I love me some hurt/comfort! And a happy sigh for “easy charm and a quick smile” paired with “a down to earth attitude.” Combine that with a little mutual unrequited attraction meets forced proximity, and we’ve got a winner!!!!
Treadmill ~ Sun., 25-Sept. > Mon., 26-Sept.
That’s a screen shot of my Apple watch workouts that were recorded while on the treadmill. My goal is to read while walking on the treadmill for at least one 30-minute mile per day.
I’ve been reading every day, but I’m a tad bit behind in posting about it. I’ve got two more books done besides this one that’ll take us through Thursday’s reading, and those will be posted (probably) on this coming Monday and Tuesday.
I did a little off-treadmill reading for this book in addition to the two treadmill workouts shown.
This is the story of Alex and Luke. Part 1 is told from Alex’s 3rd-person POV, and part 2 is told from Luke’s, then another short scene from Alex’s for the epilogue.
I’ve only got two snippets for this because the first one I wanted to use is quite long. It does such a lovely job of setting the stage for what the story is about, though. 🙂
All snippets are from Alex’s POV:
The first speaker here is the doctor in the hospital, not wanting to release Alex, who’s just been injured, but Alex hates hospitals and insists:
She twisted her mouth. “I’m not happy,” she said. “I can’t make you stay. But have you definitely got no-one to stay with you?”
Blast. She’d heard Martin say he had to go.
“I’ll stay,” Luke said. “Go on, Martin. Don’t be late for Shannon.”
“What?” Alex looked at him, frowning.
“I’ll stay with you.” He turned to the doctor. “What do I need to do?”
“Wake him regularly, basically. And if he seems confused, or if the headache gets worse, bring him back in.” She pulled a face and peeled the instruction leaflet Alex had returned to her off her clipboard. “Here. It’s all written down. And I’ve put the time to bring him back to have his arm set. Monday morning, bring him to orthopaedics. In the meantime, keep it elevated or in the sling.” She waved a loop of pink foam at them. “Which I am going to put on him now.”
Alex gritted his teeth and let her do it. He hated being touched and he hated being touched when he was hurting even more.
Luke didn’t speak to him, but he did kneel on the floor at Alex’s feet and helped him on with his socks and boots, patiently unpicking the double-knots Alex habitually tied his laces in and now couldn’t undo one-handed.
Luke never spoke to him if he could avoid it.
He was the production manager, a few years older and couple of inches shorter than Alex. He was a stocky, barrel-chested man, whose down to earth attitude often meant he left Alex feeling he was doing something wrong in their interactions. He couldn’t get Luke to like him, somehow.
Luke let Alex’s smiles and his easy jokes roll off him, keeping it all business, never smiling back properly. It made Alex a bit nervous around him.
“You don’t have to do that,” Alex said to him, addressing his words to the top of Luke’s head.
“It’s fine,” Luke said, shortly. “Give me your other sock.”
And this little snippet just made be go “Aww…” with a happy little smile. 🙂
He didn’t remember waking up again after that until it was light. He could see his bedside clock and it was just after seven, about the time he usually surfaced if he hadn’t had a show the night before. Luke was still in the armchair, hunched on his side, the duvet pulled up to his chest.
Alex took the opportunity to really look at him. In sleep, mouth slightly open, face smushed into the pillowed wing of the chair, his habitual guarded look was absent. Alex didn’t know how he knew it was a guarded look; he just did. His heart gave a throb as devastating as the constant rhythm of his pulsing headache.
Out of Focus by A.L. Lester
Contemporary M/M Romance
Spreading more book love!
Here are more of my…
✓ recent reads
✓ current reads
✓ re-reads
and/or
✓ want-to-reads
(all genres included)
About My #Treadmill / #AmReading Posts
I started out with this being a Sunday thing, but sometimes I’d rather not mash multiple books into a single post, so now, you never know when you might see one of these posts.
Rather than give a true “review,” which I’m not entirely comfortable doing as an author myself, I share snippets from books I’ve read and enjoyed, letting the authors’ words speak for themselves.
As you’ve possibly noticed, if you’ve been following along, I highlight snippets for reasons of my own which might veer from what is often seen. Sometimes my highlights have more to do with a paragraph simply impressing the heck out of me for its fabulous writerly technique, other times it has to do with the lovely way it gives subtle insight into the story/characters. Still other times simply because it made me laugh.
Anyway, I sometimes add a little commentary, but not always, which is not in any way, shape, or form, to be taken as unwritten commentary. Most likely it just means I’m short on time and/or context isn’t needed to understand what’s happening, and/or my brain doesn’t feel like putting out the effort in that particular moment.
Also, I’m going to try to spread the book love by tacking on covers of more books at the end of the post that I’ve either recently read, am currently reading, or want to read. Not seeing a full post with snippets for any of these books is not a commentary on anything other than how much time I have available in a day either to read or to create a post about what I’ve read. It might also mean I listened to the audiobook only or that it’s a reread that I’ve featured previously, or it’s not M/M so probably not a good fit for featuring on this blog.
Happy reading!
Such a delightful story!
IKR!? It was a lovely read! ❤️
I LOVE this book! 🙂
Same! So many great tropes touched on here, and I always love Ally’s writing. ❤️