Bleeding Like Me by Riley Parks

A big welcome today to Riley Parks as part of her blog tour with Embrace the Rainbow Book Promotions for Bleeding Like Me from Boroughs Publishing.

INTERVIEW WITH EVAN GOODWYN by RILEY PARKS
My name is Riley Parks and I’m the author of Bleeding Like Me, a romance novel about Evan and Jackson, two men in rival street gangs who fall in love.

Riley Parks: Thank you so much for agreeing to sit down with me to talk all things Bleeding Like Me, Evan.

Evan Goodwyn: Do you have any idea how long this is gonna take? Not because I don’t want to talk about it, but I have other things to do.

RP: I’ll try to have you in and out pretty quickly.

EG: That would be a really shitty pickup line.

RP: (smiles) What would be a good pickup line?

EG: I used to go with, ‘What are you cooking me for breakfast?’ but that was because I was hungry more than horny.

RP: You’ve had a tough life.

EG: Is that supposed to be a question or a statement?

RP: I was acknowledging the fact you’ve suffered in life.

EG: You’re not a therapist are you?

RP: Only for my friends…

EG: I don’t have one of those on purpose.

RP: A therapist or a friend?

EG: Either.

RP: How about hobbies, you have a few of them, right?

EG: Are you talking about my painting?

RP: I’m open to talking about anything you would like to talk about.

EG: You sound like a therapist.

Jackson Jablonic: She said she’s not a fucking therapist, man. Answer the questions so we can be done with this bullshit already.

EG: (to Jackson) She sounds like a therapist though, like she’s trying to get into my head or something.

JJ: (to Riley) Stop trying to get into his head.

RP: I’m interviewing him, that’s all.

JJ: Why are you talking to me when you’re supposed to be talking to him?

RP: Sorry. Evan, I hear you’re an artist. What draws you to painting?

EG: That was a good pun. Did you do that on purpose?

RP: I should say I did, but I didn’t.

EG: I liked it. I like puns. They’re clever.

RP: and painting…?

EG: I like that, too.

RP: Why?

EG: I don’t know. I think I see the world differently, like some people look up at it from the ground and other people look down at it from the sky.

RP: Are you on the ground or in the sky?

EG: I’ve spent enough time high, so I’d say the sky. I see everything happening but I’m not really a part of it all.

RP: Does that bother you?

EG: Maybe it would if I gave it more thought.

RP: What do you think about?

EG: This feels a lot like therapy.

JJ: Tell her to fuck off then.

EG: I don’t want to talk anymore. I have other things to do.

RP: I understand. Thank you for your time.

Title: Bleeding Like Me
Author: Riley Parks
Release Date: November 21st 2017
Genre: MM Contemporary Dark Romance
Published by: Boroughs Publishing

BLURB

Being gay in their neighborhood is perilous. Being gay in a street gang is unheard of. Being gay and in love with a man in a rival gang is a death wish. Through drug addiction, brutality, and seemingly endless peril, they remain; finding stability within each other that shouldn’t exist in their volatile world.

BEAUTIFUL CONTRADICTION

He didn’t paint people; the curves of their bodies and angles of their faces never interested him as much as cityscapes. The circumstances of his life had compelled him to create new worlds that he could get lost in rather than reflect the features of the people he ran from. He constructed buildings from their foundations, making them taller and stronger than he was. He adorned the edifices with countless windows, always left open or cracked so hope could pour in and fears could seep out. Tree lined streets reminded him how to breathe, pumping oxygen through the atmosphere, off the canvas, and into his lungs.

He didn’t paint people until the day he no longer desired the anonymity of his cities. The streets didn’t feel like his escape anymore, not like him. Cerulean skies gave way to pale blue eyes and bus routes to pink pouts. Evan didn’t paint people until he painted Jackson.

Find Bleeding Like Me on Goodreads

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EXCERPT

He’d never been to Humboldt Park before, but he heard it had a pretty good scene. When he was unaffiliated, he could get away with going to the gay spots on the South Side, but now that he was with the KKz, he had to be more careful. He disembarked and walked the short distance to the big rock where guys supposedly met. Sitting down on a bench, he pulled out a cigarette he had bummed off Luis and watched as a couple of queens made a connection and disappeared into the wooded area a few feet behind the boulder. He let the filter rest between his lips as he leaned back to stare up at the moon. It was a waxing crescent that barely glowed against the black expanse of the sky, making the already poorly lit park even darker.

He peered down at a man who took a seat on the bench next to him. They sat quietly, Evan’s head still thrown back and the guy smoking his cigarette as if he hadn’t just propositioned him.

“Nice night,” Evan threw out as if he was telling the moon rather than the guy beside him.

“Are you looking to chitchat or are you trying to fuck?” When Evan finally dropped his head, he noticed that the guy was peering at him with raised eyebrows. They stared for a moment, and without a doubt, a spark arced between them.

“Depends what you’re into I guess,” Evan replied, noticing that the man had a perfectly plump pout. He wanted to see what those lips looked like wrapped around his cock. “I’m not going to bend over.”

“Wouldn’t want you to,” the guy replied with a sniff, blue eyes dropping to momentarily study the grass before returning to Evan’s.

“That right?” he questioned, moderately surprised. Mr. Ready To Hook Up seemed to be tough as fuck, with his sleeve tattoos and muscular biceps that were perfectly displayed in his gray sleeveless shirt. Evan knew it was a stereotype that men who exclusively took cock were soft, but in his experience, more often than not, they had been. He’d fucked a variety of guys, and there was always some negotiating between him and a dude who was versatile. This hot motherfucker was clearly a power bottom, a fact that had Evan’s cock standing up to take notice.

“Need me to spell it out for you, Daywalker?” he huffed, eyebrows raised in challenge.

Evan shook his head and self-consciously ran his fingers through his red hair. “So you want to go—” he began.

The guy interrupted by saying, “Show me what you got.”

Without wasting another second, Evan tossed his cigarette to the ground and unzipped the fly of his jeans, arching his back enough to shimmy them, along with his boxer briefs, down his thighs so his hard cock could spring out. Instinctively, he moved a hand down to the shaft and started to pump it.

Blue eyes observed every stroke as full lips smacked subconsciously. “Yeah, I want to fuck,” the guy stated, seemingly impressed by what Evan was working with. Wordlessly, the hot-as-shit motherfucker stood up and started walking, leaving Evan scrambling to get his pants up so he could follow.

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About the Author

Riley has always loved to write, believing that life has the possibility to be its most beautiful when it’s portrayed on the pages of a book. Feeling the need to create and liberate in the midst of the political landscape, Riley writes novels that focus on LGBTQ protagonists, wanting to honor a community that deserves better representation depicting lives, loves and triumphs in all facets of fiction.

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