Book Title: Extra Time (The District Line #4)
Author: C F White
Publisher: Self-published
Cover Artist: KAM Design
Release Date: December 29, 2020
Genre/s: Contemporary M/M Romance
Trope/s: Sports/Rocker, established celebrity couple, family
Theme: Final Happy Ever After
Length: 50 000 words/217 pages
It is not a standalone story.
This is an add-on final short novel to complete the District Line series.
The District Line consists of: Kick Off, Break Through, Come Back.
All books are available on KU, paperback and audio. And in a KU boxset.
Buy Links
Universal Link | Amazon US | Amazon UK
When it’s time, it’s time.
Blurb
Professional footballer Jay Ruttman and rock superstar Sebastian Saunders are back.
Used to the press, used to the public interest, and used to being just the two of them, they’ve forged a life juggling their high-profile careers with their low-key relationship. And it’s working. Mostly.
There are only two things left hanging that could elevate their contentment to perfection—marriage and a child.
Six years since bridgegate, and Jay’s spectacular proposal on the Millennium Bridge, the bill has now passed for legal same-sex marriage. It looks like they might be able to finally tie the knot, and the pitter patter of tiny feet isn’t as far flung an idea as it might have first seemed.
Until Jay has his first call up to play for the national team and must, once again, decide what’s more important—family or football.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Sure. But first…” Seb threw his coat onto the hooks and practically bounced to the kitchen with a beckoning of his hand and a salacious shake of his hips.
Jay followed, his steps lead-laden rather than Seb’s bouncy springs. He stopped short of the island when Seb produced the magnum bottle of Moet from their fridge.
“Celebrations!” Seb waggled the bottle. “I know we were saving this for week twelve, but we can get another one. This isn’t bad luck.” He unwrapped the foil and twisted the wiring. “Actually. Is it?” He wrinkled his brow, frowning at the bottle as though it would decide their entire future.
The bottle wouldn’t. What Jay had to say next would.
“Babe, wait.” Jay rushed forward, sliding the bottle away from Seb’s hands. “I need to talk to you first. Then you can decide if you still want to risk opening it.”
“Oh, fuck.” Seb stepped back, hands on his hips. “This does not sound good.”
“No.” Jay plonked the bottle on the island and heaved in a deep breath. “You might wanna park your arse.”
Seb pulled out a stool, lowering himself into it as he narrowed his eyes at Jay. “You’ve not cheated on me, have you?”
“What? No.” Jay shook his head, concerned that had been the first thing to fall from Seb’s lips. “What would make you think that?”
“I don’t know!” Seb’s voice was a high pitched shrill. “You’re being weird. And you were way too okay about that exchange back at the Connaught.”
“Because I’m secure in our relationship. That was past. For fuck’s sake, Seb, we’ve been trying to have a baby for years, why would I cheat on you?”
Seb hung his head, picking at his nails. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the pressure of it all. We’ve had a shit run of it. Failed attempts. You didn’t want to adopt—”
“I ain’t said I don’t want to adopt. We both wanted to try this way first. If it don’t happen this time, then we can look into it. Christ.” Jay stroked his hands through his hair, ruffling away the spray that had kept it styled. “I ain’t cheated on you.”
There was an awkward silence, before Seb filled it with a mumbled, “Sorry.” He rolled his shoulders. “It’s just you have that look. Like you’re about to deliver bad news. And that’s the worst thing I could think of you telling me.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Of course.” Seb cocked his head. “Why? Is there something worse than that?” His voice hit new heights even for Seb. He could probably go up an octave on his compositions now. “Are you dying?”
“No.” Jay slipped into the stool beside Seb, twisting to face him. “I ain’t dying and I’ve not cheated on you. I never would. You know that.”
“Good. Cause I’d murder you myself if you do either.”
“You’d murder me if I died on you?”
“Yes!”
Jay breathed through a laugh although his amusement felt jaded. He hated that he had to do this. Hated that he clearly looked like a man about to end things. He despised it, in fact. After everything they’d been through together, to get to this moment—marriage, a child—it was nothing short of cruel that he had to be the one to pop a hole in the bubble they’d been living inside for six years.
He wondered then, for a moment of staring deep into doe-eyed chocolate brown, if he’d made the wrong decision. If he should have turned down England instead of the man in front of him. The man who had been, and still was, his everything. The man who had built him up. The man who had made him who he was today. The man he’d asked to marry him and had been trying to start a family with.
To hell with football…
Except…he’d be committing player treason if he did. There weren’t many players who’d come out unscathed after turning down an England cap. Even their club careers deteriorated after such a bolshy snub.
And, well, there was also his undeniable, niggling desperation to prove to the country, and to the world, that he could make it on an international stage. Not just make it, but shake it. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops that he belonged there. He’d been told that it wouldn’t happen, that it couldn’t happen, that he was too much of a liability. Now he’d been given a chance.
And the only way that he could prove he deserved that chance was to upset one man.
Brought up in a relatively small town in Hertfordshire, C F White managed to do what most other residents try to do and fail—leave.
Studying at a West London university, she realised there was a whole city out there waiting to be discovered, so, much like Dick Whittington before her, she never made it back home and still endlessly search for the streets paved with gold, slowly coming to the realisation they’re mostly paved with chewing gum. And the odd bit of graffiti. And those little circles of yellow spray paint where the council point out the pot holes to someone who is supposedly meant to fix them instead of staring at them vacantly whilst holding a polystyrene cup of watered-down coffee.
Eventually she moved West to East along that vast District Line and settled for pie and mash, cockles and winkles and a bit of Knees Up Mother Brown to live in the East End of London; securing a job and creating a life, a home and a family.
After her second son was born with a rare disability, C F White’s life changed and it brought pen back to and paper after having written stories as a child but never had the confidence to show them to the world. Now, having embarked on this writing journey, C F White can’t stop.
So strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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