by
Remy Walsh is buried in secrets. The big ones he keeps from his friends are his maman, the Cajun beauty Aurore, is housebound and trapped in her own world, and his runaway father left six years ago without a word to Remy. He hates him.
But Remy has another giant secret. Even though he and his boyfriend Trung are a popular couple at their school, Remy is afraid to tell his mother he is gay. The last thing he wants to do is hurt this fragile being he loves so much.
So he retreats into the cocoon that being an actor is, starring in his school’s musical, and forgetting for a time each day, during rehearsal, that he has so many problems eating at him.
His home is about to literally come crashing down on him. He well knows, but doesn’t believe, that “secrets have a way of coming out.”
Will anyone come to his rescue?
Publisher: JMS Books, LLC
Genres:
Pairings: M-M
Heat Level: 3
Romantic Content: 1
Character Identities: Gay
Protagonist 1 Age: 18-25
Protagonist 2 Age: 18-25
Word Count: 62000
Setting: The Woodlands, Texas
Languages Available: English
I lead a secret life. No one knows about it. Not my friends,
not my dad. Especially not my dad. Père left my mother and me
six years ago. I’m still pissed. My mother hasn’t been the same
since he left, and she won’t talk about the whole thing. It’s
obvious to me she still loves him despite it all. That’s what pisses
me off so much. Unless you count the money he sends us, he
just kinda cut off all communication. If Maman hears from him,
she doesn’t tell me about it. And I only get birthday cards and
Christmas cards from him. Yeah, he keeps my bank account
topped off, but more about that later.
The worst is that he only moved to Friendswood, about
forty miles from where Maman and I live. My dad—like he
deserves to be called that—Walter Walsh, is a general
contractor, half of the company Walsh and Jackson Home
Builders.
Twenty years ago, long before I came along, Dad and
his best friend Jimmy Jackson started their company. It took off
like a rocket, they say. Those men are flush with cash. And they
got even richer when they bought a huge plot of land south of
Houston. Story was, they needed their company headquarters
down there where they started building houses. At least that’s
the only explanation I ever got of why my dear daddy left. He just
up and moved, leaving me and Maman living together, just the
two of us, in the house Père built for us when I was just a baby.
It pains me to tell Maman and Père’s “love” story because
he’s such a fraud now, but when I was little and easily fooled, I
loved hearing mom tell about this love of her life and how he
came into it.
Maman, Aurore, comes from Cajun country. She grew up
in a sleepy little town in Louisiana’s bayou country. Père, Walt, is
from Houston. He was a soldier. He and Uncle Jimmy had just
got out of the Navy. They’d enlisted right out of high school and
2
after twenty years serving in the Seabees—that’s the
construction battalion—they’d retired. To celebrate, they decided
to take a weekend trip to New Orleans to raise a little hell. That’s
how he told it. When I knew him. Before he deserted us.
Him and Jimmy were walking across Jackson Square, in
front of St. Louis Cathedral, when they spied—as Uncle Jimmy
put it—two of the prettiest little gals they’d ever seen. Maman
was one of them. Uncle Jimmy used to be around our house a
lot too—before. So he always got into telling the story when it got
told.
I’ve heard that story so many times I know it by heart.
Maman told it, Père told it, Mamaw told it, Papaw told it, and
Tante Virginie told it. Tante Gin may not be blood, but she’s as
much an aunt to me as Maman’s sisters. At least she was. She
still lives down there on the bayou. We haven’t seen much of her
in the last years. After Père ran off, Maman didn’t want to see
anybody. She’ll sometimes talk on the phone to my grand-mère,
and grand-père will get on the line too. And once in a blue moon,
Maman talks to Tante Gin. But that’s mostly when Tante calls
her—not the other way around.
My daddy leaving really did a number on Maman.
