Leighton

He was the one that got away

Jesse:

I had a pretty good life. Successful singing career, a few platinum albums, an award or two. Not bad for a high school dropout who left home with his younger brother at twenty-two after our dad killed himself and never looked back. As much as I tried to leave that part of my past dead and buried, though, some things just never went away. Like the pain of losing Noah.

Noah:

I wasn't supposed to meet the love of my life at sixteen, a fact that was made painfully clear when we were ripped apart. Life has a twisted way of bringing things back, though, like the first time I heard Jesse’s soulful voice on the radio. It was easy to shut it off and pretend that part of my life was over, since it was. But when my brother was killed, and Jesse walked back into my life again after fourteen years, all I wanted to do was run to him.

Should either of us dare to hope for a second chance when it was a tragedy that brought us together?

The Musician and the Muse is the first book in the Leighton series. It is a 107k word MM romance featuring some hurt/comfort, movie nights, a totally clichéd long walk on the beach, a little reminiscing, and a lot of serenading.

I was never supposed to see him again.

Derek:

I always hoped to meet my dream man the old-fashioned way. Instead, here I was at thirty, and all I had under my belt was a lifetime of bad first dates, being stood up, and getting ghosted. See, once most guys realized that the brewery owner was secretly an introverted chemistry nerd, they bolted.
As it turned out, Leo wasn't most guys.

We met at a club, and our connection was instantaneous. For the first time in my life, I felt like someone saw things in me that I’d never even seen myself. And when Leo popped back up in my life again? Those last few embers of hope I’d long extinguished began to flicker again.

That was, until Leo seemed to not want to have anything to do with me.

So why can’t I stop provoking him?

Leo:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had just two goals in life: get out of Leighton, and open my own restaurant. I accomplished the first at eighteen and was so close to the second I could taste it. But when one bad decision at my old restaurant resulted in not only getting fired but having to move in with my brother, I thought I’d hit rock bottom. Starting over at thirty-four in Leighton was about the lowest things could get.

Until I ran into someone I thought I’d never see again. Someone who made me seriously rethink my one-and-done rule. There was just one problem, though.

I couldn’t risk another job, even for someone like Derek.

So why can’t I stop thinking about him?

The Brewer and the Bartender is the second book in the Leighton series. It is an 88k word MM romance featuring inappropriately named cocktails, awkward mornings after, a little beer and Cajun food, and a lot of “extracurricular activities.”

Sometimes salvation comes from the person you'd least expect.

Owen:

The day I came home and discovered my partner of six years had left me, I was devastated. There was no warning, no note, no nothing. Just his closets emptied out and his key shoved under the door. Picking up the pieces was a slow process because no one in my life understood just how difficult it was to move on when you had no idea why you were even dumped in the first place.

But then I ran into Alex and discovered my old classmate's marriage to his high school girlfriend was going about as well as my own relationship. Finally, another person knew what I was going through.

There was only one problem: he used to be friends with my high school bully.

Oh, and I used to have a massive crush on him.

And he was straight. So, three problems, really.

Alex:

Ever since my wife walked out on my, my life had one single focus: our nine-year-old son. Now that the divorce was final and the months of bickering with my ex-wife and her lawyer were in the past, I could move on. At least, that's what everyone was telling me to do. In reality, I still didn't know why my wife even left me. All I knew was that the night I ran into Owen, I felt inexplicably drawn to him. And when he asked me out for a drink later, I felt more alive than I had in months.

There was only one problem: I used to be friends with his high school bully.

Oh, and I used to have a teensy little crush on him.

And I wasn't quite as straight as he, and everyone else, thought I was. So three problems, really.

The Reject and the Rebound is the third book in the Leighton series. It is a 93k word MM romance featuring unusual Halloween costumes, typical Thanksgiving family arguments, Christmas celebrated on New Year's Day, and lots of getting sweaty in between.