Book Title: The Long Journey to You
Author: Vincent Traughber Meis
Publisher: Spectrum Books
Cover Artist: Vincent Meis and Andrew May
Release Date: February 17, 2024
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance, Literary Fiction
Tropes: Age-gap relationship, friends to lovers
Themes: Survival, overcoming tragedy
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 97 000 words/350 pages
It can be read as a standalone, but the protagonist also appears in my novel, The Mayor of Oak Street (ages 12-21). The main story of this book takes place 40 years later and we find out what happened to him in flashbacks.
It does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
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Nathan’s traumatic past challenges but cannot stop the arc that brings him to Mateo.
Blurb
Nathan doesn’t know how to stop dwelling on the failures and tragedies that have plagued him since he was a twenty-one-year-old happily in the arms of the handsome young doctor he had pined for since he was twelve. Many years later after the latest tragedy, who could mend Nathan’s heart? If not a handsome young doctor, would an ER nurse do? After a chance meeting with Mateo, a lot of Nathan’s reminiscing is now devoted to how that encounter made him feel. Will he seize the day or continue wallowing in the past, having lunch with his best girlfriend from high school, and writing poetry?
He let me kiss his body from toe to head, running my lips over his scars, his healing bones, and then the parts of him that were most calling for attention. We rubbed our bodies together and made animal noises and gripped each other’s hands so tight our knuckles hurt, and we squeezed sweat from each other’s flesh and licked the sweat and spread saliva everywhere and thrust and met the thrust and grasped and edged time after time until we couldn’t stand it anymore. For moments we entered the cliché zone of two bodies becoming one, where I ran my hand on skin I didn’t know if it was his or mine, but of course it was his because it felt like silk and I opened my eyes to see him staring at me, wanting to devour me like he was a boa, and I was the alligator I had seen in a nature video.
We lay in the flickering candlelight, and with my eyes closed, I pictured a pine forest since one of the candles was balsam scented. The violent nature scene had dissipated, and we were now two boys lost in the woods, comforting each other, and bound together for warmth on a bed of pine needles. Neither of us said anything because any words trying to qualify what we had just experienced would have been absurdly inadequate.
I felt a tear escape my eye and begin a long roll down my cheek and somehow he knew without looking and reached up and coated the tip of his index finger with it. “Mateo,” I whispered.
“Nathan.”
I wanted to say, “I love you” but couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been untrue. But I was suspicious that it would have been triggered by post-sex bliss. Could I be trusted to say something so profound at that moment? Especially when I was going to start hating him in about five minutes when he began fidgeting and saying he had to go.
He sighed, and I sensed the first twitch. “Don’t do it,” I said.
“What?”
“Look at the time.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached for the phone he had left on the nightstand. “It’s…I…”
“I know.” I felt the bitch coming out.
“I don’t want to leave. You must know that.”
“Next week I’ll be leaving myself for a while.” Words were escaping from my mouth and I couldn’t seem to stop them.
He untangled himself from me and sat up. “Where are you going?”
“Mexico.”
“What? For a few days? A week?”
“Longer.”
He jabbed his feet into his underwear. “How long?”
“I don’t know.”
He stood up, and even though he wasn’t tall, he seemed to tower over the bed, casting a giant shadow on the wall. “You’re just saying that because you’re upset with me.”
“No. I’ve been planning it for a while.”
“You mean like before you met me?”
“Yeah.” I lied.
“And nothing that’s happened makes you want to change your mind?”
“It’s not about you.”
He had his jeans and T-shirt on now, and I could look at him. His nakedness might have made me lose my resolve.
“But it affects me, Nathan. It affects me a lot.”
“You could be a little more sympathetic to my needs after going through a traumatic loss and having to make a lot of decisions that I’ve been avoiding. Then I met you, and things spiraled out of control. I don’t know what I want.”
“You seemed pretty certain about an hour ago.”
“That was sex. Sex confuses things.”
“You just want a fuck buddy, then?” There was anger in his voice, and I had provoked it. It didn’t feel good to see him hurt, but I had to take care of myself.
“That’s kind of all we’re allowed since…”
“Just shut up. I can’t listen to any more of your bullshit.”
The Mateo emerging in the dim light and rattled atmosphere was one I had never seen before. What did I expect? You poke the tiger, he’s going to react. “I didn’t mean…”
He stood in the doorway, half out of the room, his body trembling with anger. “I have to take care of my mother. Don’t you see that?”
“Yes,” I said weakly.
“Have a nice trip!” His shoes pounded the wood of the hall on the way to the front door. I got out of bed.
“Mateo!”
The door slammed.
Vincent Traughber Meis is a fiction writer, a world traveler, and a former ESL community college teacher. When he’s not traveling, he divides his time between writing and working in the garden. Most of the characters in his novels and short stories come from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum and are racially and ethnically diverse. He has published eight novels: Eddie’s Desert Rose, Tio Jorge, Down in Cuba, Deluge, Four Calling Burds and The Mayor of Oak Street, First Born Sons, and Colton’s Terrible Wonderful Year. Tio Jorge, Down in Cuba, and Deluge have all won Rainbow Awards. The Mayor of Oak Street and First Born Sons have won Reader Views Reviewer’s Choice Awards. His short stories have appeared in several collections both in print and online, and have reached finalist status in several short story contests. A collection of short stories, Far from Home, was published in October 2021. He lives with his husband in San Leandro, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
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