I was emailing J.A. Rock the other night, and we were wondering if our newest release, The Preacher’s Son, might actually be our most angsty premise for a novel yet, but we think our readers will have to be the judges of that. What we hope we’ve done is write a story about two very deeply flawed characters who have made mistakes—some more egregious than others—and who continue to make them, but along the way also learn how to grow and forgive and to move on to something new. The Preacher’s Son isn’t a neat HEA, but we hope that it’s something that will resonate with people who have ever had to reconcile who they are with what they’ve been taught they should be.

Here’s an excerpt from The Preacher’s Son:

Jason saw Nathan as soon as he stepped out of his car. Nathan had been walking toward the office building, but stopped when he spotted Jason. Jason wouldn’t have been surprised to see him suddenly topple like one of those fainting goats. Then, he seemed to recover, and began to walk forward again.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, as though Jason was a stranger.
Jason resisted the temptation to look him up and down slowly. Pretty sure if there was a God, it was His idea of a joke to make Nathan Tull so damn beautiful. No starched shirt or ruthlessly gelled hair today. Nate wore a blue T-shirt that showed off tanned arms. His sandy hair was almost shaggy, the ends curling at his ears. His lips were parted slightly; clear hazel eyes met Jason’s.
An uncomfortable prickling started under Jason’s skin. Here, Nathan was real. He wasn’t a memory from four years ago, a picture on the Moving Forward website. He was the man Jason had hurt, solid, the tips of his ears sunburned, his eyes betraying his uncertainty. And already Jason’s mind was trying to create distance. Was trying not to search those eyes for the hope he’d seen that night at UW. For the fury he knew Nathan was entitled to. Was trying not to feel Nathan, taste him, remember the unexpected tenderness he’d felt watching him smile.
You could have had that, a voice in his head spoke. You could have had that smile, a private souvenir; a gift. It would have made you luckier than any coin. Kept you safer.
Instead you took what wasn’t yours.
He silenced it. Best to approach this with a sense of purpose. Just say the words, and you’ll feel better.
“Hey, Nathan.” His voice was steady.
“I go by Nate now.”
“Sorry. Nate. I came to see you, actually.”
Something flashed in Nate’s gaze. “I can’t imagine why.”
“To apologize.”
Nate regarded him warily. He squinted slightly in the sunlight. “To apologize for what?”
“For what I did to you,” Jason said. Face to face, the words were coming harder than he’d thought, each one threatening to undermine something inside him. He was afraid he’d trigger an avalanche if he had to look Nate in the eye for much longer. “I shouldn’t have used you just to get at your father. At this place.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me.” Nate stepped closer. “You didn’t force me. It was my own weakness that brought me to that point.”
“Weakness?” No, Nate had been strong that night. Brave as shit.
“I should thank you.” Nate rubbed the back of his neck. “You did me a favor. You made me see that I needed the Lord’s guidance and forgiveness. I’m a better man now than I was then.”
“Are you a happier man?” Jason asked sharply.
Nate flinched. “Yes.”
“Liar.” Jason stepped forward, ignoring the pain in his leg.
Nate stared at him, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Jason suddenly wanted to touch him, to soothe his nerves the way he had that night four years ago. He wanted to relive that moment, more miraculous than any Bible story, when Nathan Tull had trusted him enough to open himself to Jason’s touch. He lifted his hand.
“Don’t.” Nate stepped back. “Don’t. Please.”
“Aren’t you angry with me?” A part of Jason wanted to see if he could provoke Nate into a reaction, an honest reaction. Something more than this timidity. “You should be angry. Come on, Nate. Even Jesus got angry.”
“Don’t.” Nate’s voice was low. “Don’t mock my faith.”
Guilt froze Jason. “I didn’t mean to. Shit. I came here to apologize.”
Color rose in Nate’s face. He opened his mouth and closed it, then opened it again and spoke. His voice was thin, a little reedy, belaying the polite, bland words that he spoke. “I appreciate that, but, as I said, it’s not necessary. Is there anything else you needed?”
“Nate.” This time Jason did touch him, his fingers brushing over Nate’s forearm, the soft hairs there prickling in their wake.
Nate jumped back like he’d been stung.
“Nate!” a voice called from over by the building. A screen door slammed in the frame.
Jason sucked in a deep breath and turned to face Reverend Tull.
The man was barreling toward them, no trace of a smile on his usually genial face. “Are you okay?”
Jesus. Like he thought Jason was going to bend Nate over the hood of his SUV and ravish him right then and there.
“I’m fine,” Nate said, but he sounded like his voice was close to breaking.
Jason turned back to him. “Nate…”
Fuck. He was crying.
“I’m sorry,” Nate whispered. Tears slid down his face. He looked stricken. “I’m so sorry.”
Jason reached out again. “Hey. Look, I—”
Nate looked straight past him. “Dad, I’m sorry.”
Reverend Tull brushed Jason aside. Opened his arms to Nate, but Nate dodged, hand out. “I can’t— Everyone just leave me alone.” He hurried toward the main buildings.
Jason couldn’t swallow around the ache in his throat. It wasn’t shame he felt. It wasn’t guilt. It was something much larger, something with no name. Something monstrous that he stood no chance against; it had power beyond human comprehension. He would have given his fucking life in that fraction of a second to take away Nate’s tears, to take away the reason for Nate’s tears. But he was the reason. He was, and he wished the roadside bomb had fucking vaporized him, if there was any chance that would make things right with Nate.
Reverend Tull turned to Jason. “Mr. Banning, you’re not welcome here at Moving Forward. Leave, or I’ll call the police and have them remove you.”
He took it. He took the reverend’s self-righteousness, his impossible calm, his fucking monumental ignorance, and he used it to patch the holes every one of Nate’s tears had burned in his walls, his safeguards. “I came to apologize to your son,” Jason said. “It has nothing to do with you.”
Reverend Tull’s expression hardened. “Stay away from my son. You’ve hurt him enough for one lifetime. He may forgive you for that, but, God help me, I don’t know that I ever will.”
Well, Jason thought as he climbed back into his car, so much for Christian charity.
He drove away burning with a bleak but savage self-satisfaction.
He’d put a big ugly crack in Reverend Tull’s universal love. He’d set that calm alight. He’d brought that motherfucker down from the clouds and into the muck with the rest of humanity.
He kept that. He kept that instead of Nate’s tears.

The Preacher’s Son is out today. You can order it here on Amazon.

About The Preacher’s Son:

Jason Banning is a wreck. His leg’s been blown to hell in Afghanistan, his boyfriend just left him and took the dog, and now he’s back in his hometown of Pinehurst, Washington, a place that holds nothing but wretched memories…and Nathan Tull. Nathan Tull, whose life Jason ruined. Nathan Tull, who will never believe Jason did what he did for a greater good. Nathan Tull, whose reverend father runs a gay conversion therapy camp that Jason once sought to bring down—at any cost.

Nathan Tull is trying to live a quiet life. Four years ago, when Nate was a prospective student visiting UW Tacoma, his world collapsed when senior Jason Banning slept with him, filmed it, and put the footage online. A painful public outing and a crisis of faith later, Nate has finally begun to heal. Cured of the “phantoms” that plagued him for years, he now has a girlfriend, a counselor job at his dad’s camp, and the constant, loving support of his father.

But when he learns Jason is back in town, his carefully constructed identity begins to crumble. As desperate to reconcile his love for God with his attraction to men as Jason is to make sense of the damage he’s done, Nate finds himself walking a dangerous line. On one side lies the righteous life he committed himself to in the wake of his public humiliation. On the other is the sin he committed with Jason Banning, and the phantoms that won’t let him be. But is there a path that can bridge those two worlds—where his faith and his identity as a gay man aren’t mutually exclusive?

And can he walk that path with the man who betrayed him?