Author: Rick R. Reed
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: January 13, 2020
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 68300
Genre: Contemporary, LGBT, deep closet, coming out, men with children, virgin, #ownvoices, humorous, EMT
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Synopsis
Randy Kay has the perfect life with his
beautiful wife and adorable son. But Randy’s living a lie, untrue to himself
and everyone who knows him. He’s gay.
Marriage and fatherhood, which he
thought could change him, have failed. He doubts if anyone can love him for who
he really is—especially himself.
With his wife’s blessing, he sets out to
explore the gay world he’s hidden from all his life.
John Walsh, a paramedic with the Chicago
Fire Department, is comfortable in his own skin as a gay man, yet he can never
find someone who shares his desire to create a real relationship, a true
family.
When Randy and John first spy each other
in Chicago’s Boystown, all kinds of alarms go off—some of joy, others of
deep-seated fear.
Randy and John must surmount multiple
hurdles on the journey to a lasting, meaningful love. Will they succeed or will
their chance at love go up in flames, destroyed by missed connections and a
lack of self-acceptance?
Excerpt
Unraveling
Rick R. Reed © 2020
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
RANDY
I have my death all planned out.
Unlike the thirty-two years that have
gone before, I want my passing to be peaceful and free of the discord and pain
I’ve lived with for as long as I can remember. I want it to be easy.
Effortless. Guilt-free.
Whether it’s any of those things remains
to be seen.
I’ve rented this hotel room at a small
boutique hotel off Michigan Avenue. The Crewe House has been standing on this
same ground on Oak Street for at least a hundred years. The rooms are small,
fussy, and charming, with flocked wallpaper, four-poster beds, and claw-foot
tubs and pedestal sinks in their black-and-white bathrooms. It’s charming, and
I deserve something nice to gaze at before I close my eyes for good.
I have some sandalwood-scented candles
lit, and the fragrance is warm, enveloping. Their soft flicker is the only
illumination. Outside, the winter sky darkens early. Dusk’s cobalt blue makes
silhouettes of the water towers, train tracks, and buildings to the west of the
hotel. Near the horizon the sky is a shade of lavender that mesmerizes me,
makes me think of changing my mind. If a sky like this can exist, with its
electric bands of color, maybe the world isn’t such a horrible place.
Maybe I can go on.
No.
What else have I done to ease my passage
into whatever comes next? I have a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, my favorite
champagne, uncorked and resting in a silver ice bucket, filled with melting
ice. A flute stands next to it, waiting.
I’ll wash the sleeping pills down with
the bubbly.
Before getting into bed, I’ll turn on
the cassette I have in my boombox, Abbey Road. I have it queued up to “Golden
Slumbers.”
I’ve been carrying this weight for such
a long time.
I long for smiles.
At last, I’ll undress and stretch out on
the four-poster. I’ll pull the eiderdown duvet loosely over me and close my
eyes.
The plan is I will slowly slip under, my
brain becoming a soft velvety fog, and I’ll simply fall into the arms of a
comforting—and obliterating—slumber.
I will not dream.
It won’t take long.
And I’ll leave a beautiful corpse.
That’s the plan, anyway. Some of my
research into this method of offing myself runs counter to this gentle fantasy,
but I don’t want to consider the downside of overdosing on strong barbiturates.
I want to go to sleep.
I want to forget the impossibility of
being able to become the man I know I should be.
Husband.
Father.
I blink back tears as I sit on the bed,
staring out at the deepening twilight. They don’t deserve this: what you’re
going to leave them with. I know the voice inside, the one that’s always made
me do the right thing, at the expense of my very being, is right. And even
though they don’t deserve it, you know they will hurt, of course they will, but
in the end, they’ll be better off.
Who wants a husband and father who can’t
seem to make himself straight, despite trying therapy, the Catholic Church, the
Buddhist faith, self-help groups, and self-help books. A group of pathetic
married men meeting once a month and thinking they can change. Nothing works.
If I could change, I would.
And since I can’t change, I’m left with
three options:
Accept myself as I am. How can I do
that? I’d be a failure as a husband, a father, a son, a brother. I’d go on
wearing this suffocating mask. I’d continue to live a life that’s essentially a
lie.
Everyone who loves me doesn’t even know
me.
They love a façade, a projection, a
mirage made of wishes, impossible hopes, and self-hatred.
No, acceptance is not an option. It
never was.
Second, I could resist. I could knuckle
down and brace myself against the attractions I feel, the dreams that pop up in
my sleep despite my desperately not wanting them there. I could hold myself
back from falling prey to the temptations I feel on the streets, the subway,
the locker rooms—everywhere I encounter a beautiful man.
The reason I find myself here is because
I can’t resist. Not anymore.
And the third option is simply the one I
have to choose—remove myself from the pain. Remove myself from existing as this
broken thing that God nor man can fix.
Yes, Violet and Henry both will find a
way to move on, and they’ll be happier, more anchored in life without me.
Who needs a gay dad? Or a husband who,
deep down, doesn’t want what his wife has to offer? Or worse, a dad who
contracts the death sentence of AIDS?
Enough of the grim thoughts. They were
not part of my plan. Tonight, I go out peacefully. I’ll shut my eyes and
remember things like my joy six years ago when Henry was born and seeing him
take his first breath. I shouted, “We got a boy!” and fell into the deepest,
most effortless love I’ve ever felt. I’ll remember proposing to Violet when we
were both college sophomores and the thrill when she accepted the cheap
diamond-chips ring I gave her. Things will be okay now, I remember thinking. I
can change.
I really believed that. And I know I
love Violet as best I can.
It’s sad when your best simply isn’t
good enough.
I reach over for the bottle of sleeping
pills on the nightstand. There are thirty of them, and I intend to take them
all, two or three at a time. If it takes the whole bottle of champagne to get
them down, well, things could be worse. No?
I tip the bottle and look at the tablets
against the dark wood, so innocent, yet so lethal.
I’m just reaching for one when there’s a
sudden knock on the door. Loud. Forceful. Urgent.
“Randy? Randy? Open up, please.”
The door knob turns as Violet’s voice
penetrates the heavy wood of the door, making her sound muffled.
I close my eyes. I could ignore her,
hope she goes away.
How did she find out where I was anyway?
She wasn’t supposed to know until she
got the letter, the one neatly folded and an arm’s length away on the
nightstand.
Pounding. “Please!” Violet calls.
I gather the pills, shoving them back in
the bottle, then hide the container in a nightstand drawer.
How will I explain?
I get up, cross the room, and open the
door.
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Meet the Author
Real Men. True Love. Rick R. Reed draws inspiration from the lives of gay men to craft stories that quicken the heartbeat, engage emotions, and keep the pages turning. Although he dabbles in horror, dark suspense, and comedy, his attention always returns to the power of love. He’s the award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and is forever at work on yet another book. Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA with his beloved husband and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix.Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram
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