18 April 2018:
Thanks as always to Angelica
Dawson for hosting the MidWeekTease - http://midweektease.blogspot.ca/ It’s a
great way to learn about other authors and their work.
We’re more than halfway
through April yet here in the Niagara region winter is still hanging on with
subzero temperatures and snow in the forecast again for today. It’s supposed to
warm up next week, but I’ll believe it when I feel it.
This week
I have another excerpt from Getting Real, a contemporary gay romance where one
of the men needs to grow up and start behaving like a
responsible adult, and the other needs to distance himself from his controlling
family. In this snippet Cole has given serious thought to what TJ said about
him taking the easy way out as far as his family was concerned and decided TJ is
right.
Getting
Real
By
Christiane France
Available
at iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Real-Christiane-France-ebook/dp/B06WVNKLZY/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
For
TJ Delaney and Cole Labelle, it’s time to turn their lives around and get real.
TJ
needs to exchange his playboy lifestyle for a job and prove he’s a responsible
adult rather than a spoiled, rich brat.
Cole
needs to free himself of his family’s control and their paranoid fears by
proving being gay like his father is the only thing he and the man who gave him
life have in common.
Between
deciding what to put where and checking with Kreber’s on availability, the rest
of the week passed in a flash. I hadn’t seen Cole since the night I ran into
him in the Falls. If he regretted our conversation and was avoiding me, fine. I
might not agree with his reasons, but it was his life and his decision.
Friday
morning, Maggie called to say she’d be over around ten. About a quarter to the
hour, I heard a tap-tap on the door. Figuring she was early, I yelled, “Come on
in. It’s open,” only to look up and find Cole standing there, looking smart and
delicious in a charcoal suit, pale blue shirt and patterned tie.
“You
doing anything for lunch today?” he asked.
“No.
Why?” If I sounded suspicious, I was. “I thought—”
“I
know. The thing is I’ve been thinking, so hear me out, okay?”
He
shuffled his feet, as if he were nervous about something. Then he smiled, a
shy, tentative smile that once again made me want to rush right over and give
him a hug. Again, I resisted.
“After
I left the club the other night, I drove around for a while and thought really
hard about what you’d said. You were right. I knew my family was scared I’d do
something to embarrass them, and I took the easy way out by going along with
it. I figured it was only temporary and that once Carla came home… Then I
recalled you saying what if she doesn’t? That was something I hadn’t even
considered.”
“So?
You come to any conclusions?”
“That
Carla has a life to live same as me. You were also right when you said I needed
to forget about my family and concentrate on my own life. So that’s what I’m
trying to do. If someone has a problem with us having lunch together that’s too
bad. ”
“Okay,
but one small step at a time, huh?”
Before
Cole could reply, the phone rang, and I picked up.
“Hi,
TJ. It’s me, Maggie. I’m afraid there’s been a slight change of plan. I can’t
get there until sometime between noon and one. Is that okay with you?”
“It’s
fine. See you then.”
I
replaced the receiver with a sigh and looked at Cole. “How about a rain check
for lunch?”
“Problems?”
“That
was Maggie. She was supposed to be here at ten to finalize our order for the
plants. Now she says she can’t make it until noontime. I’m sorry.”
“Hey,
the job comes first.” He reached out and briefly touched my shoulder. “You want
to go for a drink later?”
“You
mean here in town, after work?”
“Why
not?”
“I
think you need to slow down. Lunch is one thing, Cole. You hired The Birds to
supply the plants for the building, so it could even be explained as a working
lunch. What you’re suggesting is something else. It’s like a date. It’s like
making a major statement to the entire world. What if someone sees us and your
family finds out?” I couldn’t believe I’d just said that, but I wanted Cole to
step back and think what could happen.
^ ^ ^
Don’t forget this is a blog hop. You can check out all the
other contributors’ blogs by following this link: http://midweektease.blogspot.ca/
^ ^ ^
https://www.amazon.com/author/christianefrance
https://www.facebook.com/chris.grover.71
http://twitter.com/chrisgrover2
http://christianefrance.blogspot.ca/
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/christiane-france
https://www.books2read.com/ap/8ZwPYx/
