Heartbelt Records
Heartbelt Records is a fictional record label which will connect many artists, their entertaining lives, and their exciting love stories.
The only thing the characters of these stories have in common from book to book will be the label. Their backgrounds, genre, and pairings will be vastly different.
The Deeper You Go is part one of a duet, so it must be read first, followed by The Longer You Stay. Besides this duet, the other books in the series can be read in any order.
While this is a series of standalones, the characters you will learn to grow and love will make reappearances in future books, but no major spoilers will be shared.
TRAVIS
A nightmare. That’s what his life had just turned into. One Travis Cherry had lived through time and time again, only for the sun to rise and save him. But this time he wouldn’t be waking up to discover it was all a dream. He stared down at the eleven missed calls on his phone from various people in his life and shook his head, not really seeing what was in front of him. It was like his brain couldn’t quite catch up to what he knew to be true.
He kept waiting for his alarm to go off and shatter the illusion of the dream, but he knew it would never come. This was real, and it was time to face the music.
He swiped over the most recent call, the most urgent one, and swallowed hard as he pressed the speaker button. Hanging his head, he propped his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor as the dial tone shattered the silence of his apartment.
“Travis! It’s about time you answered that damned phone. I assume you’ve seen the news, yes?”
As his mother’s voice rang loud and clear through his apartment, he glanced across the room to the muted television. Without sound, the entertainment newscaster mimed excitement over the most recent breaking scandal. His breaking scandal.
Clearing his throat sharply, he tried to force his voice out. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen it.”
She paused for a long moment, and Travis’s vision tunneled, his surroundings blurring into a fog he couldn’t touch or see but was real all the same.
“Honey… You know it’s okay, right? I mean, I’ve known for the longest time.”
His heart skipped a beat as his breath exploded, the fog fading until the familiar pattern of his hardwood floor was visible once more. “You have?” he croaked out.
Even her scoff sounded southern, and Travis could have cried were he still not so shell shocked by the news. “I’m not blind, nor am I stupid. This isn’t really how I wanted you to tell me, but I’ll take it if the only other option was never to say anything. I mean, really—”
Travis threaded a hand through his hair and shut his eyes. “Mom, I’m sorry.”
“Well, I mean, I guess it’s okay. It’s really not a big deal, you know. But at least I’ll have something to talk about in book club now. Susan will be so pissed. I can’t wait to put her in her place.”
Shaking his head, Travis allowed himself a smile at his mother’s antics. “Mom, please don’t parade around the breaking news of my sexuality. I really—I need to figure things out with the label first. Hold off on all that, please?”
“Fine. But you let me know when you’ve got everything squared away. They’re all always bragging about their grandkids and new marriages and all that bullshit. Now I’ve got something to one up them with.”
Travis swallowed. “Mom, is telling everyone you have a gay son really worth bragging about?”
“Well, considering I haven’t been able to say anything about your love life thus far, Mr. Rock Star, I’d say it’s a major step forward. Maybe Susan will shut her whore mouth about Bethany and her stupid grand baby. It’s not even here yet, and it’s all we talk about all the time.”
Travis finally laughed, he couldn’t help it. “Thanks, Mom,” he said quietly.
“Shut your mouth. You have nothing to thank me for. But if anyone gives you any trouble, you let me know. I’ll open a can of whoop-ass on—”
“Mom! It’s fine. It’ll be fine,” he insisted with a smile, even though he wasn’t sure if he spoke the truth yet. The next phone call would be the deciding factor.
“It better be. If you need to come home for a few days, you know your room is—”
“I know. Thanks again. I’ll uh… I mean, I still need to call the label and make sure everything is okay.”
His stomach knotted at just the thought, but he hoped his mother’s reaction was a good omen.
“Alright, call me if you need to talk. I love you, and nothing is going to change that, you know?”
“I know.” Now, he added silently. “Bye, Mom. Love you too.”
After he ended the call, he squeezed the phone between his fingers and sighed.
All his life, he’d known he couldn’t control how other people reacted when he came out. But part of him had at least held on to the power that he could control who knew.
And that power had been stripped from him with just a few photos.
He glared at the television, the red bar scrolling across the bottom in all caps.
TRAVIS CHERRY EXPOSED.
Photos appeared on the screen, blurry ones that had been blurred even more to conceal the very exposed parts of him… and the other man he’d been with.
So he hadn’t been able to control it after all. Coming out, that was. But he couldn’t help the relief filling him, and once he recognized it for what it was, he could breathe again. No, he hadn’t made the decision to reveal to the world that he was gay, but now that it was out, he felt a thousand pounds lighter.
The phone slipped from his fingers to bounce against the floor. I don’t have to hide.
He didn’t have to hide anymore, he didn’t have to pretend to date women who were really just very close friends. No more lying, no more—
The phone buzzed on the floor, muffled against the carpet and he gulped as his agent’s name lit up the screen.
Leaning down, he lifted the phone from the floor with a shaky grip. Swiping to answer the call, he parted his lips to say hello, but before he could even get a word out, his agent blurted, “Are they real?”
The intensity of her voice surprised him, and he blinked, unsure how to answer.
“Travis, the photos? Are they real?”
Finally, he cleared his throat and answered, “Yes. Yeah, they’re real.”
Over the line, she sucked in a deep breath and released it, and Travis sat up straighter. It didn’t sound like a sigh of relief, and he suddenly feared whatever came next.
“It’s fine. We can get ahead of it. If anyone contacts you, just deny. Deny, deny, deny. The label is already working on discovering who leaked the photos. All we have to do is—”
“Wait,” Travis interrupted, and waved a hand through the air as if she could see him. “Wait, what? What do you mean?”
The pause through the line was more telling than anything she could ever say aloud, and Travis’s heart sank. “Travis, Diamond Nights Records does not want to represent a gay artist. For legal reasons they may not say as such, but you know they’re going to make your life a living hell if you don’t fight this.”