A warm love bytes welcome to author Allison Cassatta joining us today to talk about her new release “Three Little Words”.
Welcome Allison 🙂
TITLE: Not-So-Little Secrets
I sat here for a long while, staring at the cursor while I wondered what I would write about for this post. I literally looked down at the tagline from the blurb, then up to the TV where and episode of Pretty Little Liars is playing, and I said, “that’s it. I’ll write about keeping secrets!” Most importantly, secret crushes. It’s pertinent to the story, I promise.
I wrote the secret crush from Three Little Words with some experience of my own. Seventeen years ago, I had a crush on this really hot guitar player. He was mysterious and angry looking, and that was soooooo heavy metal. Loved. It. But I could barely say two words to him. It was one thing if we were all hanging out in a group. He would laugh and crack jokes with everyone. I was pretty certain he saw me as one of the guys… just like the other guys did. I slung drinks at their parties because of my mad bartending skills. I hung out with the band because I was one of the few cool girls. Anyway, it took a friend telling me that I had three days to say something to the guitar player or he would. I married that guitar player. We’ve been married twelve years.
In Three Little Words, Matt has had a crush on his childhood best friend, Luke Bishop, from the moment they met. Luke is a jock, fit and fine, and he’s smart and funny. He grows up to be a real life hero–a firefighter, which only makes him hotter. He’s got a good heart, but he also has a huge secret, a secret Matt doesn’t even know about. He’s gay. Well, before Matt makes a break for New England, Luke comes clean with him, leaving Matt with a whole lot of shit to process. He’d been in love with someone else for five years, was supposed to get married and everything. In the excerpt, Matt is finally coming clean with his brother about being in love with Luke.
Matt’s steel-toed boots thumped and thudded against the metal stairs as he stomped his way down to the cabin of the boat. His brother sat on one of the couches with a cell phone pressed to his ear. “I know, Ma,” he said. “Matty’ll be fine. I won’t let nothin’ happen to him. I promise.” Mark paused. “Yeah, I’ll call you as soon as we get back. Stop worrying about him, okay? I’ve done this before, and I know how to run a safe ship.”
Matt could almost hear his mother from clear across the room. She had that begging lilt with the cold hardness of being a strict mother. There was no telling how long she’d been chewing Mark’s ear off about taking care of Matt.
“Give me the phone,” Matt said with undeniable authority, so much authority his brother quirked his brow and stared up at Matt as if he’d somehow sprouted a second head. “Let me talk to her.”
“Hang on, Mom,” Mark said as he held the phone up for Matt.
Matt all but snatched it from his brother’s hand. “Mom, it’s Matt.”
“I thought you were going to call me!” she exclaimed.
“Things came up. Now, stop worrying Mark, please. He’s going to get everyone home safe and sound, okay? But he can’t get this boat launched if he’s on the phone with you.”
“I know, Matty, I just—”
“Mom. Please.”
“Fine. Whatever. Call me the moment you get back to dry land, or I’ll worry about you.”
“I know. Hey, Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t put the house up for sale just yet, okay?” And before she could launch into an interrogation about why he didn’t want to sell the house and if he was coming back, Matt said, “I love you. Gotta go,” then ended the call.
“Smart move,” Mark said. “Now, why don’t you want her selling the house? I thought you were ready to move on.”
Matt sat down beside his brother and unfolded the plastic yellow pants Scotty had given him. He held them down at his feet and dipped each foot inside the respective leg, then hoisted the heavy suit up his body.
“When you sent Emma looking for me, I was in the garage talking to Luke,” Matt admitted without looking his brother in the eyes.
“Luke Bishop?” Mark asked.
Matt caught a glimpse of his brother’s slack jaw and agape mouth from the corner of his eye. Why the hell that surprised Mark was anyone’s guess. Luke and Matt had never kept their friendship a secret from anyone, and it was also no big secret that they’d stayed in touch throughout the years. But Matt had forgotten how long it had been since he’d really talked to his brother on any level.
“Yeah, Luke Bishop,” Matt finally said.
“You two still talk?”
“Of course. We’re best friends.”
“Hell, I didn’t know.” Mark pressed his palms to the air. “Calm down, bro, I was just asking.”
“I know, but….” Matt shook his head and sighed. “There’s more to it.”
“Need to talk about it?”
“I don’t think so. No offense, but I’m not talking about my personal life with you.”
“Why not? I’d share mine with you.”
“Do you really want to hear about me being in love with another man, Mark?”
“You’re in love with Luke Bishop? Does he know?” Mark looked and sounded genuinely shocked. Made sense, especially since no one had known about Luke’s sexuality… including Matt.
“You really want to hear this, don’t you?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
With a sigh, Matt sat back on the bench seat and rubbed his hands over his face. He thought long and hard about exactly what he would tell Mark about the situation with Luke, how much detail he would give his very straight brother who’d once been married to the most homophobic bitch under the stars. He spared the details of the kiss, but laid the rest of it out for Mark to devour. He told his brother about how they’d both hidden their feelings and now that there was so much distance between them, they only wanted to be close to each other again. Mark asked about the guy from last night, and Matt told him that Aric was just a lay, that really and truly his heart belonged to Luke—always had and always would. Mark seemed to be very understanding. “So that’s why I told Mom not to sell the house.”
“Wow.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Well, that’s a lot of information to take in. I um—” Mark lowered his head a little, and with it, his voice grew quieter. “—thought you would want to stay up here, especially if I convinced Mom to move up this way.”
Okay, sure, Matt had considered it for like… a split second, but Tennessee was home, always had been and always would be. Besides, Luke was in Tennessee, and at the moment, Matt wanted to be as close to his longtime friend as he could get, and if that meant going back to Memphis and staying there, then that’s where he would go.
“Mark….”
“Don’t, man. You don’t have to explain anything. You don’t have to say anything. I get it. Really. I do. You have to go wherever you’re going to be happy. I wouldn’t expect anything less, you hear me?”
“Yeah, man. I hear you.”
BLURB:
2nd Edition
Is it better to keep some secrets locked away?
Matt thought his life was perfect, but he learns there’s no such thing when the man he planned to marry breaks his heart and leaves him holding the pieces. Needing to escape and lick his wounds, Matt heads to New England to spend time on his brother’s lobster boat. A one-night-stand proves to him that empty sex does nothing to mend old hurt, and neither does running away.
So when Matt’s best friend, Luke, a firefighter, is seriously injured, Matt steps up, even if it means facing bigotry and ignorance. Luke has been hiding his feelings from Matt all their lives, and revealing them after so many years won’t make life easier for either of them. But nothing worth having ever comes easily….
BUY LINKS:
I’m colorful and silly and fangirl over my readers. I believe life is best served up with a heaping helping of fun! And I’m immeasurably mean to my characters, but they always get closure in the end. More times than not, a happy ending. It all started with a dream that made her heart wrench and a set of mesmerizing eyes that begged to be seen, and Allison Cassatta the writer was born. A techie by trade, the day-dreamer in her wanted to sail away from the mundane, while the hopeless romantic in her searched for the perfect love story. Many poems and short stories were written before her first attempt at a novel and once that piece of her soul spilled onto paper, there was no stopping it. She has an eye for the visually stunning and a mind that screams to bring that beauty to life. She gives her readers something they can feel in the depth of their heart, creates worlds they can touch and characters that become your best friend or worst enemy. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, big-city life was a rat-race that kept her busy in her career. It took moving with her new husband to a sleepy Mississippi town to make her realize that dreams can come true, and did they ever. She found herself a published author. She found her perfect romance.
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Thank you for the excerpt! It sounds great =)