Destined

By Jamie Fessenden

When Jay and Wallace first meet at an LGBTQ group, they have no idea they’ll be dating six years later. In fact, they quickly forget each other’s names. But although fate continues to throw them together, the timing is never quite right. Finally they’re both single and realize they want to be together... but now they can’t find each other! 

With determination and the help of mutual friends, Jay and Wallace can finally pursue the relationship they’ve both wanted for so long. It’s only the beginning of the battles they’ll face to build a life together. From disapproving family members all the way to the state legislature, Jay and Wallace’s road to happily ever after is littered with obstacles. But they’ve come too far to give up the fight.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781641085700

Jamie Fessenden

Jamie Fessenden is an author of gay fiction in many genres. Most involve romance, because he believes everyone deserves to find love, but after that anything goes: contemporary, science fiction, historical, paranormal, mystery, or whatever else strikes his fancy. He set out to be a writer in junior high school. He published a couple short pieces in his high school’s literary magazine and had another story place in the top 100 in a national contest, but it wasn’t until he met his partner, Erich, almost twenty years later, that he began writing again in earnest. With Erich alternately inspiring and goading him, Jamie wrote several novels and published his first novella in 2010. That same year, Jamie and Erich married and purchased a house together in the wilds of New Hampshire, where there are no street lights, turkeys and deer wander through their yard, and coyotes serenade them under the stars. Visit Jamie: jamiefessenden.wordpress.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Jamie-Fessenden-Author/102004836534286 Twitter: @JamieFessenden1

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Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Prelude

Part One

Chapter One

Interlude

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Part Two

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

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About the Author

By Jamie Fessenden

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Copyright

Destined

By Jamie Fessenden

When Jay and Wallace first meet at an LGBTQ group, they have no idea they’ll be dating six years later. In fact, they quickly forget each other’s names. But although fate continues to throw them together, the timing is never quite right. Finally they’re both single and realize they want to be together… but now they can’t find each other!

With determination and the help of mutual friends, Jay and Wallace can finally pursue the relationship they’ve both wanted for so long. It’s only the beginning of the battles they’ll face to build a life together. From disapproving family members all the way to the state legislature, Jay and Wallace’s road to happily ever after is littered with obstacles. But they’ve come too far to give up the fight.

For my amazing husband, Erich.

Destined is the more or less true story of how Erich and I met and spent years figuring out we wanted to be together. It isn’t 100 percent accurate, but memories rarely are. And this is our fairytale, so I reserve the right to make us handsome, charming, and maybe even a bit heroic.

Prelude

1994

JAY AND Wallace were convinced they met for the first time in 1999, but they were wrong. They’d met five years earlier than that, in 1994. But neither of them remembered.

Jay had just graduated from college with a computer science degree and found himself a job two hours west of the university doing tech support for a mail-order company called PC Connection. A coworker found out he was looking for an apartment in the area and told him his wife managed an apartment building. So that was how Jayson Corey ended up in Keene, New Hampshire, in the midnineties with a job, an apartment, and no friends to speak of.

He was social enough. He made some acquaintances at work. The support department went out for drinks every Wednesday night after work, so he got to know his coworkers a bit better. But apart from work, he didn’t have much in common with them. And none of them were gay.

There was a gay men’s group in town, so Jay went to one of their meetings. The men were nice—and some were pretty cute—but he didn’t immediately connect with anyone. In retrospect, perhaps his friends in college had been a little on the fringe. They’d introduced Jay to role-playing games, medieval banquets, fire dancing, skinny-dipping….

He could imagine some of these guys skinny-dipping—and that was pleasant to think about—but they clearly wouldn’t have fit in with his friends back at UNH. He supposed it might be time to move on. After all, he wasn’t in college anymore. But that thought didn’t cheer him up at all.

Then he saw the flyers on the table. They were largely flyers for other gay groups in New England, some too far away to appeal to him at present. But one intrigued him. It was a flyer for Gaynemede’s Crossing, a group for gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, and trans pagans in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jay wasn’t a very religious man, but he’d attended some Wiccan gatherings in college. The circles had been peaceful and beautiful experiences. He found the thought of dipping a toe back into that scene intriguing, especially as a contrast to the stressful, high-tech business environment he now worked in. And Cambridge was just north of Boston, about an hour’s drive away.

HIS FIRST attempt at going to the group was a dismal failure. He’d never driven in the Boston area, and he wasn’t prepared for the chaos in and around the city. He drove an hour to get there, then spent another hour driving around hopelessly lost, until he finally found himself on a highway heading north, passing an abandoned car in the breakdown lane that was literally on fire. He said, Fuck it! and kept going until he hit the New Hampshire border. Then he went home, vowing never to try anything so foolish again.

But one month later, he was back on the road. Jay wasn’t sure why he was so determined to go to this one group, but this time he was armed with better directions and a phone number.

He got lost again. As the beginning time for the meeting came and went, he found himself at the ass end of Boston, surrounded by crumbling, mostly empty buildings and road construction. He had no idea where he was, though it resembled a portal to the underworld. Eventually Jay came across a Dunkin’ Donuts that had a pay phone. He dialed the number for the group, and a man answered.

Hello? Wallace said, having no idea he was about to hear the voice of the man he was destined to marry.

Frustrated, his nerves stretched to the breaking point, Jay skipped over romance and went straight for, Where the hell are you? I’ve been driving around looking for you guys for forty-five minutes!

Um… do you know who you’re calling?

Jay hesitated. Maybe he’d dialed the wrong number. Sorry. Is this Gaynemede’s Crossing?

Oh. Yes.

I wanted to come tonight.

The meeting’s almost over.

When Jay spoke again, he was embarrassed to hear a catch in his voice, as if he were on the edge of tears. I drove all the way from New Hampshire….

Well, where are you now?

Jay wasn’t sure. But he described the Dunkin’ Donuts and the bridge outside, and his suspicion that it led to one of the nether hells. To his surprise, the man recognized it.

Gods! How on earth did you end up all the way down there?

I have no idea.

The man on the phone was silent for a long moment, and Jay waited for him to say Sorry. Better luck next time. Then Jay would have to find his way back home, having failed again. He braced himself for it.

But instead the man said, You’ll need to turn around and head back the way you came, until you cross the bridge into Cambridge. Then he proceeded to give Jay directions and describe the neighborhood and what the storefront looked like.

Jay had no idea what the man’s name was or what he looked like. But he knew he loved him.

WALLACE HAD to help Adrastia clean up after the ritual. Not that the ritual itself had been particularly messy, but they had to make sure all the chairs were put back against the walls, all the snacks had been carted away, and all dirty paper plates and plastic cups were tossed in the trash. A quick sweep didn’t hurt either. Gaynemede’s Crossing was allowed to use the basement room of the store on the condition they not inconvenience the owner.

The shop itself was a vaguely New Age occult shop selling herbs and paraphernalia for religions ranging from Wicca to Hinduism to Santeria. Wallace often bought candles and herbs there for his personal use, and they had a decent stock of occult books. Unfortunately it was well past closing, so no one was there to sell him the scrying mirror he’d had his eye on. He’d have to remember to grab it before the ritual next month, if it was still there.

As Adrastia shooed everyone outside, Wallace took one last look around and then locked up with the key the owners had entrusted to him. It was past eight, but it was late June, so the sun was still in the sky and the air was deliciously warm. A few people from the group were still straggling by the front steps, knowing a quest for Vietnamese or Thai food was likely to be next on the agenda.

A man approached them along the sidewalk, eyeing them with trepidation. Frankly, that wasn’t unusual. Outsiders often found the group a bit… eccentric. Adrastia towered over everyone, and her broad shoulders made it obvious she was trans to all but