A warm welcome to author Neve Wilder joining us today to talk about new release “Center of Gravity”.
Welcome Neve 🙂
Thanks so much to the Love Bytes folks for having me here today! I’m really excited about my first novel-length release, Center of Gravity.
I thought I’d talk about timing. That might sound like an odd choice of topic, but it’s such a prevalent concept that I think everyone can relate to in some way. Turning down an aisle in a full parking lot just as another car is leaving: great timing. Walking in on parents (or any family member, really) while they’re doing the dirty: not so great timing. That happened to me once, and I can personally attest to the squick factor involved.
In Center of Gravity, timing is an undercurrent theme, and Rob seems to have a black cloud of poor timing following him around. But as I wrote this story, I was forced to consider my own perceptions. I initially began writing this book two years ago, got two chapters in, and then set it aside, feeling guilty for pushing it into the pile with all of the other stories I’d never finished. I suppose one might say the timing wasn’t right. However, after my father passed away unexpectedly last year, at the turn of the new year I decided that I wanted to sit down and do something I’d never done before, which was to write a book from beginning to end. My father’s death reminded me that life is short and time waits for no one. This time for me, it was less about timing and more about grit and determination to see a story through. In thinking about what I wanted to write, I kept coming back to those two chapters I’d set aside where we meet Rob and Alex, so I knew this story was the one I needed to write.
This story was good timing for me amid a lot of crappy life circumstances, because it was exactly what I needed. The writing process was cathartic, and I came out on the other side feeling hopeful. I like to think that hopefulness is conveyed in the book, as well, and that even bad timing and hard luck can lead to a happy ending.
Alex meandered in at a quarter to eight, raking a hand through sleep-wild hair. He was as devastating in the morning as I’d imagined he’d be: all bronze and sinew, bare chest, long legs with the punch of toned calves and sleekly-muscled thighs. I turned my attention back to the bleak column of numbers on my screen.
“Morning.” His voice was groggy with sleep, and adorable.
I jutted my chin toward the coffee maker. “It’s still hot.”
Alex eyed me, his mouth twisting up in a pensive bunch, then nodded, heading for the coffee pot. I suspected we were entering that doldrum territory of morning afters. A stray breeze would blow us either into the land of ignorance or conversation. I hoped for the former.“Left hand cabinet,” I said when I heard him rummaging around for a mug.
Once he poured his coffee, I felt him come up behind my chair. He dropped a light touch on my shoulder, and though I didn’t flinch, I stiffened.“What are you working on?”
His hand fell away and I relaxed as he sat in the chair next to mine, hissing as he took a sip from his mug. That sound. God, it took me right back to last night and made my cock twitch.I needed to get him out of the house. “A few weeks of backlogged accounts someone else fucked up.” I even sounded grumpy to myself. I didn’t mean to; defensiveness and anxiety coated my words in an impenetrable carbon fiber shell.
Alex hummed, apparently unruffled, or trying to be, and stretched out his legs.“There’s some aspirin in the cabinet.” I flicked a glance to him. Yep, still gorgeous. And also studying me again.
“I told you I wasn’t that drunk.”In a way, it was kind of too bad. It would have been something to blame. Of course I still had no excuse. Alex’s thumb circled the rim of the coffee mug and then traced the handle.“So we’re going with option b: ignoring last night? Or maybe option c: being totally awkward about it? I dunno, could be d: all of the above.” He perked a tiny smile, still watching me.
I cracked my knuckles and laced my fingers behind my head in a stretch, going for casual. “How about option e: we just move forward and leave last night alone and call us even now?”
“There’s never an option e.”
I sighed.“Listen,” I said, exiting my spreadsheet and closing the top of the computer. “I shouldn’t have done that last night. I should have been in better control of my—myself.” I gestured around the kitchen. “I’m trying to simplify.”
“Ohhh, you’ve chosen option a: acknowledgment and self-blame. It is a popular option. One I’ve chosen plenty of times.” He still wore that same little smile, but it took on an edge of sarcasm. “It’s also a cop-out. Sex doesn’t have to be complicated, you know.”
“But it almost always is. Especially with any kind of frequency.” Which was how I had ended up with Sean. One drunken free-for-all became a lunch time hand job on the sly, became a dinner and sex spree, became every Friday night at my apartment under the guise of hanging out and watching movies. See sex spree, again. In no time, we’d morphed from sex-hungry sybarites into semi-domesticated animals pawing at each other before finally transitioning to this-is-someone-I’d-like-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-with. At least on my end.
I couldn’t do that with Alex, couldn’t even leave myself open to the possibility. He still had too much to do: career failures and successes, heartbreaks and one-night stands. Thinking about it terrified me at the same time it made me feel pretentious for all of the assumptions I was making. But the fact remained that our paths were too divergent.Alex continued to look at me, a rather unconvinced expression on his face and maybe a little amusement.
“Look, Alex, we scratched the itch.”
“We scratched the surface, if you ask me.” He drained the rest of his coffee and rose to set the mug in the sink. “But I’m not going to plead my case or anything. I mean, I do have some pride. You’ve struck me down twice before, and though I’m not sure what last night was—other than really fucking good for me—I do have some pride. And I kind of hope you enjoyed it too, but if you didn’t, I can’t do anything about it. Either way, it’s not a big deal, so there’s no need for you to make a crime scene out of it.”
He rinsed his mug while I just sat there, my mouth twisting around all sorts of words, none of which formed with any coherence until, “I enjoyed it.” Lame. So lame. Cringeworthy lame.
“Great. All parties are satisfied.”I glanced at him to see if he was being sarcastic, but it didn’t appear so.
“I’m going to grab my clothes and go. I can bring Winslow by later, and I’m still good for work if you want me tomorrow.”
If you want me. I did. Right then, in fact. But that was beside the point. Scratching at the stubble on my jaw, I nodded. “I do if it’s not going to cause any trouble.” I didn’t want to scour around for another helping hand and didn’t want to get put off for days or weeks by a professional crew. And we were so close to finishing, anyway.“Like I said, it’s fine,” he said it with an airy smile. “Thanks for the hospitality.”I admired his ability to flip the switch back into neutral as much as it formed a pit in my stomach. Plenty of other fish in the sea or whatnot, so why shouldn’t it be easy for him to let me cast myself back out still hooked on the bait?
When life comes apart at the seams, love is the only thread that can repair it.
Accountant Rob Macomb has a stable job that he’s good at and… that’s about it. A year of nothing but heartache leaves him seeking refuge from loneliness and grief behind spreadsheets, punishing daily runs, and the occasional anonymous tryst. He wants only to bury the past and focus on his career, but he has one last task to complete: pack up his parent’s quaint beachside house and put it on the market.Alex Andrews is a budding artist with a penchant for Converse, Cracker Jack, and piercings. Family turmoil sidelines his dreams of finishing art school and building a career in three-dimensional design, and now he’s doing whatever he can to keep everyone afloat.When Alex shows up as a part of the moving crew hired to help Rob clean out the house, what should be a simple move becomes far more complex. Because it’s not the first time they’ve met, and their last encounter was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
The attraction between them is undeniable and intense, but Rob’s hell-bent on pushing everyone away, and Alex is on the verge of spinning out of control. Can a grumpy accountant and a bootstrapping artist find their center of gravity together, or are they on a collision course to heartbreak?
*An emotionally-charged, slow burn m/m romance featuring an age gap, hurt/comfort themes, and a hard-won happily ever after. This is the standalone first in the Nook Island, Georgia series.*
Neve Wilder lives in the dirty South, where the summers are hot and the winters are…sometimes cold. She is a mom to three rambunctious weebeasts who have joined forces in a mission to carpet the family home with toys and small items that really suck to step on at six in the morning.
She reads promiscuously, across multiple genres, but her favorite stories always contain an element of romance. Incidentally, this is also what she likes to write. Slow-burners with delicious tension? Yes. Whiplash-inducing page-turners, also yes. Down and dirty scorchers? Yes. And every flavor in between.
She believes David Bowie was the sexiest musician to ever live, and she’s always game to nerd out on anything from music to writing.
And finally, she believes that love conquers all. Except the heat index in July. Nothing can conquer that bastard.
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Thank you for the excerpt!