Hi guys! We have V.L. Locey stopping by today with the tour for her new release The Good Green Earth, we have a great excerpt and a brilliant giveaway so check out the post and enter the giveaway! ❤️ ~Pixie~ p.s. keep an eye out for Prime’s review coming soon!
The Good Green Earth
V.L. Locey
After the Syracuse Stallions clinch the championship, Nathan Zinkan, the renowned wild man of the AHL is arrested for a DUI. Again. When a no-nonsense judge adds a heavy dose of community service to an already stiff sentence, Nathan has to forget a summer of partying and slide on a pair of gardening gloves. His entire future now rides on how well he can behave while helping elderly urban gardeners tend to their tomatoes.
Watching local garden center owner Bran Cavanaugh working without his shirt is a benefit he wasn’t expecting. Pity Bran is also the one in charge of the community garden as well as keeping tabs on Nathan’s hours served. The two men are instantly at odds due to Nathan’s rebellious nature and Bran’s icy demeanor. Yet there’s no denying the attraction that begins to build between the hot-headed athlete and the cool as a cucumber master gardener.
Will their attraction grow into something deeper, or will it wither and die on the vine?
Excerpt!
“In all honesty, Nate, it could have been much worse.”
I threw my agent a dark look, the darkest one I had, but he just kept walking at my side as we left the Onondaga County Courthouse. My attorney had left me with Arn to rush off to handle some other stupid slob who’d gotten his ass in a bind.
“Explain to me just how it could be worse,” I snapped. My hands balled into fists and jammed into the front pockets of my dress slacks. I’d ripped off the matching blue suit jacket and silver tie the moment we’d left the chambers of the honorable Judge Bend Over Zinkan and Spread Your Cheeks. I pushed around a dude in shorts and a sleeveless hoodie texting as he crossed Clinton Square. Arn made a sound that told me just how irritated he was becoming with me. Good. I was happy to hear that I’d finally ruffled the feathers of the neatly groomed black man who’d been my one and only representative since the age of sixteen.
“Okay, for starters, he didn’t give you thirty days in jail as the law says he could have.”
I scoffed outwardly but inwardly I knew that I’d avoided a bullet on that one. Young athlete in his prime, looking like I did with my tats, my nose ring, my body, and my black and pink undercut hair would have been the center of all kinds of manly attention in prison. Not that I disliked manly attention, I kind of dug it. Nathan Zinkan enjoyed all kinds of attention—especially male attention. That was the best kind of attention. Actually, it was the only kind of attention I desired. And I was not shy about my preferences. I wore my gayness like I did my tats, my hair, and my nose piercing. Loudly and proudly. I just liked consent to accompany my man attention. Call me funny that way.
“Yeah well, all the other shit he slapped me with made up for it.” We left the imposing white domed courthouse and all its bad vibes behind, my gaze locked on the reflecting pool. Now it was a happy little water play area but in the winter it was a skating rink that was supposed to reflect old time days when Syracusans skated on the canals. “I’ve lost my license for six months. I have to enroll in that stupid IDP program, and I have to spend my whole summer pulling weeds and spraying aphids.”
Arn took hold of my elbow to slow my pace a bit. My gaze flittered from the kids playing in the pool to my agent. “Nate, listen, I know that a thousand hours of community service seems a little excessive to you but given that this is your second drunk driving charge in two years, I tend to think the judge was pretty damn lenient.” I gave him a good eye roll but said nothing. “Well, kid, you can look at it like this. It’s better to be out in the fresh air squeezing tomatoes and helping senior citizens than it is to be inside a cell with a guy named Killer who hates punk-ass hockey players with electric pink hair and a diamond nose stud.”
“You think I’m a punk?” The sound of children’s laughter floated by on a warm June wind.
Arn ran a hand over his closely cropped hair. “Nate, I think you’re young, financially secure, and successful, and therefore, you’re prone to making stupid decisions.” He left out a lot about my family and for that I was grateful. Arn knew all about the mess that the Zinkan family was. He’d seen the dysfunction first hand.
“Yeah, okay.” I shook free of his hold and stalked to the nearest bench where I dropped down like a ton of shitty bricks.
Arn sat down next to me, placed his briefcase on his thighs, and drew in a long, slow, calming breath. I had that effect on people in positions of authority. Teachers, coaches, cops, agents, my older brother, clergy, dog catchers, airline pilots, librarians…hell anyone who thought they could tell me what to do. I had a real issue with being told what to do, when to do it, and where to do it.
“Nate, you’re a skilled young man and you’ll go far but you have got to pull your head out of your ass or you’re going to sabotage your future. We are still hoping to move up into the NHL, right?”
“Yes,” I muttered. My shoulders bowed in as I wallowed in self-pity.
“Okay, then you have to stop being such a wild man. The drinking, the parties, the clubs, the attitude, the sexual antics, the drunken driving. It has to stop. Nate, look at me.” I forced myself to glance at Arn. He was a handsome dude for someone in their forties. Lean, smart, always well-dressed, and nice. Nicer than my older brother was that the hell was for sure. “Do you understand that you could have killed someone while driving under the influence?”
Guilt gnawed at me, making my stomach cramp. Of course I knew that I could have killed someone. I’d woken up in cold sweats numerous times, the ghostly fingers of what could have been wrapped around my throat, choking the breath out of me. Remorse rode me like a circus pony.
“I was barely over the legal limit,” I quickly fired back. Fuck. One stupid joy ride with the championship trophy in my new convertible Mustang and this mess was the result.
“That’s not the point. One beer can cloud a person’s judgment. What if you had plowed into a family instead of a tool shed out in Cazenovia? What if someone had been inside that shed looking for a weed eater?”
I nibbled on the inside of my cheek. “I know. I just…we were celebrating.” Christ’s sake, I had little to celebrate in life aside from hockey achievements. Maybe I did overdo it at times…
“I know, kid, I know, but every decision we make has consequences. You skipping college to jump into the game, picking me to represent you, all good decisions.” I snorted. He went right on talking like a father or something. “You have the goods to make it in the pros, but you keep shooting yourself in the foot. Professional hockey teams do not want troublemakers. And you’re one more fuck up away from being branded troublesome, and then you know where you’ll be playing? Not in Manhattan that’s for sure. This organization will trade your ass to the first team or league that expresses an interest, and that won’t be many. But maybe you want to play for some shitty little team in the outer reaches of Bungholia?”
“No, I want to play in New York City,” I said with conviction, my gaze moving over the people of Syracuse enjoying an early summer day as if my life wasn’t imploding like a house of cards.
“Then use this summer to get your act together. Work hard, stop being an ass, and when training season comes make sure you show up in shape, ready to play, and without that hoodlum attitude you’re so famous for.”
“Hoodlum,” I repeated then chuckled. “Dude, you are hideously old.”
“Yeah well, I might be outdated but I’m not spending my summer picking potato bugs.” He slapped my thigh and pushed to his feet. “You want a ride home?”
“Uhm, yeah, I guess I’ll need a lift since I don’t have my license anymore.”
“Really sucks to be you right now,” he said then ambled off whistling, his briefcase swinging back and forth. That was a pretty righteous potshot. God, what a merry asshole Arn Toras could be. And what a shit day this had been. And I suspected come tomorrow at nine in the morning, things were going to get a whole lot worse.
Colors of Love series!
Lost In Indigo (book 01)
.•.•.**❣️ Amazon US | Amazon UK | Kobo | B&N ❣️**.•.•.
Touch of A Yellow Sun (book 02)
(99c/99p until 20th September 2019)
.•.•.**❣️ Amazon US | Amazon UK | Kobo | B&N ❣️**.•.•.
About V.L. Locey
USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, Dr. Who, Torchwood, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, two Jersey steers and a flock of assorted domestic fowl.
When not writing lusty tales, she can be found enjoying her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
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