Haley Cass
patreon
Official Cover for next book!
🕑 Added 2022-04-14 08:17:54 +0000 UTCThis is going to be officially announced in a couple of weeks, but... I'm gonna just tell you here, now. Shh ;)
About a year ago, I was asked to join a group of indie authors to release pride novellas on June 1. I know I sort of said this a few weeks ago, but... anyway, onward!
My cover (first time not made by me personally) is officially done!
I can't reveal who else is going to be involved, buuut I can say that you may be in for a treat :)
My story is about Ellie Beckett, a neurodiverse young woman getting her PhD in biomedical engineering, who meets Mia Sharpe, a lesbian firefighter, while hanging out in her favorite pub. Ellie... isn't great at making new friends - and who cares, right? Who has the time or the energy for that? - only there's just something about Mia that she can't quite shake...
I hope you join me in a tale that spans over 3 years of friendship and longing and self-discovery.
Here's a little teaser of what's to come:
Part One: The Laws of Motion
An object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force
i.
Ellie Beckett was in her favorite pub the first time she saw Mia Sharpe.
She was twenty-six and it was just after eight at night. It was late September, and they were in a damnable heatwave even though it was nearly autumn in Massachusetts.
Ellie was great at remembering details like that.
The pub in question was her favorite place to be, due to the fact that it was a total fucking dive. And not, like, a trendy, hipster dive, but like… a genuine hole in the wall, with the only entrance being in a back alley.
She’d enrolled in college a year early at seventeen, and had been surrounded by college students nonstop ever since, given that she was now in her final year working on her PhD.
Cambridge was full of college students, given it being a home to MIT – Ellie’s drug of choice – as well as Harvard, Lesley… yadda yadda yadda. Education capital of the country and all.
So, it was great for her chosen profession. It was less great for the fact that she’d always been kind of a loner with a penchant for issues making friends, and she did not want to hang out with most of the people she knew from university. Or most people in general. And honestly, it felt like they were everywhere.
Except for here at The Witching Hour. Her place.
It was popular enough for her to not feel like she was a lone weirdo holding the establishment up, but not so popular that she couldn’t hear herself think. The floor was dirty, the beer was cheap, and the fried pickles were delicious. Most of all, though, it was a haven for her to simply be.
And Megan, the bartender, always let Ellie stake a claim to her own seat at the bar and exist there for hours while she did her research a few times a week.
She didn’t have what most people would call a thriving social life, but then again, she never had. Mostly, it revolved around hanging out with Riley – her twin sister – and Riley’s band of friends whenever the occasion brought them together. Sometimes, she had get togethers with Dominic, her advisor/mentor, but, according to Riley, she wasn’t allowed to count him as part of her “social circle.”
Oh, and Megan. But Riley always gave her an exasperated look whenever Ellie referred to Megan as her friend.
Overall, Ellie was generally content with the way everything had turned out in the last few years. Things were good. She was good.
The pub was good. Tame and lowkey, Ellie enjoyed being there by herself a couple days a week. She enjoyed having a single drink on her nights there, always taking a long deliberation before making her decision. She’d brought Riley a handful of times, but… not often.
This place, it was hers. She even had the barstool with her name on it.
Okay, so it didn’t actually, but she always sat in the same one every time since she’d wandered in three years ago. And the one time Ellie had sat in another seat, Megan had mocked her about being in the wrong place and had feigned not recognizing her.
Ellie took that to heart.
And Ellie was sitting right there, in her spot where the stool faced the door, when she walked right in.
The woman’s hair was long and dark, falling loosely over her shoulders, as she wore a buttoned-up linen shirt, tucked into a tight pair of jeans. Her hands were slipped into the back pockets of said jeans, and her hips swayed with confidence as she walked.
It should have been funny that she seemed like she owned the room, really, because she had to have stood at just over five feet, if an inch. But her eyes took in every single nook and cranny, measuring everything and everyone – Ellie included – and she emanated such an aura that she knew exactly who she was and where she was and that she wasn’t afraid of anything.
She wasn’t alone, either; she was followed by a small group of people – mostly men, with one other woman – who were a little rowdy.
Ellie wasn’t entirely certain why, but she couldn’t look away. There was just a feeling in the pit of her stomach like she could barely breathe, and it was… unfamiliar.
Ellie didn’t really care much for the unfamiliar. It was why she loved science and didn’t exactly mind being alone. Everything in this crazy fucking world made sense when you were able to rationalize it and study it in scientific terms.
And people didn’t really like that about her, historically.
“First round’s on me,” she heard the woman say to her cohort, before she started that strut right over to the bar.
And Ellie diverted her gaze down into her notebook just in time for the woman to come to the bar. Far, far closer to Ellie than was typical for people.
Part of the reason Ellie liked her seat was because of how far off to the side it was; no one ever even stood near her when they ordered drinks. Because it would be inconvenient for them.
But this woman did. She stood one stool distance away. So, she wasn’t right up in Ellie’s business, but it was marginally closer than most people ever came unless it was super busy. She froze with the proximity, staring intently down at her notes, but not actually seeing them.
“Hey, can I ask what you’re drinking?” The woman’s voice sounded even better without having to carry all the way through the pub. Ellie didn’t quite know how that made sense, but it somehow did – she sounded clear and purposeful with a register a little huskier than Ellie’s own.
Ellie froze, staring intently down at her notes, trying to make herself focus. The woman likely wasn’t talking to her, why would she be?
Focus. Just another eight months left in her PhD and that was it. The notes she was working on for her dissertation for her next meeting with Dominic were important and –
“Excuse me, I’m sorry,” the woman’s voice cut in again, this time a little closer. Close enough that they still weren’t touching, but it was unmistakable who she was talking to. Ellie froze again. “Just – your drink. What is it?”
Ellie slowly turned to look at her, blinking widely. “Me?”
The woman gave her a slow smile. And when she grinned, dimples popped and… just, wow.
“Unless you’d prefer for me to fuck off. That’s fine, too.”
Usually when she was approached in the bar, she did want the approach-er to fuck right off. But normally it was a creepy dude who thought he was being clever or charming or whatever. And they never, ever offered to.
She didn’t realize she hadn’t spoken, until the woman’s smile slowly dimmed and those dimples disappeared. “Got it. Sorry. I’ll go order over there.” She tilted her head toward the front of the U-shaped bar.
Ellie’s eyes widened as the woman turned and took a step, and she spluttered out, “I-it’s a Widow Jane.”
The woman stopped.
“Bourbon.”
“Bourbon,” the woman said at the same time, and for some reason, it made Ellie snap her jaw shut, her cheeks burning. “Awesome. I thought that’s what you were drinking, but I wasn’t sure.” She shrugged, re-tucking her hands into her pockets. “I really like something when I can just sip on it? I’m kind of always looking for the single perfect drink when I go out.” A self-deprecating grin flashed over her face. “Trust me, I know it’s stupid.”
Ellie only blinked at her, lightly – nervously, she realized – tapping her pen against her notebook. But she was… well, she was surprised. Because she felt the same way. Riley commented about whether it was healthy or not to hang out in a pub at the bar, but Ellie wasn’t there to drink in excess.
It – well, it definitely wasn’t something anyone else had ever had in common with her, not that she’d found.
“If, uh, you want bourbon, they also have a really good Maker’s Mark 46,” she cleared her throat, before cutting her gaze back to her notes when the woman’s eyes stayed on her.
The woman opened her mouth to speak, but Ellie never got to hear whatever the words were, when Megan appeared on the other side of the bar. “Can I help you?” She asked slowly, running her eyes back and forth between them.
Ellie bit the inside of her lip and kept her head ducked down, curtaining her long, sunny blonde curls over her whole face.
“Yeah, sorry,” the woman ordered a variety of drinks Ellie assumed were for her group, before she finished by saying, “And a glass of the Widow Jane, neat.”
She smiled to herself, hunching her shoulders up around her notebook. But she liked that the woman was getting what she was drinking, that she seemed to get Ellie on that little, weird thing. That was new.
“Thanks for the rec,” the woman said to her, as she reached out and took the tray Megan had served up for her to take back to her table.
“Erm, yeah,” Ellie managed, with a jerky shrug, not looking back up.
It felt… too weird. She didn’t know.
She didn’t look up from her notes again for a solid ten minutes, sending a fleeting look across the pub to where the woman was sitting. She’d pulled up a chair at the end of a long booth, and the chair was backwards while the woman straddled it, laughing at something someone said, while she delicately traced her fingers over the top of the glass of bourbon. Their shared drink of the evening.
The thought made her rip her gaze away… landing right on Megan on the other side of the bar.
“What?” She asked, a defensive feeling settling in her stomach at the lifted eyebrow of her bartender.
Megan grinned. “Nothing.”
Whatever. Ellie shook her head and took a hold of her pen, forcing herself to not look toward the back of the room again.
It was the first time she saw the woman, but far from the last.
Because Dimples, as Ellie started to refer to her in her head, returned to the pub only a week later. She’d waited for it – for her to approach again – the next time she saw Dimples. She held her breath and her stomach had clenched in anticipation, and she wondered if she should mentally prepare a conversation rebuff: sorry, I’m a little busy or I’m working on something really important, should she say what she was working on? But, it didn’t really matter in the end.
Because Dimples didn’t approach her again the second time she came in.
Or the third time, a few days after that. Or the fourth time, the week after.
She was a regular before Ellie even realized it, almost as regular as Ellie herself. Maybe just as much of a regular, really, even if sometimes their nights at The Witching Hour didn’t coincide.
“She was here Tuesday,” Megan casually informed her as Ellie sipped a coke one night while she was poring over the Encyclopedia of Biomaterials to work into her annotations.
“What? Who?” Ellie asked, furrowing her brow as she ran a hand through her hair.
She’d just had it cut, so the thick, buoyant curls that were often the bane of her existence, now settled right above her shoulders to be slightly more manageable.
“The woman? With the dimples? Dark hair? You were just looking over in the corner where she likes to hang out?” Megan arched an eyebrow at her.
Ellie shot her a confused look. “I was not.”
“You were.”
“No, I wasn’t. I think I’d know if I was looking for someone. I don’t even know whoever it is that you’re talking about.” With that, Ellie propped her elbow on the bar and buried her face against her hand and she slumped down closer to her book.
She wasn’t looking.
~~~
And so this is what's coming up next! Because I'm me... this will be a liiittle bit longer than a novella :D But it will be shorter, I swear.
Especially because I'm jumping back into Long Story Short starring Marisa MacDonald and Savannah Vandenberg of In the Long Run.
Anyway, meet Ellie Beckett
and Mia Sharpe!
Comments
Dalene Engelbrecht
I enjoyed DTAS so much, the fact that it spanned over 3 years and the romance wasn't rushed, was a nice change to a Novella for me. Absolutely had to read it all in one go. Who needs sleep right? On a side note... Delphine deserved more justice and screen time.... now I want to re-watch Orphan Black for the 5th time... thanks for that.
Ange Elson
Just pre-ordered today. You are all such legends. Thank you for all the content you produce for community. But also. Being so intentional about sapphic pride. These are really important convos for our community and I couldn't be more proud as someone who is married to a gender queer sapphic. <3 All of this representation matters. <3
