My new Road to Rocktoberfest 2024 book is out now. Of course, I didn’t manage to write a classic rockstar romance – check out Missing Chord, a story of music and aging, mistakes, redemption, and second chances.
On Amazon and in KU – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D81FLFBL
Griffin is 56 and his stellar career has been on the downhill slide.
Lee is 40, a caring nurse-practitioner working in a nursing home.
Once, twenty years ago, they were on their way to something special, but they couldn’t make it work. Griffin left for bright lights and fame. Lee raged and cried, and soldiered on with his life.
Now past losses and a terrible mistake have brought them together again, and the spark is still there. But taking another chance means forgiving each other, and themselves. It means risking a pain that twenty years didn’t erase. Because Griffin is still aimed at Rocktoberfest and those bright lights, and Lee is still staying home.
Excerpt
Lee
Eventually I made my way to the ground floor, heading for the nursing home kitchen. From the common room, I could hear music, louder than normal and clearer than the TV speakers usually managed to produce. The song snagged at my heart. One of Griffin’s old standards. I remembered when he wrote the tune, sitting naked on the edge of his bed at two a.m., guitar in hand, while I lounged on the pillows beside him, fucked out and drifting.
“How the hell do you still have that much energy?” I’d mumbled.
He’d grinned at me, his blue eyes flashing, lips parted. He’d been clean-shaven then, showing off his gorgeous features. “You inspire me.”
And when I laughed, he’d set aside the guitar, tumbled toward me, and let me inspire him some more…
Water long under the bridge. At one point years back, the memory would’ve made me grit my teeth. Now, it made me smile. No one in my life had ever been like Griffin, before or after.
I was busy as hell since we were perennially short-staffed, but when I had Mr. Vincent’s cup of juice, I detoured by the common room for a moment. The concert was still playing, and I wondered which version of Griffin I’d see on the screen. My sexy, wild-haired man at thirty-six making love to the microphone on his climb to fame? The solid performer of the years after we split, his hair shorter, the first lines creasing beside his eyes, his fingers a blur on the strings? Or the recent Griffin, gray starting to touch his cropped beard and temples, still way too fucking good-looking for a guy who’d passed fifty?
Walking through the archway into the common room, I stopped short. The TV screen was blank. Seated on the piano bench at the front of the room, Griffin coaxed a swift fall of notes from his guitar strings.
Griffin? Here? What the hell? His mother had passed four years ago, at the height of COVID. I’d caught her name in the obituaries, but if he’d come home then, I’d been deep in the bowels of that misery and he hadn’t contacted me. Why’s he here now?
A small piece of me that still ached from the way he’d left me raised a tendril of foolish hope. Is he here for me? Not that I’d take him back, but it would soothe my battered ego a tiny bit.
But when Griffin raised his head to scan the audience in their lounge chairs and wheelchairs and spotted me, the way his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open dashed that idea. He’d clearly had no idea I was around.
Before either of us could say or do something stupid, I ducked back out of sight. Behind me, I heard Griffin play the intro again before the first mellow words of “Iowa Sunset” followed me up the stairs. His tone and vocal control were always most stunning like this— acoustic guitar, simple mic, no backing band. Just Griffin and his art. People still paid damned good money to hear him. Now, here he was, giving a concert to folks half of whom had either never heard of him or had forgotten his name. Most of whom had no idea the privilege they were receiving. I hoped they enjoyed the hell out of it, though.
Our patients’ days tended to be mundane and filled with routine, despite the social director’s best efforts. Scoring Griffin Marsh was a triumph for Kashira. I’d have to congratulate her. After Griffin was gone, of course…
(content notes for health issues, past loss, distracted driving, older parent mental health)
I hope readers will enjoy this story of two older and imperfect men rediscovering each other and doing the work to find lasting love.