Today I am so pleased to welcome Jet Mykles to Joyfully Jay. Jet has come as part of our Friends & Enemies to Lovers Week to talk to us about her book Lance, part of the Indigo Knights series. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

Lovers to Not and Back Again

“I hate you!”

Such visceral words, aren’t they? About as powerful as “I love you”. Sometimes moreso. Because if you tell someone who thinks you hate them that you love them, you’ll probably just confuse them. But if you tell someone you love that you hate them… well, that’s something else entirely.

Can anyone break your heart as much as someone you love? Don’t think so. That’s part of the fear of falling in love. Sure, the endorphin rush is great and the whole hormonal thing is awesome, but if you open yourself up to love, you’re trusting someone not to hurt you. That’s huge. We might all be our own worst enemy, but those we love come a close second. Oh how easy it is to rip apart someone’s heart when you’ve got it right there in your hand. Worse, you might not even realize you’re doing it.

In Indigo Knights 3: Lance, I have one such couple. Lance and Gordon had come to care about each other, but both of them were thoughtless. Or maybe they didn’t share enough. They certainly didn’t have faith in the other’s love and they fucked up. Both of them made mistakes that drove them apart. They were both so sure about their own selves. Lance was “living the dream”, making good money making music, living high in someone else’s pockets. How could life get any better? Gordon had ambition and knew, just knew, that a better life, a more fulfilled life, for both him and Lance lay just beyond their grasp. They just needed to take the chance and jump. Lance didn’t have the courage to jump and Gordon saw his lack of trust as a personal affront. They both made bad assumptions and rather than talk it out, make compromises, they drove a wedge between them. Not every reader saw it — maybe that was lack of skill on the author’s part — but both of them were hurt. It was easier to see with Lance because he was the point of view character. He acknowledged the flaws in himself and tried to make changes. Slowly. Gordon was different, he was on the go, he had to move on, so the “hate” showed in him. He was cold, he was unforgiving. But — and this one’s important — he was the one who invited Lance back into his life. Sure, it was a business deal, but he could have found other musicians to join the Knights. He could have kept Lance in his past. But he didn’t. He made the overture. He brought Lance close. Then it was up to Lance to break down those walls, show he’d changed and encourage Gordon to change as well.

In Reverb, I’ve got another couple broken apart by stupid mistakes. Marlowe made monumental errors in judgement which nearly cost him and Nick their very lives and certainly threatened their careers. Here, the onus was completely on Marlowe to make amends, to change his life. But Nick had to give too. He had to get over his anger and frustration, he even changed his sexuality to finally make their lives fit together.

So, what does it take for lovers who’re not to come back together? Give. Change. Atone. The hardest part is to bare your heart to someone who’s already ripped it to shreds. That person was trusted once, they have to earn that trust back and you have to open yourself again. It’s hard, it’s scary and in the real world, sadly, it might not work out.

But, hey, in romance novels, that reunion is oh so very sweet.

Blurb

Years ago Lance and Gordon fell in love when the bass player and band manager were part of The Might. The band was led by a rich, self important genius and everything was just great as long as no one rocked the boat. But Gordon chafed in the restrictive atmosphere and Lance was too laid back to test any boundaries. Gordon pushed for more; Lance fought any change. The final straw came when Lance acted out by sleeping with someone else. That was it. Gordon broke it off and was gone.

Now, Gordon’s invited Lance to join the Indigo Knights, a new band he’s managing. He’s made it clear that this is business only and that they’re not going to rekindle the flames of their past. But Lance has been so hung up on Gordon that he’s been celibate all this time. He wants no one else. He regrets how things ended, but he’s never had the chance to try to make amends.

This is his only chance. Can Lance convince Gordon to trust him again?

Bio

An ardent fan of fantasy and science fiction sagas, Jet Mykles prefers to live in a world of imagination where dragons are real, elves are commonplace, vampires are just people with special diets and lycanthropes live next door. In her own mind, she’s the spunky heroine who gets the best of everyone and always attracts the lean, muscular lads.

In real life, Jet lives in southern California with her significant other and too many cats. She has a bachelor’s degree in acting, but her loathing of auditions has kept her out of the limelight. So she turned to computers and currently works for a software company, because even in real life, she can’t help but want to create something out of nothing.

www.jetmykles.com

Jet’s books can be found at:

• Loose Id: http://www.loose-id.com/authors/g-k/jet-mykles.html
• MLR Press: http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowAuthorBooks.php?list=_ABKLIST005&author=Jet!Mykles
• Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/jetmykles
• All Romance eBooks: http://allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?ref=product&searchBy=author&qString=Jet+Mykles
• Barnes & Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=jet+mykles&z=y
• They are also listed on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49028.Jet_Mykles