Stumble Forward

by Alex Jane

  Table of Contents

  Stumble Forward

  All Rights Reserved

  Foreword and Thanks

  For Kate, who taught me how to write.

  Love…but darker

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thank You For Reading

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  The Alphas’ Homestead Series - Book One

  A Mr & Mr Detective Story – #1

  Love…but darker

  Stumble Forward

  by Alex Jane

  Stumble Forward

  Copyright © 2018 Alex Jane

  First Edition –– 2018

  Cover Design by Alex Jane

  All Rights Reserved

  This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer-to-peer program, for free or for a fee. Such action is illegal and in violation of Copyright Law.

  All characters and events and places in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a fantasy world that only bears a passing resemblance to reality.

  Foreword and Thanks

  I don’t know where to start with this.

  This will be the eighth book I’ve published but it’s my first novel. The first story that was wholly my own. From my own tiny brain.

  Originally, I had an idea for a short story about thirty years ago after reading an article in a teen magazine; a brand new, fluffy plot bunny that I didn’t have the slightest idea how to deal with. I didn’t write it down. Writing things down is scary when you don’t think anything you do would be good enough.

  The short story morphed from little thing to something closer to the narrative in this book because (fun fact) I periodically experience insomnia. Instead of counting sheep, I would run the scenes in my head, re-imagine the dialogue, see the panning shots and hear the music like it was a movie. But I still didn’t write it down. Writing things down is scary when you haven’t got the first clue how to start.

  Then about ten years ago, I realized I had a big birthday coming up. The kind of birthday that makes you think about how little time we really have. I’d always taken to heart the idea that everyone has a book in them. Writing is scary. It’s also hard. But I was brave. I didn’t know where to start so I just vomited words all over the page until it was done.

  The story was a piece of shit.

  No, really. It was bad. I know this because people read it. They were kind but ultimately the advice was “start over”. That’s hard to hear. At any point in your creative career that’s hard to hear. I can imagine that would stop some people in their tracks. Except, I was lucky. One of the people who read it was my partner at the time, a man who doesn’t give compliments lightly, who is sweet and kind but doesn’t fuck about hurting your feelings when it comes to critique. He’s perceptive, articulate and well read. He suffered through the whole thing (bless his heart) and then said, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.”

  I think I can imagine what it feels like to win an Oscar or a Pulitzer based on that moment. Those words have sustained me when nothing else did. Because he thought it was going to be bad. And it was bad. But not that bad. I’ll call that a win all day long.

  I took a break but still thought about it, or rather tried not to dwell on it. It’s hard to know how to fix something when you don’t know how it’s broken in the first place. And then something wonderful happened. I found a fandom where people write stories for fun. And if you ask them nicely they’ll throw in some advice along with the pompom waving. I also realised that writing romance between a man and a woman just doesn’t work for me but…two men? That’s a different story. Literally. People diss fandom and fanfiction a lot but that’s because they don’t get community or generosity or loving people you’ve never met in real life. I tried again. I used boys’ names. I found a bunch of friends who gently talked me through how dialogue tags worked, and how epithets are the devil, and made me feel like I could maybe do this writing thing. And Stumble Forward was finally, finally, born.

  This is my first story. My first novel. I still think it’s a bit shit but that’s the seventeen year old in me talking. I might be a little braver than I was thirty years ago, or even ten years ago but writing—publishing—still scares the absolute bejesus out of me. The difference now is that I don’t care. I love this story. I’ve loved it for most of my life. There have been other stories and there will be more. But this was my first. I hope you like it. You might love it; I know some people who do. If you don’t, that’s okay. Thanks for giving it a chance. In the end, I wrote this for me and I’m publishing it for me. Because this is my one book. Anything else is just gravy. It’s taken years for me to pluck up the courage to get this from my head onto paper so I don’t think I should let a little thing like crippling self-doubt and pathological fear of humiliation stop me from going all the way. After all, maybe I’ll get the chance to look back one day and think, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.”

  Lots of people have worked on this book. Lots. I’m going to try to thank everyone but I’m bound to miss someone out. So if you’ve helped at all—even just giving me a kick up the butt or a shake of your pompoms—you got me here and I’m very grateful. Other contributors have included, the very brave O and C who may never recover, Birgit, Morrwen, Kim, Emma, June, KM, Stella, Kendra, Kate, Janet, Cat, Milly, Rose, Rebecca, Emilias, Amy, Suzanne and Rhys. Also, my mom, who read various versions and “skimmed the rude bits.” Your sacrifice has not been in vain. Okay, maybe partly in vain…no way I’m giving up those run on sentences anytime soon. I love you all. I miss many of you too.

  They say it takes a village—they’re not wrong.

  For Kate, who taught me how to write.

  For Milly, who made me believe it.

  And for KM. Words can’t express.

  Love…but darker

  Warnings and Enticements

  Potential triggers and taboo subjects

  Love…but darker isn’t so much a series as a collection of sorts.

  Most of my stories are about finding love and family, but some are decidedly less wholesome, taboo, or require warnings that I wouldn’t think to include in my other work. I would still consider them romances but…well, just don’t expect fluffy bunnies or hearts and flowers.

  This book falls into that category. Trigger warnings definitely apply and there are some difficult and taboo themes. If you’d like to view the trigger warnings you can find them on my website – www.alexjane.info/warningsandenticements – Any potential plot spoilers or twists will be hidden so you can choose to view the
m or not.

  Otherwise, there is no sexual violence, no major character death

  and no unhappy ending in this story.

  Chapter One

  “You really wearing that?”

  Alec huffed out a laugh as he shrugged on his old leather jacket. He knew damn well she didn’t mean the scruffy blue jeans, or the faded black t-shirt, or even the scuffed brown boots. She never had a problem with him dressing down. It was the jacket. Always with the jacket.

  “Yes. Yes, I am. Is that a problem?” He smiled to himself, adjusting the worn collar, and tugging down the frayed sleeve as he turned to look at her. Except the eye contact and disappointed expression he was expecting wasn’t waiting for him. He could see his mother beyond the open door to the kitchen, but she was still rifling through a drawer; her long, blonde hair falling forward, obscuring her face.

  “No, no problem. It’s—well, you could do with a new one is all. I could buy you one? For your birthday, maybe?”

  Alec shook his head. “Mom…”

  The disapproving tone was enough. His mom looked up and smiled, holding her hands out in surrender.

  “Okay. Just a suggestion.” Distracted, she put her fingers to her lips and scanned the kitchen surfaces for the fifth time, murmuring, “I cannot figure out what I’ve done with the damn thing.”

  “Did you try the table next to the couch?”

  “Ah! Good thinking!” She scooted past him in the hallway on the way to the lounge, not bothering to close the adjoining door behind her.

  Alec smiled at the sight of her flapping robe and bare feet slapping on the wooden floor, and turned back to the mirror. He had to duck down in order to see enough of his head to fix his hair. Not for the first time he wondered if he’d grown considerably since high school or if his mom had lowered everything in the house when he’d left for college. He seemed to spend a lot more time bending down to look at stuff since he had come home.

  Sighing at his reflection, he couldn’t help thinking it was typical. His first night out in weeks and for some reason he had woken up with the most ridiculous cowlick that even after a day’s work still stuck up like it was hailing a cab. He patted at it for another minute before giving up, his attention turning instead to a loose thread dangling from the collar of his jacket.

  He knew why she hated the jacket, and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the way it looked like she had always claimed. It was what it said with the way it looked.

  Alec ran his hands over the leather as he compiled the evidence.

  The faded watermark had once been beer; spilt by some guy who had taken offence at some long forgotten remark and had left Alec with a fractured cheekbone.

  The cigarette burn on the sleeve that he’d made himself, falling unconscious while waiting fruitlessly for a taxi that would risk taking him home even though he couldn’t stand unsupported.

  Then there was the rip in the elbow. His mom had neatly repaired it for him, after it turned out that the guy didn’t only have an ugly girlfriend, but a pretty big knife too.

  And the faded dark brown stain on the lining and the collar left by the blood that had poured from a gash to his chin when he had not been so quick on his feet.

  But he’d deserved that one. Hell, he’d deserved them all. The scars he could slip from his shoulders, and the ones that he couldn’t shed so easily.

  Unconsciously, his hand lifted to rub a finger over the thick white stripe of flesh on his jawline.

  It made sense. His history laid out like that. The reasons why she hated the coat, and the reasons why he had such sentiment for it, one and the same. It wasn’t like he wore it out of pride.

  He needed the reminder. She didn’t.

  Didn’t want to think about it, and didn’t want to see him remember either.

  Even Ethan thought he should give it up too. Kept telling him, “it was time”, whatever the hell that meant. Like there would ever be a time that he could forgive himself, or put everything behind him, and simply move on.

  Everyone kept expecting him to do it, expecting it to just happen like magic or summer becoming autumn. Everyone but him. Ethan said Alec was punishing himself, and that he couldn’t do it forever. His mom had said pretty much the same thing. But what did they know?

  Shaking off the pointless, recurring thoughts, Alec tried patting his sandy hair down one more time before giving up and reaching for the car keys on the hallway table. There was a triumphant cry from the lounge. He smiled and called out, “Did you find it?”

  His mom walked back in, brandishing a shiny, red fountain pen as thick as a cigar in her fingers. “Right where you said it would be. You sure you didn’t move it?”

  Alec laughed as he walked to her, asking, “Aren’t I supposed to be the paranoid one?” She half-smiled as he put an arm around her and said, “I’m off. Shouldn’t be too late back.”

  “I’m working tomorrow so try to keep it down when you come in.”

  “Sure thing.” He kissed her head as he turned to leave, but, as he started to pull away, she grabbed hold of his lapel and pulled him back.

  “Don’t have too much of a good of a time, okay?” Her voice was quiet and hesitant, her eyes on the jacket rather than his face.

  Alec sighed and covered her small hand with his own, engulfing it. There was a time when his heart would lurch in his chest at the thought of causing her worry; and a time when he couldn’t have given a fuck at all how she was feeling. Now, he could only keep his voice steady, knowing there was very little he could say to stop her from fretting.

  “Mom, come on. It’s just me and Ethan. It’ll be fine.”

  He kissed her hair again, inhaling the comforting scent of vanilla and almond that always followed her around, as she released her grip.

  As Alec turned his back and walked away, he prayed that he wasn’t a liar. Not anymore.

  Chapter Two

  “Hey! I said it’s your shot.”

  Ethan slapped his large hand hard onto Alec’s shoulder, snapping him out of his stupor. Alec hadn’t even realized he had been standing there staring off into space.

  He told himself it was the heat in the bar. The raised area at the back where they had installed the pool tables didn’t have much ventilation of it’s own, and the decorative but useless ceiling fans were doing nothing to offset the added warmth from the low hanging lights over the tables. Being Texan through and through, he felt like he should be used to a little heat, but it was making him zone out.

  There was no money on the game but he needed to snap out of it. Alec shook his head slightly, hoping to will the languor away, and rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry, man. I don’t know where my head’s at.”

  Ethan squeezed his shoulder and leaned closer so he could almost whisper, “Y’know, we don’t have to be here if it’s too difficult.”

  For a big man, his voice had such a gentle quality to it and Alec couldn’t help but smile.

  When Steve had first introduced Alec to Ethan, he had been a little intimidated. Scratch that. He had been more than a little intimidated. The guy looked terrifying.

  Alec was tall, and had gotten into the habit of working out pretty much every day, so even though he didn’t look like a gym bunny, he wasn’t slight by any means. He was used to the way that people reacted to him since he bulked up; women, a little wide eyed; guys wanting to puff their chests out.

  Ethan was only an inch or so taller than him, but was so broad that when he first came over to shake Alec’s hand, Alec felt like he got a real glimpse into how other people saw him. The guy could clearly snap him like a twig. It was a little scary. The serial-killer-blue eyes didn’t help any either.

  But then he’d cracked that sweet smile and laughed low and soft at Alec’s wide-eyed trepidation and that had been that.

  A year on, it still amazed Alec how much Ethan laughed for a man who shouldn’t have all that much to laugh about. In one of his darker moments, Alec had asked him how he did it, how he could be so s
unny all the time, when all Alec wanted to do was curl up in a corner and die. Compared to Ethan he had nothing to feel bad about. Ethan had just looked at him with his sky blue eyes empty for once, and said, “You don’t think I’ve cried enough?” They never talked about it again.

  Alec took hold of the pool cue leaning against the table, and took a swig of the beverage he was nursing. He didn’t want to be there but he didn’t want to leave either. It had taken a while for Ethan to convince him to come out for the night, and leaving would feel like a failure. So, he smiled and shook his head. “Oh no! Don’t try to pull that one! You really think I’m going to throw the game just when I’m kicking your ass?”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. Alec looked down at the scant balls on the table and his drastic change of fortune, he could see why. As Alec bent to line up his shot, Ethan took up his own drink from the wooden edge of the table, and asked, “So how does it feel? Being back here?”

  The balls snicked together and as Alec straightened, they made an even more satisfying sound as one tumbled into the pocket. He shrugged and walked around the table, calculating his next shot and contemplating the question. The pool tables weren’t busy— there was only one other table occupied by a couple that didn’t seem all that interested in playing—so it felt pretty private. There was some comfort to be had from being caught in their own bubble of illumination from the light above the baize.

  Alec shrugged again. “It feels fine. It’s a little different than I remember but it’s been three years, give or take,” He leaned down, took a shot, and smiled as the ball wobbled in the jaws of the pocket before submitting. “Being sober probably helps some too.”

  Ethan smirked and raised his bottle in salute. But five minutes later, watching the black ball run smoothly into the pocket and disappear, he wasn’t smiling.

  Alec was though. He chuckled and slapped Ethan on the back. “Never mind, old man, I just got lucky. The next one’s got your name on it, for sure.”