Author: Josephine Myles
Release Date: July 26 2016
Length: 12,000
words
Cover Artist: Lou
Harper
Blurb:
Still
waters run deep...
Tommy's been away from his home in rural Somerset for three years. Long enough
to sort out who he is, and to get over the feelings of confusion and shame that
blighted his lifelong friendship with farmer's boy Rob. He's out and proud,
now--and he's coming home to claim back what he lost.
Rob's the one who stayed behind, working on the farm with little time for a
social life. With Tommy coming back into his world, he could have a lot to
gain--and everything to lose.
He's going to have to take a leap of faith. Straight into the ice cold waters
of Quarry Lake.
This story was originally published in 2013 as part of the Summer
Lovin' anthology.
Excerpt:
Tommy
shivered and gasped. Quarry Lake was nothing like the public baths in Croydon.
Bloody hell, how had Tommy forgotten how the cold water caressed every
inch of his body, energising him every bit as much as it chilled? You
could dive without goggles, no chlorine to burn your eyes. And when you
surfaced, you swam up towards the clear sky, swallows flitting high above in
their graceful dance.
And
more to the point, there was Rob, just over there and definitely due a dunking.
Fuck, but he looked good. Face and forearms deeply tanned, damp hair stuck
to his forehead. Green eyes echoing the water they were swimming in. Rob
smiled, but it wasn’t the carefree grin Tommy was craving. The one he
remembered. There was something guarded about Rob’s expression.
Something Tommy could only blame himself for.
Screw
it, he didn’t know how to make this right. Plan A had been to just blurt it all
out. Find a natural place to introduce it into the conversation. Oh,
and by the way, I am gay after all. And totally single since I broke up
with my boyfriend. Wanna crawl up onto those rocks and fuck each other’s
brains out?
Tommy
snorted. Like there was any way he could say any of that with Rob looking at
him like he was little better than a stranger. And besides, that would
make it all sound so impersonal. Like Rob was just a convenient body,
rather than someone he’d yearned for all these years.
Plan
B it was, then. Tommy dived down under the water, striking out for the deeps
before flipping round to peer up for a shark’s vision of his prey. There
he was, legs kicking powerfully . Rob looked almost too solid to swim.
Like he was carved out of marble and should sink to the bottom, but there he
was, flesh and blood.
Don’t
think too hard about flesh and blood.
Tommy
stopped fighting the water and let himself rise, aiming for Rob’s legs. He
caught one, wrapped his hands around a pillar of muscle and hairy,
goosebumped skin. He yanked down, not far. Just enough to dunk Rob’s head
under the water for a second.
Letting
go was tough when every part of him screamed to hold on. But that wouldn’t be
much of a game, so he kicked away and surfaced a few feet away, just out
of reach.
“Bastard!”
Rob exclaimed, but this time when he looked Tommy’s way his grin was the one
he remembered, wide and sunny. “You’re in for it now.”
“Can’t
catch me. I’ve been training.” Tommy snatched a breath and ducked under the
water again.
And
this time Rob followed.
Tommy
let himself be caught. Rob’s strong hands closed around his calf. It was almost
perfect—if he’d only move his grip higher. Tommy made a token effort at
getting away, but he didn’t want to. Not when those calloused hands were
holding him like that, making him imagine other places they could grasp.
Good
thing the water was so bloody freezing.
My
thoughts:
By
Quarry Lake is a charming short story about two men getting a second chance at
love and grabbing it.
When
Tommy returns to his rural home after three years he longs to reconnect with
Rob, who’s been his friend for as long as he can remember. Well, until Tommy
hit him, three years ago, after Rob kissed him. Back then Tommy wasn’t sure
what he felt or wanted and scared of his feelings. These days Tommy is out and
proud and ready to reclaim what he so carelessly tossed aside all those years
ago.
Rob,
while having always known he was gay, is still deep in the closet and all but
resigned to living his life there. He can’t imagine either his father or the
local community accepting him as a gay man, and since the one man he’s always
loved has disappeared from his life anyway, there’s no point in revealing his
big secret.
When
the two men meet again it is at Quarry Lake, the place where they spent long
hours together while growing up, before it all went haywire. And it doesn’t
take long before both of them know, without a doubt, that the attraction they
felt for each other in the past is alive and well. The only question is, can
Rob forgive Tommy for his behaviour?
Like
I said, this is charming story. Virtually angst free this is the sweet tale of
two men who are meant to be together finding each other again. If I have one
reservation it is that Rob was very fast to forgive Tommy; I wouldn’t have
minded if he’d been made to suffer at least a little bit. But, given that this
is a short story which I knew before I started reading it, I can’t complain
(too much) about the lack of angst. And the fact that the two men are both
sweet and hot together makes up for most if not all of my need for more.
Very
well written, easy to read and sure to leave a huge smile on your face, ‘By
Quarry Lake’ was the perfect story to read outside in the sunshine on a
lazy Sunday afternoon. It almost made me want to jump into my own lake, and if
it had been a little bit warmer today, I probably would have. J
Author Bio:
English
through and through, Josephine Myles is addicted to tea and busy cultivating
a reputation for eccentricity. She writes gay erotica and romance, but finds
the erotica keeps cuddling up to the romance, and the romance keeps
corrupting the erotica. Jo blames her rebellious muse but he never listens
to her anyway, no matter how much she threatens him with a big stick.
She’s beginning to suspect he enjoys it.
Jo’s
novel Stuff won the 2014 Rainbow Award for Best Bisexual
Romance, and her novella Merry Gentlemen won the 2014 Rainbow
Award for Best Gay Romantic Comedy. She writes for publishers but has also
been known to edit anthologies and self-publish on occasion, although she
prefers to leave the “boring bits” of the ebook creation process to
someone else. She loves to be busy, and is currently having fun trying to
work out how she is going to fit in her love of writing, dressmaking and attending
cabaret shows in fabulous clothing around the demands of a preteen with
special needs and an incessantly curious toddler.
Twitter:
@JosephineMyles
