Chasing Forever by Kelly Jensen blog tour
Chasing Forever is the final book in the series This Time Forever. Brian and Mal's story is special in all sorts of ways. Even though these books all standalone, Brian has been there since the beginning--as the character everyone loved to hate in the first book, and the character who seemed to have more to him in book two. In this final story, I share who Brian really is, and hope you'll all come to love him as much as I do. Then there's Mal, his other half, my serious soldier who has been waiting all his life for a challenge like Brian. Sometimes we have to be knocked lower than ever before in order to reach that high, and Mal's journey is one I treasure. I hope you enjoy reading this story of redemption and learning to live out loud.
About Chasing Forever
Old wounds, new directions, and a forever worth chasing.
Malcolm Montgomery was a history teacher and track coach until
an accident left him with two broken legs. He’ll recover, but life has knocked
his feet out twice now. He’s not sure if he’s ready to try again, especially
when it comes to love—and slick guys like Brian Kenway. Still, he needs help
mentoring the school’s LGBTQ society, so he asks Brian to take some
responsibility.
Brian has been hiding behind his reputation as a liar and a
cheat for so long that he actually believes he’s that guy—until his nephew,
Josh, turns up on his couch, tossed out for being gay. Brian has never
considered being a father, but he knows all about being rejected by loved ones.
Now Brian wants to be more: a partner for Mal and a role model for Josh.
But when Mal’s recovery is set
back and the sad truth of Brian’s past is revealed, the forever they’ve been
chasing seems even further from their grasps. It’ll take a rescue effort to
revive their sense of worth and make Brian, Mal, and Josh into a family of
their own.
About the This Time Forever Series
Small towns and second chances.
Simon,
Frank, and Brian think love has passed them by. Each is facing down his
fiftieth birthday—Simon in a few years, Frank next year, and Brian soon enough.
Each has loved and lost. But for these men, everything old really is new again,
and it’s only when they return to their roots that they’ll find their second
chances and the happily ever after they’ve been waiting their whole lives for.
This
time it’s forever.
This series includes:
3. Chasing Forever — released December 10
Excerpt
Visit with Vanessa
This is a longish excerpt, but when it came time to choose
pieces of Chasing Forever to share, I knew this would be one of them. Vanessa
is Brian’s best friend and this visit with her is as necessary for him as it is
to his new relationship with his nephew, Josh. We learn a lot about Brian as a
man in this scene: where he came from and why he’s so lost. It also marks a
sort of truce between him and Josh, and a change in direction for them.
~*~
Vanessa opened the door and greeted
Brian with her customary smile and smacking kiss to his lips. Brian hugged her
tight, inhaling the familiar scent of perfume and Vanessa, his oldest friend.
He loved this woman. Would marry her if she wasn’t always getting married to
someone else. Also, he’d suck as a husband. He had no interest in sex with
Vanessa and a lot of interest in sex with other people. Men. Mal, currently.
“You must be Josh,” Vanessa was
saying to his pink-cheeked nephew. “The color of your hair is fantastic! How
long ago did you dye it?”
Josh did a little gaping.
“And I cannot get over how much
like Brian you are. It’s like being transported back a hundred years.”
“Which would make you as old as I
am,” Brian put in.
Vanessa, of course, looked amazing
and ten years younger than he did.
Putting her hand around Josh’s
shoulder, she guided him up the stairs and into her studio, a light-filled
space that encompassed nearly the entire top floor of the house. Brian
followed.
They were across Elizabeth Avenue
from Weequahic Park, light-years from where he’d grown up, but only a few miles
in actual fact. Brian didn’t visit Vanessa often—he found the reminder of where
he’d come from both nostalgic and painful. Mostly painful. After he’d been
kicked out, he’d lived in this house with Vanessa and her uncle Tristan for a handful
of years before college. They’d been good years, despite the fact that Tristan
had been slowly dying the whole time. But Tristan had done his best to convince
Brian that life was worth living, and now, some thirty years later, Brian had
to agree. Still, returning to Elizabeth Avenue was always hard—even more so
than simply being in Newark—and Brian often wondered why Vanessa had remained.
Of course, she hadn’t had his start. And she’d always had Tristan. Maybe she’d
dulled pain of his loss by continuing to live here, even after Tristan’s death.
Brian was unaware he’d made a sound
until Vanessa touched his arm. Had he sighed? Hopefully it had only been a
sigh. As though she sensed his thoughts, she squeezed his arm and gave him the
special smile that had made and kept their friendship. “Wait here.”
Vanessa abandoned them in the
middle of the large attic room, where two couches faced each other over a
coffee table piled high with books and magazines. All of the walls were hung
with her paintings. One also had a row of low counters and cabinets, which was
where she stored her tools. Adjacent to her work space were the windows
overlooking the park, and the source of most of the light. Large skylights
opened up the sloping ceiling so that even on the darkest days, Vanessa barely
needed to turn on a light. She had lights, though, clustered over the half of
the attic devoted to her easels and tables.
She’d disappeared into one of the
two rooms at the back that she used to store her work.
While Brian worked to steady his
breathing—no more sighing!—Josh wandered toward the half-finished painting on
the closest easel. “I can’t believe I’m actually here. Do you think she’d let
me take a couple of pictures?” He had his phone in his hand.
“Probably. Maybe not the unfinished
stuff, but I don’t know. I’ve never asked.”
“How come you don’t have any of her
paintings at your place if you’re such good friends?”
“I do. I just haven’t hung them up.
I’ve only been in that house for . . .” Two years. “I had them
hanging in my old place.”
“My art is in a box? For shame,
Brian.” Vanessa popped out of the storage room, carrying two small canvases.
Brian recognized the frames. “Oh,
no. Ness. Don’t show him those.”
Grinning evilly, Vanessa held out
the two portraits for Josh to see. “Me and Brian, age . . .” She
glanced over her shoulder. “God, were we seventeen? Eighteen?”
Brian reached out to snatch the
portrait he’d done, the crime against art he’d painted so long ago. “I cannot
believe you kept these.”
“I kept all your art.”
“What do you mean ‘all’?”
“I have your sketchbooks too.”
“You are no longer my best friend.”
Vanessa laughed. “So you keep
trying to tell me. Find someone else who will put up with you for as long as I
have and we’ll visit that topic again.” She hadn’t let go of his painting, and
Josh was studying it and comparing it to Vanessa’s portrait of Brian, which
even then showed what would become her style: messy blocks of color that could
look like nothing so much as a cut-up picture pasted back together again.
Badly. But also showed exactly what it was meant to be: a face. An impossibly
young face framed by dark-purple hair and big blue eyes.
“You had purple hair?” Josh asked,
glancing up at Brian.
Cheeks heating, Brian reached for
his picture again. “For a while.”
“And green and blue, something like
yours. Orange. Black. Do you remember your black phase?” Vanessa asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Josh turned his attention back to
Brian’s painting. Brian’s style was much more realistic than Vanessa’s—something
he’d struggled with and probably the reason he’d given up on art. He’d never
been able to get anything to look exactly as it should and had never grasped
why you would paint a scene other than realistically, even though he could
appreciate Vanessa’s style for what it was. But he’d never had any real talent.
His lines were timid and his perspective off. He had an easier time with
buildings. Plans. Square things.
Josh’s lips pressed together and
apart. Then he glanced up. “You were good.”
Snorting, Brian pointed toward
Vanessa’s latest canvas. “If you want good, check out Vanessa’s stuff.”
An hour passed with Vanessa
allowing Josh to take pictures of whatever he wanted. Apparently she posted
regular updates of her works in progress online. They chatted art and music and
food while Brian made affirmative noises when called upon. He envied the ease
with which Vanessa bonded with his nephew, and was grateful for it at the same
time. Josh was obviously having a good day, and that mean Brian was having a
good day.
When Josh excused himself to use
the bathroom, Vanessa sidled up next to Brian and put her arm around his waist,
snuggling in close as she always did. “He’s adorable.”
“Today he is.”
“Have you stopped looking for
somewhere to send him?” Vanessa arched her eyebrows in question, while eyes
dared him to say no.
Brian shrugged and she smiled.
“I like seeing you like this,” she
said.
“Like what?”
“With family. With Josh. He likes
you.”
“I’m sure he does.”
“No. He . . . Be
nice to him, Bri. I get the feeling you’re the only thing standing between him
and you know what.”
Brian grimaced lightly. “That’s
because I am.”
“So you know how important what
you’re doing is.”
“That’s why I brought him here
today.”
Her smile widened. “I’m glad you
did. You don’t visit me often enough.”
“Yeah, well.”
Sobering slightly, Vanessa gave him
another hug. “It’s okay to let go, Brian. You know that, right? You can’t hold
on to everything forever.”
He wanted to tell her he had let
go—of a lot. This house, for instance. But as quickly as the thought occurred,
a second replaced it. He’d never encouraged a friendship between Vanessa and
Simon, and this was why. Just as he’d always kept one condo empty, he liked to
keep spaces between the compartments of his life. Vanessa here, with his past, Simon . . .
There was no Simon. Not anymore. Was it because of this . . .
this feeling welling up inside him now? The memory of himself at Josh’s age? A
younger version of himself. The self he had only ever shared with one person,
the woman hugging him so tightly right now?
And if he was going to be doing all
this thinking—it must be Vanessa’s perfume. She always smelled like a fresh
spring morning after the rain . . . If he was going to keep
thinking along these lines, examining the rights and wrongs, then which part of
himself was he going to share with Mal?
Or was that something else he
should let go of?
Once again sensing his thoughts,
Vanessa pressed a kiss to his cheek. Brian sighed—purposefully this time—and
rested his forehead against hers.
About Kelly Jensen
If aliens
ever do land on Earth, Kelly will not be prepared, despite having read over a
hundred stories about the apocalypse. Still, she will pack her precious books
into a box and carry them with her as she strives to survive. It’s what
bibliophiles do.
Kelly
is the author of a number of novels, novellas, and short stories, including the
Chaos Station series, cowritten with Jenn Burke. Some of what she writes is
speculative in nature, but mostly it’s just about a guy losing his socks and/or
burning dinner. Because life isn’t all conquering aliens and mountain peaks.
Sometimes finding a happy ever after is all the adventure we need.
Connect
with Kelly:
Giveaway
To
celebrate the release of Chasing Forever one lucky person will win a $25
Riptide Publishing gift card and a swag pack of stickers, art cards,
and bookmarks! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest.
Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on December 15, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted
to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your
contact info!
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