrets, and second floor
balconies. The clapboards and scalloped shingles were a combination of white
and dark red, with more bright white trim than a Christmastime gingerbread
house. To the right of the tall house, a long cobblestone driveway led back to
a two car garage that had been built in the mid-twentieth century out of local
stone.
When they reached the front gate and
Gus realized that their dog, Special, wasn't barking he got a sick feeling in
his stomach. Special was a pure white west highland terrier, with huge black
button eyes and short squatty legs. She was over nineteen years old and she'd
been diagnosed with what the vet thought was canine congestive heart failure.
The vet only thought that's what it was, because he claimed it wasn't wise to
spend thousands of dollars testing a dog that was nineteen years old. So he
treated her for the symptoms, as if it was congestive heart failure, and she
seemed to respond well to the medications…for the most part.
However, there were bad days, and Gus
had a feeling this was one of them. He didn't say anything because he didn't
want to alarm his brother, but when he pushed the front gate open and looked
down, poor Michael screamed so loudly it hurt Gus's ears. There was poor
Special, lying on her back, with her short little legs sticking up in the air,
her head tilted sideways, and her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
Michael screamed again and pointed. "Gus,
she's dead. Look, she's dead. Do something."
Craig rubbed his jaw and said, "Oh,
holy shit on a stick."
Gus patted Michael on the shoulder and
said, "Let me check her out. It could just be another one of her spells."
Special had these unusual spells every once in a while where she would totally
black out for a minute or two, and then bounce back to life again is if nothing
had ever happened.
Michael started to cry. "She can't
be dead. Don't let her be dead, Gus."
"Just stay calm," Gus said.
While Michael stood there shaking and
crying, and Craig continued to rub his jaw, Gus kneeled down next to Special
and tapped the right side of her head. For some reason no one could explain,
tapping her head gently seemed to bring her back to life.
He tapped her head once and nothing happened.
Craig put his arm around Michael and
said, "It's okay, buddy."
Then Gus tapped her again and her nose
wiggled. She glanced at him as if she didn't know where she was, barked three
times, and then she bolted up and took off to greet Michael near the gate as if
nothing had happened.
Michael wiped his eyes and went down on
his knees to grab her. "She's alive. Look, she's not dead after all."
Gus felt a huge wave of relief pass
through his body. The last thing they needed that weekend was a dead dog.
While Michael hugged Special, Gus stood
up and he glanced at Craig. He rolled his eyes and said, "We got lucky
once again," because he knew it was only a matter of time before she didn't
wake up from one of these spells. The vet had told them that's how she would
eventually die. He knew they were lucky to still have her at nineteen years
old.
Craig reached down to pet Special and
said, "Come on, Michael, let's go inside and get ready for dinner. Your
dad will be home any minute."
Michael stood up and looked at Gus. "Can
we give Special a fortune cookie?"
Gus smiled. They kept her on a strict
low sodium diet. "You can give her whatever you want. She's had a rough
day." He saw no point in restricting her diet that night. She'd been
eating human food since she'd been a small puppy and putting her on a
restricted diet that night, at her advanced age, made no sense at all. She was
nineteen; they were lucky she was still alive and functioning.
Michael and Special headed toward the
house first. No one in Palmer Hill ever locked their doors unless they were
leaving for an extended period of time. Craig put his arm on Gus's back and
said, "Let's go inside. I'm starved and I have to get out of these
underpants." He was always starved. Gus had never seen anyone who could
eat so much and never gain a pound.
"I'll be right in. You go upstairs
and leave my underwear on the bed. I want to hose off the sidewalk." When
Special had one of her spells, she lost control of her bladder and left a huge
puddle wherever it happened.
Gus took the hose from the side of the
house, rinsed off the sidewalk, and then returned the hose to the neat little
hose container next to a juniper bush. Henry liked things organized and
arranged a certain way, and both Gus and Michael had learned at an early age
how to clean up after themselves. One of Henry's favorite old mottos was, "If
it doesn't look good, don't put it on the front porch."
As Gus turned to climb the front steps,
he heard voices and he glanced at the sidewalk. Henry and Clive Bunsen were
heading toward the front gate, talking and laughing in a way that sounded
awkward and forced to Gus.
Gus climbed the stairs fast so they
wouldn't see him. He didn't want to say hello to Clive again, but he did want
to hear what they were saying. He stood off to the side next to a white column,
behind a large potted palm his dad kept on the front porch in the warmer
months. From what Gus had been told, the palm tree was older than he was and it
dated back to the early years of Henry and Roberto's marriage…back when gay
couples weren't allowed to get married legally.
Henry and Clive stopped at the front
gate and Henry said, "Thanks for walking me home. I had a nice time this
evening." He smiled at Clive the way a man might smile at his neighbor
from three doors away, or a distant relative.
Clive lingered for a moment without
saying a word. He looked down past his large stomach, put one hand in his
pocket, and scratched his chin with the other. When he finally did look up, he
glanced into Henry's eyes and said, "You know I'm very fond of you, Henry."
Henry smiled. "And I'm fond of you,
Clive."
"I mean, I'm very fond of you, Henry." He winked.
Then he reached down to take Henry's
hand and Gus pressed his palm to his chest.
As Clive lifted Henry's hand higher, he
cleared his throat and said, "I think we would be good together, and you'd
never have to worry about money again. I would see to that. I think we could
have a nice life, you and myself."
Gus gulped.
Henry smiled and said, "I think we
could, too, Clive. But I'm not sure about the boys. Michael is a handful."
Clive smiled. "I love Michael, and
Gus is almost out of the house anyway. And there's plenty of room at my place.
The house is huge and I think Mother would get used to a little more life
around the house."
That comment made Gus want to punch the
palm tree. He'd only met Clive's elderly mother once, and it wasn't a fond
memory. They'd run into her at a town function last fall, back when Clive
started to seriously pursue Henry. She knew what Clive was doing and she
clearly expressed her dislike for it by remaining silent and sending vicious
glances in Henry's direction.
"I don't think your mother likes
me very much," Henry said. He smiled, as if trying to make a joke about
it.
Clive laughed. "Don't pay
attention to mother. She'll get used to the idea, and so will the boys."
Henry smiled again and said, "You're
a good, decent man, Clive. And I think you're right. We could have a nice life
together. So let's start making plans as soon as possible."
Gus couldn't dispute the fact that
Clive was actually a good, decent man. He just didn't want his dad to marry
anyone under these circumstances. He wanted his dad to fall in love again and
marry for the right reason, not for money and security. And he knew deep down
there was nothing he could do, because Gus also knew that they were going to
lose the house soon if Henry didn't do something fast. Henry was not the kind
of man who would marry for money either, not unless he was absolutely forced
into it. He was, however, the kind of man who could talk himself into doing the
most practical thing for the sake of Michael and Gus.
When Henry and Clive hugged, Gus crept
into the house so Henry wouldn't know he'd been eavesdropping on such a private
conversation. It was bad enough he knew Henry would announce the news to them
and he wouldn't even know how to respond. As he crossed through the huge main
hall, he heard Craig and Michael laughing about something. He didn't want to
ruin the evening by mentioning what he'd overheard a few minutes ago, because
Michael still didn't even understand why they had to put the house up for sale
in the first place. He seemed to grasp the gist of their financial situation,
but he kept hoping that something would happen to make everything okay again. Gus
wasn't as optimistic, and he knew life didn't always work out that way. His
only goal at that point was to keep Henry from making the biggest and worst
decision of his life, and he wasn't quite sure yet how he would do that.
Later that night after Craig went home,
Henry cleaned up the kitchen while Gus helped Michael get to bed. They didn't
normally eat that late and everything felt different for some reason. Gus
couldn't stop worrying about the conversation he'd overheard between his dad
and Clive, and it felt as if the entire family had reached one of those pivotal
moments in their lives where everything could change overnight. The fact that
it was the last day of school and Henry wouldn't be collecting a pay check
until September again made their situation even more serious than before. Even
though Henry would never go into detail about how serious things were, Gus
could see the worry all over his face.
After he checked in on Michael one last
time to make sure he was sleeping, Gus headed downstairs again to check on
Special. She'd been crate trained as a puppy and she'd been sleeping in the
same crate for the last nineteen years. Of course they left the door to the
crate open at all times and they hadn't locked her up on the crate since she'd
been six months old. When he walked over to a corner in the kitchen and saw her
sleeping soundly, he resisted the urge to reach into the crate and pet her. He
didn't want to startle her, not with her
heart condition.
He glanced around and noticed the
kitchen was perfectly clean, as if no one had ever eaten there. Henry didn't
just keep that house immaculate because of a sense of duty. He loved it so much
he couldn't wait to clean it make everything perfect. Gus figured Henry must
have gone up to his bedroom, so he turned out the kitchen lights and headed for
the main staircase in the front hall. After Roberto's sudden death, Henry had
moved into one of the smallest guest rooms on the third floor. He kept his
clothes and most of his things in the master bedroom, but he slept in the guest
room. He never gave any of them an explanation; he made no grand announcement.
One night Gus noticed Henry sleeping in the guest room and the next day he noticed
that Henry had moved some of his personal things out of the master bedroom he'd
shared with Roberto and put them all in the guest room. There was no need to
ask Henry about it. Gus understood, and he made a point of telling Michael not
to mention it aloud.
On his way upstairs, Gus noticed the
front door was open, so he crossed the hall to close it. As he reached for the
handle he glanced outside through the screen door and saw Henry sitting in a
white rocking chair on the front porch staring at a photo of Roberto. It was a
headshot of Roberto from the days when he'd done a little modeling in New York
while still in law school. He resembled one of those dashing silent films tars
from the 1920s, with his slick dark hair and penetrating smile.
Gus didn't go out on the porch. He wasn't
sure he wanted to disturb Henry. So he remained in the hallway and said, "Are
you outside, dad?"
Valley of the Dudes Contest At Erie Gay News
Enter to win Valley of the Dudes e-book from Riverdale Ave Books! To enter the contest, fill out the form below between August 19 and September 9.
Uncertainty
Unabated
Unabated
