Title: SPEEDBUMP
Age Category: Adult
Genre: Upmarket Contemporary LGBTQ+ #ownvoices
Word Count: 68,000
Pitch:
Ezra wants to accept their post-testosterone body and find love, but caring for a sick brother comes first. When washed-up musician, Red, returns home, Ezra’s family obligations could prevent them from becoming more than friends.
First 250 Word of Manuscript:
It had been a while since the last time a moving vehicle hit me, but I wasn’t in the mood to take chances. The night was dark—no moon and only a smattering of stars peeking between the clouds. At least the rain had finally stopped. The county road I walked along was flat, but I’d just passed a turn when I saw headlights behind me, coming up fast. A blind turn the locals had been known to straighten now and then, especially when the weekend and low visibility coincided.
I ran toward the neighbor’s patched fence, toward safety in the form of a boulder guarding the apex of the turn, hoping whoever sat behind the wheel didn’t mean to run me down. The way my luck was going that night, with the unexpected rain and Granddad’s truck quitting, it surprised me when the car stopped and I still stood upright.
The GTO, the 1964 stock GTO that I knew to be deep purple but looked black right then, rocked gently and then settled. It rocked again when he leaned across the seat to roll the window down. Even if he’d seen the truck, he wouldn’t know who I was. He’d left town before we moved there, and only one thing about me was at all noteworthy anyway. Everyone knew the day he came back to town. Red Richardson, also known as Ellred Long, the name he got the day he was born. Back from Los Angeles where he never really made it but came close enough to be a Big Man in this little backwash town of five hundred (give or take). What he was doing that far off the highway or any of the main roads, I had no clue.