✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello everyone! Thank you Addison for allowing me back on the blog.
I’m Holly Day, and I write MM romance stories in various lengths and genres, though most often paranormal. This month, I’m here to talk about a contemporary story, though.
If you know me, you know I write stories for specific days. World Marriage Day is in February, and I had this scene playing in my head of a wedding ceremony, so I wrote it.
Mistakes Were Made is about Ethan and Gael who have a twenty-four-year-old daughter named Hazel. Hazel is the one getting married.
Seven years ago, Gael walked out on Ethan and hooked up with a work colleague.
It was a mistake.
He wrecked his marriage, ruined his relationship with his daughter, and lost Ethan. It was all his own doing, he’s well aware of that, but now he has to stand side by side with Ethan as fathers of the bride.
Ethan has spent the last seven years picking up the pieces of his shattered self. He believed he had it all – a man he loved, a beautiful daughter, and a life he enjoyed.
It was ruined in a few short sentences from Gael. The man he’d believed he was, the life he believed he had was fractured by a few careless words.
Getting over the shock was hard, trying to find peace in his new existents harder, but he did it. He wouldn’t call himself happy exactly, but he has a career he enjoys, a close relationship with his daughter, and he likes David, her husband-to-be, a lot. Everything is great apart from half his soul missing.
Ethan is happy for Hazel, but how will he get through a day with Gael there?
This story was really hard for me to write. I had the idea and I knew what I wanted the story to be like, but it made me realize how much of myself I put in my stories. I believed I’d be able to make Ethan forgive Gael pretty easily, but the real me came into play, and I just couldn’t.
When I started writing, Gael was having an affair with a guy at work, but I couldn’t finish the story while it was like that. I had to go back and make it so Gael walked out on Ethan before he started seeing the colleague. So it’s almost a cheating story, but since RL me never would forgive someone cheating on me, I couldn’t make Ethan forgive either.
Funny. I can write vampires and werewolves, and I can have my characters maim and kill, lie and steal, blackmail and kidnap, but they can’t have an affair. That’s the line I’m unable to cross.
You learn something about yourself every day LOL
If you’re in the mood for a second chance story, check it out. I’m quite fond of it myself despite all the misery it put me through 😊
Mistakes Were Made
by Holly Day
Genre: Gay Spicy Romance
Length: Novella / 30,338 Words / 114 Pages
Heat Rating: 4 Flames
🛒 Purchase Links
Blurb
Seven years ago, Gael Moore, the love of Ethan Moore’s life, walked out on him and their daughter without a second glance. Ethan didn’t see it coming, and it made him question everything about himself. They were happily married, or so he’d thought. He believed they’d achieved their dream. Everything was perfect. Until Gael tore his soul apart in only a few seconds.
Now their daughter is getting married, and as fathers of the bride, Ethan and Gael will stand united once again. It’s for one day only, and Ethan has worked hard on building walls around his heart and appearing unaffected, but he’s only half a person without Gael. He doesn’t know if he ever can trust him again, and when Gael begs for forgiveness, he’s not sure what to do. Will he ever be able to feel whole without him?
Excerpt
Ethan clinked a spoon on the glass in front of him and stood. They’d eaten, and it had looked lovely, but he’d been too nervous to appreciate it the way it was supposed to be appreciated. Which was a shame. Ethan loved food, all kinds of food.
The room fell silent, and he took a step away from his chair to stand where everyone could see him.
He smiled at the crowd. “I want to thank everyone who had a hand in the meal. It was lovely.” He nodded at a few of the staff who were in the room, and there was a murmur of agreement and a short round of applause. When it quieted, he turned to the crowd again. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Ethan, and this amazing person—” He gestured at Hazel. “—is my daughter.” He touched his chest and did his best not to get emotional. “Gael and I—” He moved over to where Gael was seated and put a hand on his shoulder. It sent a shiver through him. He hadn’t touched Gael in seven years, and it was both familiar and strange. “—waited for the stork to deliver a baby for many years. We tried the normal way too, of course, but for some reason, it didn’t take.”
“Daddy!” Hazel hid her face in her hands, but David laughed, so he believed he was okay.
“It’s true, honey. There was nothing I wanted more than a child, and I would’ve walked through fire to get one. Never could I have known I’d be so blessed as to be gifted with you. You were all I could ever have dreamed of and more. A miracle. And I’d do it all over again without so much as blinking if it meant I’d get to have you.” He smiled and reluctantly removed his hand from Gael’s shoulder. “Sleepless night, stomach flus, teething, all of it. I’d do it all again. But I’m too old for babies now, and life doesn’t allow us to go back in time, so I have to find other ways to get more miracles into my life, which is why I want to thank Carl and Sandra—” He sought David’s parents’ gazes. “—for gifting me with a son.” He gestured at David who nodded at him, serious looking now, and a lump formed in his throat. “It’s been a pleasure to get to know you these last couple of years, David, and I know you’ll make my girl happy because you already are. You complement each other, and when you fight, because you will, all you have to do is remember you’re wrong, and moist chocolate cake is the way to go. I always keep some stocked, so give me a call, and I’ll make it happen.”
There were a few snickers, and David grinned at him.
“As I said before, having a family of more than two people has always been my biggest dream. Some people dream of successful careers, of having money in the bank, of traveling the world, and none of that is wrong. I’d say it’s needed for the world to go round, but for me, it was having a family. A loving home. Having people around me who were mine, who I could love unconditionally, and who’d loved me back the same way.”
He looked around.
“When I met Gael, many, many years ago, I knew he was the one I wanted to build my life with. Back then, it wasn’t easy for gay men to become fathers. It was a long and tedious struggle and still is today for queers who want to start families. But it’s one I don’t regret a single second of because it gave me you.” He held Hazel’s gaze. “Gael and I had all but given up hope, and then one day there was a call, and they said they had a baby girl for us.” He took a shuddering breath. “First, I asked the poor woman who called if she was joking, then I cried so hard Gael had to finish the conversation.” He smiled at the memory. “You’re all I ever dreamed of and more, and I know many think their job as fathers is done when they hand their daughter over at the altar, but it’s not how I see it at all. I will always be there for you, and I see this day not as the day when I give you away, but as the day when we’re welcoming David into the family. We didn’t need a ceremony, though. It’s a bit of an overkill, don’t you think?” He shrugged and gestured around the room. “He was ours the first time you asked me to bake a cake for him.”
Hazel nodded and wiped at a tear threatening to escape her eye. Damn, he hadn’t meant to make this emotional.
“What I wanted to say is, Gael and I are so proud of you. So, so proud.” He took a few steps backward, so he was by Gael’s chair again and put a hand on his shoulder one more time. It still made him tingle, but this time he was prepared. “And I think maybe we deserve a pat on the shoulder since we’ve clearly done an awesome job with your upbringing.” He grinned at her, then moved over to his place where he grabbed his glass of champagne. “To the bride and groom, for many happy years, and the miracle of moist chocolate cake.”
There were a few laughs, and he nodded at Hazel and David and brought the glass to his lips. Then he sat next to Lisa. “Okay?” He kept his voice low.
“More than.” She squeezed his thigh underneath the table, and he looked up only to find Gael watching him with a stunned look. Whoops, maybe it was wrong to mention him in the speech. But they were Hazel’s fathers, nothing would ever change that.
About the Author
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.