…And All Shall Fade to Black Blurb
Moving into his new apartment, Jax never
expected to have to break up a fight between his new neighbors, resulting in a
physical altercation and a visit from the cops. Never in his wildest dreams did
he imagine that it would lead to him meeting Danny, the cute theater manager
and playwright that lived next door. Unfortunately, his first impression of
Danny and the way he’d cowered away in the fight with his ex, wasn’t exactly a favorable
one.
Jax already has his own issues to deal
with, between his past problems with his mother and the chain of men who’ve
floated in and out of her life, his new job as a piercer in his sister’s tattoo
shop and his struggles with an eating disorder; the last thing he plans to add
to it is a relationship. Yet Danny isn’t so easy to ignore and when they find themselves
bonding after Danny shows him around town, and more when Jax offers to help
with sets for his latest play, it becomes harder and harder for him to ignore
the connection forming between them.
As Jax’s insecurities and food issues
grow more and more out of control, he find himself turning to Danny for help,
rather than his longtime friends Callum and Max who lives just downstairs.
Danny’s mix of patience, stubbornness and tough love make it harder and harder
for Jax to keep his distance, and somewhere in the course of their daily lives,
they find themselves moving from being friends, to being more.
Excerpt
Heaving
a heavy sigh, Jax nodded.
“All
right, fine, we’ll do it your way, but when I completely screw it up, we’ll
know who to blame.”
“You
can’t screw it up, Jax, it’s as simple as picking out the things you like.”
Jax
cocked an eyebrow at him and tapped his foot and Callum cringed.
“Okay,
I should maybe amend that. It’s a matter of picking out the things you like
that would actually work well together to create as space with some harmony and
unity,” Callum remarked sheepishly. “So please no two dollar paintings on
crushed velvet and framed black light posters. We’re adults now, time to be
more sophisticated about things.”
“Yeah,
okay, I’ll actually put some effort into it this time.”
From
across the room Max laughed. “Hey you’ve had it easy up until now, you’ve had
us decorating most of the house for you. Just remember that if you plan to
invite Danny or anyone else over to your place, you might want to consider
tones besides black and gray. They’re kind of depressing.”
“They
are solid colors that go together. Haven’t you guys been stressing that?”
“Yes,
and they’re a good start. Now think about adding some additional shades to
that.”
Unscrewing
the jar, jax pulled out a pickle spear and crunched away, thoughtfully running
through different shades in his head and dismissing them. It wasn’t that he was
picky, it was just that he wasn’t a fan of bright things. “What about purple?”
“Purple
can work,” Callum remarked. “Now if you’re done stalling, can you answer my
question?”
Jax
scowled, confused. “What question.”
“The
one I asked when you walked in here. You asked how Max knew. What did Max
know?”
“Oh.”
Silently,
Jax headed for a chair and flopped into its overstuffed folds, put his feet up
on the Ottoman and started crunching on another pickle.
“Yeah,
oh, as in oh come on Jax spill it already. You know I won’t start the game
until you do.”
Groaning,
Jax glared at the pair, wishing he wasn’t holding the pickles so he could cross
his arms. It might have been a little childish but at that point he was in the
mood to pout and stubbornly hold his tongue.
“Apparently
I interrupted him kissing Danny,” Max finally supplied.
“No
shit?”
“No
shit,” Jax grumbled. “Him and his bellowing put an end to what was shaping up
to be a really nice moment. Then he hits me with a remark about Shiro.”
Jax
watched as Callum shot a look between him and Max.
“All
I said was that he shouldn’t let what happened with Shiro happen between him
and Danny.”
“Ohhh.”
“Yeah,
and I wanted to know what the hell he meant by that.”
“Oh
come off it Jax, we both knew you were pining after Shiro and too scared to do
anything to make it happen. Anyone with eyes could have seen that, just from
your moods and body language whenever you two were together. What I don’t get
is why you didn’t just ask him out or something.”
Jax
shrugged and busied himself with another pickle. It was a good question, it was
just a complicated one. The truth was, by the time he figured out that Shiro
was as bad at picking up on relationship cues as he was, Nozomi had swooped in
and asked Shiro out. He’d never been the type to get in between two people,
even at the start of a new relationship, and especially not one to do it to
friends. So he’d kept his feelings bottled up, half hoping that maybe it
wouldn’t work out between them, though, the signs had all been there that it
would.
“Earth
to Jax…hey…”
Fingers
snapping next to his ear drew Jax’s attention and he turned to see Callum
grinning down at him.
“You
know what, I think you need to pursue things with Danny, if only so you don’t
end up looking like a lovesick puppy every time someone brings Shiro up. That
ship has sailed, it’s a new day my friend, and a new city, though there’s one
thing that will never change.”
“Yeah,
what’s that?”
“Me
kicking your ass and leaving you to the zombies,” Callum laughed.
“You’re
on!” Jax snapped, reaching for a controlled.
Max
just groaned as he reached for one himself. “I can already see how this night
is gonna go. You two are going to be so busy trying to throw each other in the path
of the zombies or outdo each other that you’re going to end up killing me in
the process.”
Jax
glanced at Callum, who was staring back at him, smirking.
“That’s
been known to happen,” Jax admitted.
“True,
it has,” Callum replied with a shrug. “You’d think he’d be used to it now.”
“Yeah
really, sheesh, I mean, it isn’t like it’s our
fault that he can’t stay out of the way. Maybe if he’d learn to dodge a little
better…”
“Or
duck,” Jax added, laughing and ducking himself when Max threw a pillow his way.
Book Trailer
Buy Links
US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072Q41YGQ
UK Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072Q41YGQ
JP Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B072Q41YGQ
CA Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B072Q41YGQ
Hi, and thank you so much for letting me stop in today and
talk a bit about Jax and Danny’s story
as well as others currently in the works. I never intend to start
writing something before I’ve finished the project I’ve been working on, but
inevitably, it always seems to happen. I’ve given up on trying to push the new
stories aside or ignore them and found it easier to just grab a fresh notebook
and start writing them down.
So before editing was through on …And All Shall Fade to
Black, I was sliding into Gypsy’s Rogue, slowly discovering what made them
tick. Unlike in …And All Shall Fade, where Jax and Danny are strangers to one
another and have that newness to navigate along with issues and feelings, Gypsy
and Rogue have known each other for number of years. Gypsy, in fact, was
married to Rogue’s older brother, until Randy cheated on Gypsy, and Gypsy left,
leaving Rogue to keep track of their (Gypsy is gender fluid and prefers
them/they pronouns) whereabouts and pine
for them and what he felt could have been, if only…
In Gypsy’s Rogue, they have the chance to figure out the ‘if
only’ and so much more, but only if the ghosts of the past can leave them alone
long enough. While it’s a different kind of love story from …And All Shall
Fade, it’s a love story just the same, and one I look forward to sharing more
of soon.
About the Author
Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.
Layla Dorine can be found at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/layladorine
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/layladorine/
Tumblr: https://layladorine.tumblr.com/
Author Website: layladorine13.wix.com/layladorineauthor
Author on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9814124.Layla_Dorine
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