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The Q a LGBTQ Romance by Rick R. Reed ➱ Release Tour with Giveaway

 



The Q
by Rick R. Reed
Genre: LGBTQ Romance


Step out for a Saturday night at The Q—the small town gay bar in Appalachia where the locals congregate. Whose secret love is revealed? What long-term relationship comes to a crossroad? What revelations come to light? The DJ mixes a soundtrack to inspire dancing, drinking, singing, and falling in (or out) of love.

This pivotal Saturday night at The Q is one its regulars will never forget. Lives irrevocably change. Laugh, shed a tear, and root for folks you’ll come to love and remember long after the last page.



 

EXCERPT #1 FROM THE Q ©2021 Rick R. Reed

 

Prologue

The Quench Room

 

First, no one ever called it the Quench Room. To its patrons, it was just the Q. Most of them weren’t even aware of its proper name. You wouldn’t find it on a sign or in neon. Many—gay,  straight, and otherwise inclined—were certain the Q stood for Queer. Some saw it as an affirming name, reclaimed from those who’d hurl it to wound. Others whispered it, snickering, rolling eyes.

Second, unless you knew what you were looking for, you’d drive right by the Q, not thinking its sad, nondescript exterior housed much of anything. Lonely and forgotten on a stretch of country road, the Q lay just outside the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Hopewell, West Virginia. Housed in a squat, gray cinderblock building, the Q had no front door—patrons entered through a chipped red-painted back door off the gravel parking lot in the back. The single window out front, long and rectangular, was black tinted so passersby couldn’t see inside. For those who came to the Q on the down low, the tinted glass provided a measure of privacy and security.

The Q’s nearest neighbors were an auto-body shop called, charmingly, Gomer’s, and, down the road just a bit, a no-name bait and tackle shop, open only in summers, for those fishing on the nearby Ohio River.

The Q didn’t look like a place where people celebrated.

It didn’t appear to be an establishment where people hooked up, hoping for a raunchy one-night stand or dreaming of a lifetime commitment—and everything in between. A casual glance would never inspire the idea that the Q was a place for socializing, dancing, and drinking.

No one, driving by, would have imagined that this one-story building, rising up out of a weed-choked gravel lot, was the origin of so many love affairs, failed, and, sometimes, rarely, successful. Who would want to meet their beloved in such a sad, little shack? Why, it didn’t even possess a tin roof…rusted.

And yet, the Q was the gathering spot for this little rural area’s LGBTQ+ folks, especially those not inspired enough to make their way up the river to the bright lights and fancy bars of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, for a lot of the Q’s patrons, might as well have existed on another planet.

The Q was open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, although Saturday was the busiest. Then, the parking lot was crowded with pickup trucks and the hulks of various sedans, coupes, and compacts, mostly older and none even remotely close to luxury vehicles. On Saturday nights, only the early birds got parking spots in the lot. If you showed up later, you parked alongside the road and prayed you didn’t get sideswiped while inside, imbibing and hoping, perhaps, for a special love connection.

Windows down, people driving by on a Saturday night might hear strains of muffled music coming out—thumping bass, 1980s disco tunes going way back to Sylvester and Prince and right up to Lady Gaga and Beyonce, popular line dances, and even some hardcore rock and roll from the likes of ZZ Top, Aerosmith, and maybe even Iron Maiden.

The Q’s patrons traveled from the little towns scattered throughout this poor area in the foothills of the Appalachians. They came from upriver in Pennsylvania, across the river in Ohio, and, of course, from right here in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Driving along potholed roads in dusky dusk or navy-blue twilights, you might spy the golden eyes of a fox peeking out from underbrush lining either side of the road.

When you arrived at the Q, though, and stepped through its red-doored portal of a Saturday night, the contrast was almost startling. What, outside, was grim and depressing, became magical inside. Voices murmuring, ice clinking in glasses, fairy lights above the big mirror behind the bar, the crack of pool balls, laughter, and maybe, Gloria Gaynor optimistically telling the world she would survive.

And somehow, you knew you would too.

If only for a few hours.

 

 

EXCERPT #2 FROM THE Q ©2021 Rick R. Reed

 

Nobody to Love

 

Nelson DiCarlo wondered, for the thousandth Saturday night, why he didn’t stay home.

After all, he had regular cable, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. He had a fully-stocked liquor cabinet and could make himself just about any cocktail he could imagine, from the simple—gin and tonic with a twist of lime—to the exotic—a Pimm’s Cup with orange and cucumber slices. His pantry was stocked with chips, cookies, and crackers to go with the cheeses and dips in his fridge.

His dog, Homer, a so-ugly-he’s-cute mix of dachshund and poodle, was always ready to cuddle or take a long walk in the night air. So, he couldn’t say he was lacking for company. Homer was short on judgment, long on love, and as long as Nels was paying attention, the dog never got bored. If Nels’s attention did stray, the dog reeled him back in by covering his faces with kisses.

No, really, there was no reason why he, at sixty-two years old, should be getting ready to go out to a bar on Saturday night. Really, he needed to simply accept his lot and stay in, go to bed early, like the old man he was.

Nearly entirely banished were the dreams that being out at the Q—the only gay bar in his little one-horse town of Hopewell, West Virginia—would conjure up a man who’d be everything Nels dreamed of: a passionate lover, a faithful companion, a best friend forever. He even held out little reason to believe the conversations he’d have with the same folks he saw every Saturday at the Q would be any different or more exciting than they had been on any other Saturday night, dating back years.

He had no reason to think that, even if he’d given up all hope for a Mr. Right to come along on his white horse, he would meet a Mr. Right Now. There were a few of those in his past, but none lately. Not for a long time… So long, in fact, that Nels no longer pined for a physical connection with another man.

So why go out?

It was routine. It was a bore.

He was old. And so, so tired.

Yet, here he found himself, in the tiny blue and yellow ceramic tile bathroom of the house he’d grown up in—the one he’d inherited from his mom when she passed from lung cancer seven years ago—shaving in front of the medicine cabinet mirror.

It was funny, how he sometimes glimpsed the man he once was in that mirror, especially when half of his wizened face was hidden by Barbasol shaving cream.

If he squinted just right, he could look back in time and see the man he’d once been, hidden in the depths of the glass. He’d been handsome, what Mom would call a head-turner. On the shorter side at five-feet-eight-inches, Nels had been solidly packed with effortless muscle and good definition. Firm pecs. Bulging biceps. Thick black wavy hair and eyes so dark the pupils got lost in the irises. A perpetual five o’clock shadow that highlighted, rather than hid, the sharp angles and planes of his face, a contrast to his cupid’s bow lips. People, men mostly, used to tell him he should be a model.

That young buck hidden in the mirror was forever mistaken for being younger than he actually was. In his twenties, he was always asked for an ID. When he was in his thirties, everyone imagined he was in his twenties. In his forties, people guessed thirties. Even in his fifties, folks would guess mid- to late-forties and they were always surprised when Nels corrected them, because he never lied about his age. It was always a delight to get the compliments, “I never would have guessed!” “What’s your secret?” And that dreaded left-handed compliment, “You look great—for your age.”

And then, suddenly, and without warning, he looked his age. The revelation crept up without warning.

 

 

 

EXCERPT #3 FROM THE Q ©2021 Rick R. Reed

Chapter 4

The Three Bells

 

Gracie took a sip of her drink and closed her eyes. She pictured Rose dancing alone, but with her gaze trained on Gracie with a come-hither look. Rose had been gorgeous in her twenties. She still was, some two decades later, a little thicker around the thighs and hips maybe—but weren’t we all?—a few more lines around her eyes and her mouth, but she still had the vibrancy of the girl Gracie had met and befriended at the Q all those years ago. Because her figure was fuller and her face marked by the passage of time, she was somehow even more attractive. Those blue eyes of hers sparkled as they did when they were pups. And Rose’s hair, now cropped short in a shoulder-length bob and streaked with gray, continued to cause Gracie to want to run her hands through it, to revel in its silky smoothness. Because, even if it was older hair, it was still smooth as a young girl’s. Gracie’s, on the other hand, was a helmet of gray that she knew she should do something about—color it, find a less-dated cut—but she never seemed to find the time to actually act on it. Gracie went to a barber, for Christ’s sake.

Rose was never yours. And she never will be. Be thankful she’s your friend. Be even more thankful she never took up with Liz.

Gracie had feared the two of them would become a couple for as long as she could remember, way back to when they had all become a trio once upon a time over beers and country line dancing at the Q, when they used to have it on Wednesday nights.

Gracie shook her head. She sometimes wondered why these two had been her friends for so long. What they lacked in charm, they more than made up for in snark and crass behavior that Gracie, in her most honest moments, had to admit was endearing in a perverse sort of way.

And then Gracie burst into laughter because she knew why—they tickled her. They made her laugh. They, damn them to hell, shone a little sunshine into the dreariness that passed for her life.

And these Saturday night rituals, which always ran roughly according the same script, were the highlight of Gracie’s week.

Nothing ever changed, except the passage of years marching across their bodies and faces and, for that, Gracie was grateful. As long as they maintained the status quo, they’d remain the three friends they were. Yes, sometimes, in the darkest hours of an early morning, when Gracie lay alone and tossing in her queen-size bed, she knew that the three of them being a trio was insurance against Rose and Liz ever becoming a couple, which she dreaded and expected, like taxes and death.

She never admitted it to anyone, least of all Rose, that her biggest longing was for Rose herself. That longing had gone from a youthful lust and imaginings of ravishing Rose’s generous form, so womanly, so perfect, to simply thinking of the two of them, curled up together on a Saturday night. Instead of going out, they’d stay in, sitting close on the couch with assorted cats and dogs at their feet, watching old movies on TV—stuff like Now, Voyager or Double Indemnity. Their bellies would be full of the enchiladas Gracie made for dinner, redolent with tomatoes, oregano, and garlic, and gooey with queso fresco.

“Come on, Gracie! Get off your ass and dance with us!” Liz cried.

And Gracie, despite wanting to push Liz away from Rose (and right out the front door) joined them, a smile on her face and tears in her eyes.

“Are you crying?” Rose asked, her head cocked.

“Ah, it’s from those damn Newports. That’s all,” Gracie replied as she stood back to let Liz twirl Rose. “One of these days, I’ll quit.”

When the song at last ended, Gracie turned toward her bedroom. “Gotta get ready, try to make myself presentable.”

“Good luck with that!” Liz said.

“Hey.” Rose gave Liz a playful punch in the arm. “Gracie’s beautiful.”

And that stopped Gracie in her tracks. Heat prickled her face. Really? Do you really think so? Gracie shook her head. Ah. Rose’s kind to everyone. Don’t get yourself all worked up. She hurried from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  



Letting Go

A Guest Blog by Rick R. Reed

 

It takes two to tango. And it takes at least two to make a book. Just like a play needs an audience to fully come alive, a book needs a reader for precisely the same reason.

 

One thing I have to constantly remind myself as a writer is that, once I have written the words, ‘the end’ to a story is that I must let go. As much as I labored over the book, dreamed about it, had conversations with myself about it, agonized over word choice, character hair color, continuity, repetitive words and phrasing, the time comes when the book meets the public which signals that it’s time for me to step aside.

 

A book is a conspiracy between a reader and a writer. The reader has to bring it to life through his or her imagination. The wonderful thing about that whole process is that my story can become so many different stories when filtered through each reader’s unique frame of reference. I have no doubt that no matter the care I take in describing characters and setting, each reader sees them differently because each of them come to the table with different experiences, biases, and memories. All of those things have a bearing on the triggers my words pull in a reader’s mind.

 

It’s really quite a lovely process when you think about it. And maybe the readers out there reading this never really considered the vital work they play in every book’s success or failure. Writers provide a roadmap, signposts, but it’s really up to the reader to run with it, to make of it something real, a mind movie for one.

 

What’s my point? I guess it’s to share with you a little of what motivates me as a writer and what, for me is both a blessing and a curse. See, when I am working on a book, which is almost always, I am alone with those characters, immersed in their little world, consumed by their passions, their fears, their desires, their comedies of errors. I have never been one for sharing much of my unfinished work with anyone else. That would somehow be wrong, at least for me. In order to create, I need to be able to slip into a world inhabited only by my characters and me. It’s always a bittersweet moment when I write the words, ‘the end’ and know I am moving on. Sure, there will be editing, the thrill of seeing the cover design, the agony of trying to help craft the blurb, but once you type ‘the end’ it means just that. You’re giving your characters and their world away.

 

I think it’s very difficult for some writers to realize that once they’ve ‘given birth’ to a book that it really no longer belongs to them. It belongs to the readers, the reviewers, the world. If you create with publishing in mind, it’s a harsh reality to accept—your book no longer belongs to you alone, but it’s gone off into the world, much like a child finally moving out of the house. Once you let go, you also must let go of trying to control what happens (same for books, same for kids).

 

And that’s hard. You hate to see your book suffer at the hands of people who don’t understand it, you celebrate it when someone ‘gets’ what you were trying to say.

 

But you must let go. The book is a piece of the world now and takes on a life of its own. Remember what I said earlier? A book is a conspiracy between a writer and a reader and the reader, each in his or her own way, makes the story his or her own.

 

I guess what prompted all this was a discussion recently at one of my publishers’ forums wherein authors were discussing, once again, how to respond to negative reviews and downright nasty ones, and the prevailing wisdom, at least to my mind, was with silence. I agree.

 

It’s harsh but true: writers must let go. Your stories are no longer your stories. If you’re very, very lucky, they are many people’s. Take comfort in that.

 

###

 

 




Real Men. True Love.

Rick R. Reed draws inspiration from the lives of gay men to craft stories that quicken the heartbeat, engage emotions, and keep the pages turning. Although he dabbles in horror, dark suspense, and comedy, his attention always returns to the power of love. He’s the award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and is forever at work on yet another book. Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” You can find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA with his beloved husband.






Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

$20 Amazon giftcard,
My Lambda Literary Award 2020 Finalist, BLUE UMBRELLA SKY in ebook
- 1 winner each

Join us for the Release Tour with Guest Post & #Giveaway
#theq #lgbtq #romance #rickrreed

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