Category Archives: awards

Apparently Luki and Sonny have made a few people cry. Sorry. but not too sorry, because it got Yes: A Vasquez and Jams Novella nominated for the 2012 M/M Romance awards on Goodreads. Not surprisingly, in the best tear-jerking scene category. Thank you readers, for loving Luki Vasquez and Sonny James enough to make the nomination.

Here is the link to vote on all the categories, or click on the badge, above. Please vote, even if Luki and Sonny don’t get your vote, show your pride. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now, I don’t know what scene from yes is the tear jerker the nominators had in mind, but I can just about guarantee this is not it! I’m offering it just for the fun of it, and a little warmth on a winter’s day. Hope you enjoy!

On New Year’s Eve, Sonny fell in love. With Luki, not for the first time. He used to fall in love with him regularly, but over the last months, it had happened rarely. Very. Not that he ever stopped loving him, but moments of heart-stopping I-love-him-so-much-I’m-gonna-die had fallen to the status of a vague hope for “someday.” But now, there Luki stood, breathing easily without oxygen, effects of chemo and prednisone dwindling—for the time being—radiation sickness beating a fast retreat. On New Year’s Eve, Sonny’s “someday” had come.

Across the living room—the only room in the rambling house still walled all the way around with the original, varnished logs—Luki held up his copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Sonny—who rarely watched movies, or television for that matter—privately wondered how any movie, especially one starring a bunch of stuffy Brits trying to be funny, could be so fantastic. Luki’s anticipation seemed almost boyish—though even after months of sickness, even stripped of hair, his body most certainly was not.

“C’mon, baby, let’s watch it,” Luki said. I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.”

Sonny followed him to the living room, sat in the chair and waited while he put the DVD in the player.

“No,” Luki said, tucking himself into a corner of the couch with his bare feet drawn up. “Sit over here with me. Please?”

The “please” was unnecessary, as far as Sonny was concerned.

Still, he wanted to be sure. Not long ago, Luki’s skin had been so sensitive it burned to be touched, and a body close to his made him sweat with heat. Quietly and probably too seriously, he asked, “It won’t bother you?”

“Please?”

So Sonny took up his station, laying curled up half behind Luki with his head miraculously ending up in the crook of Luki’s arm, just as if they were made to be braided together in that fashion.

Luki had discovered the joys of reading after he moved into Sonny’s house, and he especially liked to read aloud to Sonny. At those times this was how they would lay. Now, as always before, Luki stroked Sonny’s bare skin absently while they watched. It felt so sweet, so much like coming home that at first Sonny couldn’t follow the movie. Instead, he listened to Luki laughing, to his heart beating, to his breathing, soft and even.

But Luki had told the truth. Knights riding stick horses
discussing how much weight an African Swallow could carry and throwing cows at each other made him laugh—so hard he had to sit up and wipe his eyes. At a quiet point, he felt Luki’s eyes on him, thought maybe he needed something. But when he turned his head, Luki was gazing at him, his face alight with one of his slight but soul-deep smiles. Sonny tilted his head, questioning.

“Sonny. It has been so long since I’ve seen you laugh. Really laugh, with your whole heart in it.” He ran his thumb across Sonny’s lower lip. “It’s medicine. It might save my life.”