INTRODUCING LETTING GO - How do you move on when your heart is shattered in a single, tragic moment?
James Croft fell for his one true love in high school, only to lose him to suicide. How can he move on from the tragic moment that irrevocably changed his life?
Dr. Trevor Alexander lives for his career, until the day his former patient’s angry, disillusioned father walks back into his life. Suddenly, Trevor wants more.
Desperate to put the past behind him, James reluctantly decides to date the sexy doctor. But maintaining a relationship is easier said than done. Can James come to terms with his past? Can Trevor accept what his lover can never forget?
They must try, because there’s no future in the past. PREORDER: https://www.amazon.com/Letting-One-More-Chance-Book-ebook/dp/B077WV3GWH
At thirty-two, after having been married and raising two kids, all the men who packed the crowded club seemed like babies to him. There had to be another way to meet someone. Maybe he should wait and let things fall where they may. There was bound to be a gay man at the golf course, at the gym, or hell, even at the supermarket, wasn’t there?
The minute a leather clad man with nipple piercings approached him, he turned and fled the building, bumping into Martin as he hurried outside.
“Whoa, where do you think you’re going?” Martin asked, reaching for his arm to turn him back toward the bar.
“This is not my scene, man, “JC said, jerking his arm away. “I’m not going back in there so a leather clad freak can hit on me.”
“I thought you wanted to have some fun!” Martin pouted. “This is the perfect place to let loose and get back into the groove.”
“This is not the groove I want to get into. I’ll take my chances at the supermarket.”
Martin stuck his nose in the air and turned away from JC. After a minute he turned back to him, leveling a haughty gaze at his friend. “Fine! Let’s just go to the boring bar and have a couple of drinks. Nothing going on there but playing pool and…and conversation!” With a look of disgust, he grabbed JC’s arm and dragged him down the street.
The outside of the bar was nice and pretty unassuming. It was an older building that spoke of many generations past, back when Denver had a western flare. It wasn’t one of the new, modern buildings that seemed to have overtaken the city. Except for the name lit up in bright green neon above the door, you would almost move past it without knowing it was even there. “Come on, Mr. Stick in the Mud,” Martin mumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Are you sure this is the right kind of bar?” JC asked as they stepped inside. But he immediately knew he needn’t have asked that question. The long wood bar was crowded with males from every walk of life – from suits to battered jeans and work boots, it was a veritable buffet of men.
Tables were scattered around the back of the room but only one of them was in use. A group of men in dress clothes sat around a rectangular one laughing and joking. The man who held court at the head of the table made JC’s stomach lurch. Dr. Trevor Alexander…the man who had let his daughter die.
“You son of a bitch! You’re lying. What the hell did you do to my daughter?” All JC could hear was his racing heart. All he could see was the room spinning and blurring before him. He had to regain control.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Croft…”
Rage built inside JC and he could no longer control it. The asshole standing in front of him said his Abby was dying. She’d been fine just an hour before. “What the hell did you do to my daughter,” he repeated, stepping toward the doctor. His wife’s firm grip on his arm was the only thing that kept him from wrapping his hands around the man’s throat and putting him in the same state his daughter was in. His Abigail was dying and it was all Dr. Alexander’s fault.
“Are you okay?” Martin asked when he noticed his friend’s startled expression.
“Yeah…uh, yeah. I’m fine. Let’s grab a table.” The memory still haunted him from time to time and now with the good doctor mere feet away, he hadn’t been able to stop it. Why was that son of a bitch still happy and breathing?
“We’d better do it now; this place will be getting overrun in about a half-hour.”
The two men sat across from each other making sure to let anyone who may be watching know that they weren’t there together. A waiter in tight jeans and a painted-on t-shirt hurried over to them, his look of boredom quickly fading to be replaced by a genuine smile. “My name is Patrick. I’ll be grabbing your drinks tonight. What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have a beer,” JC murmured. “Whatever’s cold and in a bottle.”
“And you?” The waiter asked with an extra special smile to Martin. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have the same…and hurry back, I’m really thirsty.”
The waiter winked at Martin and headed for the bar.
“Well it looks like at least one of us is going to get lucky tonight,” JC chuckled, his eyes periodically moving to the table across the room. Not that he was there specifically for a one night stand – he wanted to meet someone he could get to know. One night stands were not on his radar anymore.
Martin huffed and shrugged. “I’m here to get you laid, not myself…but if it happens, I won’t complain,” he chuckled. “And you seem to have set your sights on that amazing specimen of a man over at that other table.”
JC quickly brought his gaze back from across the room. “Him? No way in Hell!”
“Oh? Do you know him?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” JC said softly. “He was the doctor who worked on Abigail in the ER.” And as Martin opened his mouth to speak, James put his hand up. “I know, I know, he didn’t kill Abigail. But you know what? It sure as hell feels that way when someone tells you that there is nothing more that they can do and that your four-year-old child will probably not make it through the night.”
“If you truly know that, then you should have nothing against him,” Martin said, matter-of-fact. “He’s hot, you’re hot. He’s gay, you’re gay. I don’t see the problem. Go over and reintroduce yourself.”
JC warred with the thoughts going through his head. A very small part of him knew that Martin was right, but he couldn’t… “Nah, I said some pretty nasty things the last time I saw him, besides last he knew Jenny and I were happily married. He thinks I’m straight.”
“If you ask me,” Martin said, tossing his head. “That gives you two even more to talk about. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
“No,” JC snarled.
The bar quickly started to fill up just as Martin had said it would. Very attractive men were everywhere, and JC knew he could probably have his pick. But the moment he’d walked in and seen the doctor he’d lost interest in the whole evening. In two short days, it would be the eighth anniversary of his baby girl’s death.
Beer after beer, he sat and alternated between talking with Martin and looking over at the good doctor and his friends. Martin was right about one thing; Trevor Alexander was hot as hell! He hadn’t been in a position to notice that before. Even in his stuffy clothes, JC could see how taught and perfectly formed his body was. The way his muscles stretched his dress shirt was practically sinful. But he wasn’t interested in that particular sin.
