BLURB
Going home had never felt so wrong.
When Derrick received the phone call informing him of his
mother’s death, it felt like the bottom had dropped out of his entire world.
Gone was every hope and ideal he’d left home with, replaced with the bitter realization
that he’d run out of time, run out of plans, and was desperately close to
running out of give-a-damn.
It doesn’t help to come face to face with his older brother,
Ray, who’d spent much of his childhood either ignoring him, ditching him, or
complaining about his very existence. It’s enough to send him right back on the
road again, or at least, it would have been, were it not for a house, a cat
named Slash, and Mason, his best friend-with-benefits, now the head librarian
in town and hot as sin.
It was hard enough leaving Mace in the first place, but a
second time? He didn’t think he had it in him to be so heartless. Twelve years
ago he’d slipped away under the cover of darkness, without even a single
goodbye. Now, standing on the edge of night, looking down at the tiny town he’d
fled, Derrick is left with one burning question:
Can the door to the past ever be closed enough to allow space
for the future?
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EXCERPT
Derrick
placed the batteries and zip ties on the opposite side of the table from the
food, folded the bag, rolled up his sleeves, and started hacking at an onion
rather than respond.
“Helps
to peel it first,” Mason muttered. Stilling his hand and retrieving what was
left of the mangled onion. He peeled it before returning it and taking a step
back, no doubt out of the way of flying onion bits.
“I
guess I could walk, not like it’s much safer, but I see what you’re getting
at,” Derrick said as he started massacring the onion a bit slower this time. “I
hate driving that car, but I don’t want to risk wrecking the bike if someone
skids into it.”
“How
about not risking wrecking you ’cause
that was the part I was worried about?” Mason grumbled as he moved around to
the other side of the table and fiddled with the zip ties Derrick had left out.
“Do I even want to know what you were planning to do with these?”
“Huh?”
Derrick glanced up to see Mason shaking the zip ties at him, before a sharp
flash of pain made him drop the knife and shove his finger in his mouth. “Ow,
fuck,” Derrick growled around the bleeding digit as he turned away from the
cutting board to rummage around on the top of the fridge for the first aid kit
his mother had always kept there when he was young. Sure enough, it was still
there, shoved almost to the back.
“Let’s
see what the damage is.”
Shivering
at the low, rough voice in his ear, Derrick turned his head enough to see Mason
watching him intently.
“It’s
fine,” he muttered, shuffling away so he could run his finger under the tap.
Before he could fish out an alcohol wipe to clean it, Mason tugged it over, so
he could inspect it.
“A
little deep, but nothing that needs stitching,” Mason remarked, reaching for
the wipe himself and cleaning it. “You’re lucky you didn’t take half of it off,
the way you were going to town on that onion. You don’t cook much, do you?”
Grimacing,
Derrick turned toward Mason with a sigh. “Not particularly, but I found a
recipe that looked easy enough to follow. Figured I couldn’t screw it up that
much.”
He
held still as Mason smeared a bit of antiseptic cream over the wound, then
covered it with a band aid.
“So,
what is this supposed to be?” Mason asked, gesturing toward the table.
“Pan
fried potatoes and chicken wings.”
Derrick
watched Mason scratch the space between his eyebrows, attention going from the
table to Derrick and back again. “Okay, tell me you have recipes for both.”
“Yeah,
umm, side of the fridge,” Derrick replied as he washed his hands. Scooting up
beside him, Mason did the same, before they stepped up to the fridge to read
over the recipes.
Mason
was tapping a finger to his nose. It was an old tick, something he’d always
done when he was thinking about something.
“How
about I take over the chopping, if only to insure we don’t end up in the ER
tonight with severed body parts, and you take the chicken? Not that I cook
often, but I can at least cut things up without risking serious bodily harm.”
“Wouldn’t
have happened if you hadn’t been waving the damn zip ties around,” Derrick
grumbled. “And to answer your question, I was planning to use them to bundle up
extension cords neatly, so I could hang them from pegs in the garage. It’s a
pain in the ass to untangle them every time I need one. Noticed a couple broken
shower curtain rings too, so I figured I could use a few of the smaller ones
there as well, least until I can manage to go get a replacement set. Nearly
lost the lid to the recycle bin, so I thought to secure it to the bin like I’d
done the trash can lid. One morning of chasing it up the street was more than
enough. Besides, it can’t hurt to keep them around, they make pretty good drain
snakes in a pinch.”
“Practical,”
Mason replied with a slight chuckle as he cleaned the knife Derrick had nicked
himself with and went back to cutting up the onions. “Not quite what I had in
mind, though.”
Snorting,
Derrick pulled out a large bowl and dumped in a cup of flour. “Yeah, and what
did you think I was gonna do with them?”
“Well
between them and the batteries, I figured you had one hell of a night in mind.”
“Huh?”
Again, Derrick forgot to pay attention to what he was doing but at least the
only result was shaking the garlic powder a few times before realizing he
hadn’t opened it. “What that’s supposed to mean.”
“Take
a moment, and think outside of the box, Derrick,” Mason remarked as he
continued to chop.
Derrick
tried as he added pepper, salt, paprika and cayenne pepper to the flour and stirred
them together with a fork. “I still don’t get it.”
The
only response from Mason was a laugh as he set about washing the two large red
potatoes Derrick had purchased.
“What?”
“I
tell you what, after dinner I’ll show you what I mean.”
Derrick
cocked an eyebrow at him, huffed and shook his head, before putting the bowl
aside and moving to get out the wings. “Not sure I wanna know.”
“That’s
up to you.”
The
steady thunk, thunk, thunk of Mason cutting up the potatoes filled the room, as
Derrick patted the wings dry and dumped them in the flour, turning them over
and over to get them coated in the seasoning mix. Recipe said to set them aside
in the fridge for twenty-minutes to and hour, so he shoved them in and went
about lining two baking sheets with foil and preheating the oven.
“Goddamnit!”
“Seriously?”
Mason remarked without even looking over. “What did you do to yourself now.”
“Nothing.
Just can’t stop thinking about the damned zip ties now, thank you very much.”
“You’re
welcome,” Mason remarked, snickering as he continued to chop.
Hi and thank you so much for hosting me and my latest novel,
Tripping Over the Edge of Night, on Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews. Like so
many of my other books, this one ended up with a rather unique playlist of
songs that I tended to play on repeat while I was writing the story, only with
this one, I deviated from my usual collection of classic rock and alternative,
and drifted into acid rock, likely because it seemed to be Derrick’s favorite
thing to listen to. I guess it helped that in inheriting his childhood home he
also ended up inheriting his parents rather eclectic music collection, ranging
from the more easily recognizable Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd to the lesser
known Blue Cheer, The 13th Floor elevators, Country Joe and the
Fish, Moby Grape and Strawberry Alarm Clock.
It was wonderful reconnecting with music I hadn’t listened
to consistently since before I headed off to college, in addition to
discovering a few bands I’d never heard of. It took me back to those days of
sitting up in my attic loft listening to the albums my father had given me on
an old record player, the scratchy rough tones filling the room as I drew and
daydreamed. I still have those records, the player, however, didn’t survive the
years, which is actually where the scene of Derrick in the garage trying to fix
his mother’s old record player stems from, right down to the mention of the
album left on the turntable when it died.
Kenny Roger’s The Gambler was my mother’s favorite album,
and while it didn’t fit the psychedelic theme of the other music Derrick was
listening too, it was a nod to my own mother’s favorite album, just as mention
of the brothers going inside to watch the their mother’s favorite movie, 9 to
5, was also a nod to my mom. Whenever I write, I draw from the moments of my
life, however small, like these. It gives me a deeper connection to the
characters and besides, its rather difficult to write something I’ve never
experienced. Imagination can only take me so far, but the wonderful part about
this writing journey has been all of the things I’ve gotten to go out and do in
the name of crafting a believable scene.
Though I must say that while some of those experiences have
been amazing, others, like dancing in neon lights in a cage over thirty feet
off the ground was a bit scary at first, but I think, in the end, it will be
well worth it when that novel comes out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of
Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking,
fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and
dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and
visit museums, historic, and haunted places.
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 is the author of Guitars and Cages, Guitars and
Choices, Gypsy’s Rogue, Desolation Angel, …And All Shall Fade to Black,
Midnight musicals and Coffee Ice Cream, Roadhouse Reds, Serpent’s Kiss, Racing
the Sky, Broken Prince Mismatched Eyes, and Burning Luck.
Layla Dorine can be found at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaylaDorine13
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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