You can read I’ll Wait For You free below.

Blurb:

A Black woman White man, contemporary romance story.

After waving goodbye to a tough five-year marriage, waitress Elinor is ready to pick up the pieces and start fresh.

Now working at a café, she dusts off her old pastime of songwriting, and bravely steps up for open mic night.

As fate would have it, a mysterious, tattooed regular catches her performance that particular Friday….

As a talent scout for the world’s leading music label, Kostya Vasilev is impressed by Elinor’s talent.

And he knows that he can’t keep a talented beauty like her out of his sight for long…

For Elinor, it’s a dream come true when Kostya offers her a gig penning songs for a hit band.

What she hadn’t bargained for was losing her heart to Kostya!

Their connection is immediate, feeling like destiny as their passionate love affair grows.

Yet as they navigate career challenges, past relationship drama, and their journey towards parenthood, Elinor is beginning to notice their tune starting to falter…

Can their bond withstand the crescendo of life’s complications?

Or will they find a way to compose a life of love and unity?

Discover now in this modern BWWM romance novel by Jenny Cater.

I'll Wait For You cover small

Chapter 1

Elinor served the man with the tattoos. She placed down his light, foaming beer, and he grabbed it from her with a brief smile and a thank you. She’d been noticing his presence almost every Friday in Velocity Café, and the staff all chattered to one another, convinced that he was some sort of music agent, there to watch the acts as they performed on stage.

Elinor wasn’t so sure, as she couldn’t imagine a music agent coming to the likes of Velocity Café in the first place. A small, non-descript place, it served both the function of a café, and a late night mini bar in which local acts from around the city could perform (in some cases, Elinor was sure, straight from their mother’s basement and into the red draped stage). Other events could also be organized, as the venue was up for hire by anyone with a passing interest, but given that it couldn’t seat any more than fifty people at any point, the stage was usually only occupied by the Friday night acts, and practising college magicians.

She decided to just ask him directly, pushing through the speculation floating around. “So, I have to ask. My colleagues were wondering about you and what you’re doing here. Are you a talent recruiter? Are any of the performers on the stage yours? Or do you just like coming here and listening to the music?” She flashed him a smile, not planning to believe him if it was the last, since nothing about the music caught anyone’s ear.

The man with the tattoos afforded her long eye contact, light blue eyes striking her dark brown ones, perusing her wiry black hair that she kept short, to save dealing with monstrous tangles, hours of her life trying to brush them all out, and having mid-length hair that resembled more of a helmet rather than actual human head growth. Sometimes, she still had small flashbacks of her worst memories with Johnson’s No More Tangles shampoo, and her mother furiously scrubbing her hair, before pinching it tight at the roots and yanking a metal brush through it, creating snarl monsters on the floor.

“Oh, I’m just here for the music,” he smiled, raising his glass toward her.

“Uh huh.” Elinor had a hard time believing the statement. She had tried music before, worked hard on developing her singing voice, before she had abandoned that path to become a full time wife and waitress – and she was fairly certain from the acts she had seen and heard on the stage that none would be getting through to the second round of X Factor.

Ex-wife. Still a waitress. The insidious thought pervaded her mind. She bit it back, continuing, “I’ll be sure to tell the others. End the wild rumor mill that’s been going on.”

“You don’t sound as though you’re convinced,” he said, smiling wider as he sipped his beer.

Elinor examined the arm tattoos, enough to form a sleeve that covered most of the skin above the elbows. One showed a picture of a field of tiny blue flowers, with a tree that had roots curling around the elbow bone. The tree itself had two yellow, perhaps golden leaves amongst a swarm of black and green ones. It was incredibly detailed and likely expensive, and Elinor wondered about the symbolism behind it. The other arm seemed to be a continuation of the field of blue flowers, though instead of a tree as the prevailing picture, a small, white thatched house seemed to dominate his right arm.

“No,” Elinor eventually said, after quickly checking to make sure her service wasn’t missed by the other four staff members on attendance tonight, “as I could think of better places to perhaps listen to music. Like at home. We have a lot of hopefuls on the stage.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” he said, the hint of a challenge in his tone. “Do you not think these people here deserve being listened to?”

Elinor realized her mistake, cursed herself inwardly for letting the disdain in her personality surface. “Of course not. Everyone is entitled to be heard. And others can choose to listen. I better go…” She made her excuse and left, face flaming slightly from the botched attempt at conversation.

She made her way behind the counter and spent the last forty minutes of her shift serving customers, sometimes checking the man with the tattoos, who sat alone, sometimes staring at his phone and texting as he slowly drank his way through the beer.

“He really said he was just there to listen? Boring,” Karen said, giving Elinor a pat on the shoulder.

Karen was all bounce, blonde hair and four inch heels – the waitress blouse flattered her cleavage in all the right ways. Elinor’s blouse lay more flat over her bre*sts, as they struggled to keep themselves as a properly defined shape, fluctuating from a to b which depended on what precautions she took with eating, or how stressed she was.

“Well, each to their own.”

The first act went onto stage after consulting with Richard Strong, the owner of Velocity Café. Elinor considered Richard, as he buffed an iron tankard from behind the bar until it shone. Not the best manager, but not the worst, she liked him as much as she could with someone who preferred keeping all hints of their personal life under lock and key.

The first act in question looked like three teenage boys, dressed in spikes, chains, and stripy green and black arm warmers and leggings. The lead singer, with black eyeshadow that made him resemble a panda, brought the microphone close to his lips as his band members fiddled with their base and electric guitars respectively. The drum kit at the back of the stage sat forlorn and abandoned.

“Hey, we’re Black Rat Plague, and I’m gonna sing you a song that we’ve been working on for a couple months. Hope you like.”

Elinor almost broke the glass she was holding when they erupted into unholy noise, and the lead singer started growling incomprehensibly into his microphone. She caught the attention of Karen, and both of them fought a wild urge to laugh uncontrollably, as the sounds of a dog growling and terrible note composition filled the room. Several guests appeared offended or unsure what to make of it, and Richard Strong’s face appeared thunderous.