Rainbow Snippets*--Cold and More Cold

The bitter cold has truly and fully settled in, here in southern Illinois. We had a little snow this week, just enough to cover the ground and make it slick. Our forecast for the upcoming week includes snow and ice. I'm over it already! Bring on Groundhog's Day (because regardless of what that groundhog sees, spring is approx. 6 weeks away.) 

Uptown, February of 2015. I'm hoping we don't get a repeat this week. 

This week's snippet is from Smoke and Sparks. I'm doing another round of edits and this passage caught my eye. Vaughn and Daryl live in different states and are Face Timing for the first time on an evening that Vaughn is finding particularly difficult. Talking to Daryl improves his mood tremendously. Told from Vaughn's POV: 

“You called me Darling,” I said softly. He’d pronounced it in the slight hill-billy twang that occasionally peppered his speech, saying ‘dar-lin’ like the old Conway Twitty song.
           “That okay? Calling you Darling, I mean?” Daryl turned pale, as if he were about to be sick. 
           “Yeah.” I whispered the word and looked away from the phone in my hand. Even if it was nothing more than pixels, it felt intimate and intense. 
           “Hey, look at me. Let me see your pretty eyes and mouth,” he instructed. The color was back in his face and the corner of his lip lifted, more a smirk than a smile, and I laughed, true and loud. God, seeing him, talking to him, made me feel better. It was exciting and comforting and wonderful, and I wanted more.

*Rainbow Snippets is a (Facebook) group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers who gather once a week to share snippets from a work of fiction–-a WIP or a finished work or even a book recommendation. If you're interested in following a diverse group of authors, check it out here.