Title: Off the Record
Author: Kelly Rand
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 01/24/2023
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 62100
Genre: Contemporary, contemporary, Canada, journalist, film director/actor, artists, famous people, power imbalance, coming out, slow burn, age difference, over-40, politics, family issues
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Description
Freelance journalist David Cronkwright needs to finish a magazine article to avoid being evicted from his apartment. The subject is Nic Leduc, a younger, queer filmmaker on track to win an Oscar. But when David gets to Montreal, Nic refuses to be interviewed.
Instead, Nic drags David all over the city—to his stylist, to a karaoke night, to a hiking trail on a mountain. Nic takes him to a party where David realizes how lonely Nic’s success has made him, that perhaps, what they both need is to learn to trust each other.
Off the Record
Kelly Rand © 2023
All Rights Reserved
Nic stood inside his condo on the first floor of a 200-year-old building and looked out the front window. Daylight was dimming earlier and earlier these days, turning the sky from grey to black, and he enjoyed this. He woke around 10:00 a.m. when he wasn’t filming, sometimes riding his bike to the grocery store to return with reusable shopping bags weighing down his wrists.
He’d spent all late afternoon straightening his hair and combing it back, putting a moisturizing mask on his face, and using his phone to look at his Hannibal Lecter self before Instagramming a photo. He’d checked his email, and he had one from People: “We’d like to interview you ahead of the Oscars.” Even his mom had texted him about it that day with Any word?
He thought then, looking out the window, of watching the Oscars when he was a kid. Watching Halle Berry’s teary acceptance speech, then running into the bathroom, launching into one of his own. He’d thanked his mom in his fake speech. Thanked his grandma, who’d died of cancer two years ago, so it was already too late. Thought of his father watching from his large Victorian house in Quebec City with his two new children next to them, clutching pillows in their laps. Nic had never met them, but his father posted a posed picture of them on Instagram, one on either side of him as they held marshmallows on sticks over a bonfire. Été, Québec, it read, and Nic unfollowed him.
He checked his texts again, waiting to hear from his manager, Charlotte. Nothing. Their last conversation had been him saying “Anything?” and her saying “Not yet” with a frown emoji.
The committee had chosen Michel to submit to the Academy years earlier, but it hadn’t reached the short list. Elle would. He knew it would.
A drop of wetness hit the window and streaked down his reflection like a tear. Another hit, then another, and he knew from the cold, damp smell it would be a rain storm. He heard the drops through the blowing trees outside, dampening the rustling leaves, the streets becoming slick with cold Montreal rain. The window’s dark reflection showed the blue shirt he’d designed and sewn himself from a pattern, the cloth chosen for a costume in Elle. He’d cut out an article about himself from the newspaper and used it to make the pattern.
A little orange PT Cruiser arrived. Nic snapped the blinds shut and slid into his leather jacket. He wore boots with thick heels. Tough. He grabbed his bag with a half dozen Pomme de Vie ciders and a bottle of red wine in it and clopped down the sidewalk, his boots making a satisfying clack with every stride.
Nic pulled at the car door handle, but it snapped back, still locked. Thumping on the rain-soaked glass, he said, “Open,” and watched David fumble with the console, then shift and get a better look, and then fumble again. “Jesus,” Nic murmured, but when he tried again, the door gave.
David watched him fasten his seat belt. “Sorry. Not my car.”
“It’s fine.” He placed the bag of booze between his feet.
Nic knew these little everyday snags were his problem. He’d never been patient. He’d screamed in traffic once, driving his mom’s car when he was seventeen, watching miles of idling vehicles on the construction-clogged highway and people charging into new lanes, threatening near collisions. The car air conditioning had been broken then, the windows down to try to coax breeze from an airless day. Long minutes had ticked past, and then he’d screamed. Screamed until the drivers around him stared. He’d pressed his forehead to the steering wheel, his voice turning hoarse and scraping the sensitive husk of his throat.
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Kelly Rand is the author of Off the Record and several LGBTQ romance novellas. Originally from Norfolk County, she’s now a journalist in the Toronto area. Her previous jobs include farmworker, wedding photographer, and cashier at KFC. Kelly has been published in various anthologies and literary magazines and can be found at kellyrand.net.
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