It just happened.
I wasn't ready, but it didn't matter.
You smiled, and it knocked me from my nest, took my breath away, and left me falling,
falling,
falling.

Hey guys! So yeah...this year I reread one of my earlier novels (one that means a lot to me) and decided it needed a ruthless re-editing for a second edition.

"nest" is the second edition of "Lenny For Your Thoughts". This edition has been renamed, restructured into a chronological progression, and had heavy rewrites in places. It also now has a kick ass cover, thanks to the wonderfully talented Natasha Snow! At the book's heart, though, it is the same slow burning love story and romance between Lenny and Julian, two cousins growing up in rural Germany.

The novel follows Lenny and Julian (and their evolving friendship-turning-love) from childhood to their mid-twenties.

For any one who has purchased/downloaded the first edition "Lenny For Your Thoughts" and who would like to read the second edition instead, please PM me with an email address and I will send you the newest version. :-)

For any one else who is interested, the novel is available on Amazon and on Kindle Unlimited.

*** Extract from Part One***
(Birds in their Little Nests [don't always] Agree)

BIRTHDAYS AND FORTUNES

I SCREWED UP a sketch I’d been doodling of Oma peering into her crystal ball at the kitchen table. It was all the scarves she wore that made it hard. I just couldn’t seem to give them life. They looked too flat.
That was why I preferred making things three-dimensional, like with the clay, the moldings, and the wax.
I scrunched the paper into a tight ball and threw it at Carolin as she waltzed into the kitchen. It bounced off the curls she’d spent the last hour working on with a hot rolling iron.
“What the hell’s with you?” she said, carefully pressing her hair to make sure her curls were in place.
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
That was a lie.
Dammit, I just needed not to think about it. Who cared, anyway? It wasn’t that much of a big deal…
Carolin bent to pick up the paper I’d chucked at her. She opened it on the table opposite Oma, who was still staring hard into the crystal, murmuring something. Carolin flattened the paper. “Where’s the rest of you?” she asked.
“The rest of me?”
“You know, your two appendages, the ones usually stuck to your hip.” She took the picture to the fridge and stuck it there with a banana magnet. “Ben? Julian?”
I scowled at her, then stood up from my chair and dragged it with a grating squeal back to the table. I didn’t want to talk to Carolin about my “appendages.”
Unfortunately, Oma did. She snagged my sleeve and pulled me close. “Ben’s mama has taken him to see his father’s side of the family. They have flown over here and are in Berlin for a week.”
Carolin took an apple from the fruit bowl and polished it against her chest. “Right,” she murmured, frowning, gaze cast down. She glanced at Oma, mouth opening as if she wanted to say something, but she shut it again, and shined the apple with more vigor. “And Julian?”
Oma let go of my sleeve to pat my arm.
“He’s at a birthday party,” I said, pulling away from her.
Oma shook her head, the setting sun stretching a warm glow over her, making her curls shine all creamy like moonlight. “Not just any party, either,” she said gently. “It’s Julian’s. His thirteenth.”
I caught Carolin’s wince, and I couldn’t bear to hear anything she had to say. So what Julian didn’t invite me like he did the last years? I didn’t care.
Not a bit.
“I’ve got homework,” I said, and rushed up to my room, slamming my door behind me. I fell back onto my bed and stared at the ceiling, planning what I could do to make it less…grey. Less boring. Less lonely.
I rolled onto my side and fished under the bed for the soccer ball I had under there. I threw it against the lonely grey over and over, imagining the thump-thump-thump it made was music. When I got bored of that, I turned on the radio as loud as I could, then, back pressed once more to the mattress with my gangly legs in the air, I balanced the ball on the soles of my feet.
My bedroom door swung in, sending in a wicked gust of air. I started and the ball dropped on my face with a smack. A twang of pain had me blinking. “Shit.” I sat up, lunged for the ball, and whirled it at Carolin—
Except it wasn’t my sister.
Framed in my doorway, in the last of the evening light, was Julian in the T-shirt I’d had printed for him last Christmas.
The soccer ball smashed into his mid-section and I winced. Julian’s face bloomed red as he swore and buckled over, dropping the plastic box he carried to the floor.
I leaped off the bed and moved over to him. “You okay?”
Julian went strangely quiet. Did it hurt so badly—?
Wham! His arms wrapped around my legs. He lifted me over his shoulder and tackled me onto the bed. The mattress met my back with a cushioned thwump, and a five-foot-ten Julian robbed the air from my lungs. “I’m sorry!” I wheezed.
He unwrapped his arms from my middle and rolled off me, laughing so hard his eyes squished together, crinkling slightly at the sides.
I punched him in the arm. “What the fuck? Did you fake the pain?”
He shook his head. “Balls…sting. But…your face…looked…startled…raccoon.”
I hit him again, but this time not quite so hard, and my fist lingered on his chest and upper arm, slowly uncurling. “I hate you.”
That cooled off Julian’s laughter fast. “Yeah, about that…”
He pushed up on his elbows, and I drew my hand away, tucking it under my head. I couldn’t hold Julian’s focused gaze, so I looked up at my ceiling. My whole body was taut waiting for Julian to speak.
His mouth smacked a couple of times, then he sighed.
“What,” I said, “cat got your tongue? Or maybe you’re too exhausted after talking to your real friends all day.”
I caught the blurry movement of Julian moving and felt the bed spring up as he got off it. I swallowed a sigh. Everything about this fucking day sucked major ass.
Something scraped on the floor and then came the distinct sound of a lid popping. Julian’s footsteps slurped passed the side of the bed where my legs dangled and moved to the opposite side. Julian’s side. Near the windows.
Closing my eyes, I felt the air stir behind me. It touched my skin in the lightest way, shifting one strand of my hair, and a shiver rippled over me.
The bed dipped and when I opened my eyes, Julian was staring down at me. “I hated that you and Ben weren’t at my party. I like my other friends but it sucked without you two.” He shrugged. “You know how Mama is.”
I did. “We’re not a bad influence.”
“I know. But if she could, she’d keep me away for good. I whined for forever to get her to change her mind, but she said she thought I’d have grown out of inviting you. When I said never, she said she’s looking out for my best interests. But,” he said, shifting out of my sight for a second, “that didn’t stop me from sneaking over here to give you some of this. Sit up.”
I sat, twisting toward him. I spotted the cake and my tummy rumbled. Julian snorted and handed me a square piece of chocolate cake.
I snatched it from him and took a large, sticky, seriously chocolaty bite. “I love you.”
“Knew you wouldn’t hate me for long.” The Julian smirk was back. He fished out another piece from his plastic box and ate too.
“Aren’t you caked out by now?”
“I wanted to have my piece with you.”
“Then do you have to get back to your party?” I said with a full mouth.
“Soonish, yeah. Uli has snuck over some peppermint schnapps, herby liquor, and some porn for later.”
I was pretty sure I was going the color of peppermint myself. I hated missing out on all the fun. And, well, I’d never seen any porn before. I was curious.
I put down the rest of my cake on the plastic lid between us, then shuffled off the bed and gestured for Julian to follow. Downstairs, inside the hollow bench in the kitchen, I had his gift. It was nothing special, really. Just a CD I knew he wanted.
His hug made it seem like I’d given him the world. “You must have saved up ages for this,” he said, glancing around our kitchen. Which I’d never really thought of as small until I he looked at it that way. Suddenly, I was huge, he was huger, and my kitchen was tiny: a doll’s house, hosting giants.
And then the air grew warm. Really warm, and it felt like breathing through a straw. I suddenly couldn’t stand Julian in our home anymore, cocking his head with those saddened forest eyes, looking at it—at me—like that.
“You’re welcome,” I said, pushing against his chest. I would have pushed him all the way down the hall and out the front door too, if Oma hadn’t materialized.
Yes. Materialized. One second it was just Julian and I, alone in the shrinking kitchen, and the next, Oma was there, resting a firm hand on my shoulder, telling us both to sit our asses at the table. Now.
I did. Reluctantly. Refusing to look at my cousin.
I stared at the window. It was dark enough outside that the glass mirrored everything. I watched Oma’s reflection as she reached out for the crystal ball in the center of the table and dragged it closer. Her bright green and pink scarf stood out, and for a moment the art of the scene was beautiful. Then I glanced at Julian’s reflection. His head was twisted in my direction, shoulders hunching lightly as he sighed.
I blinked away and stared at my own reflection. Chestnut hair, tousled and unkempt; thin lips twitching in an ugly pout; and chin, jutting out—an exclamation of my pride.
“I can read into your futures,” Oma said. “Would you like to know what I see?”
I folded my arms and shrugged, not wanting to appear as if I cared.
But I focused all my attention on Oma’s reflection as she laid the tips of her fingers on the crystal ball and moved them in circles. Her eyes shut and her breathing deepened, turning into a hum. Then she snapped her eyes open and met my reflected gaze. I jerked in my chair, scraping it a few inches across the floor.
Julian leaned over, frowning. “You okay?”
I blinked back at Oma—her big eyes so much darker, so much bigger than usual. An eerie shiver rolled over me, and though I wanted to really badly, I couldn’t look away. What did she know of my future?
“W…What do you see?” I asked, my voice barely more than a croak.
“I see both of your futures at once,” she said.
Julian shifted on his seat.
“You do?” I asked.
“I do. Because they are intertwined.”
“What does that mean?” I said, a nervous shiver sneaking through me.
“It means you’ll be in each other’s lives for a long time.”
Julian shrugged. “That’s nothing I didn’t already know,” he said. Then he leaned over the table toward Oma and whispered loudly:
“But I’m glad Lenny knows it now, too.”