Book Talk

Excerpt: Out of Order, A Bisexual Thriller by Casey Lawrence

A teaser for my bisexual YA thriller, JMS Books 2023

My YA novel Out of Order was first published in 2015 with Dreamspinner Press. After a prolonged period of being out of print, I am excited to be rereleasing the book, along with two sequels, with JMS Books in 2023.

Please enjoy the following excerpt. It was hard to choose a scene without too many spoilers, but I quite like this one.

“Come here.”

Kate hopped obediently over to me and put her foot under the ice-cold stream, leaning against the wall with one hand for balance. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” she said, wrapping her other arm around herself and shivering. She was dressed in tiny jean shorts and a crop top over her bathing suit, midriff exposed. “This is the place where horror movies start.”

Her blood circled the drain in the middle of the room slowly. It seemed to suck and gurgle almost ominously, as though some horror-movie sludge were about to splutter from it.

I laughed it off as I crouched down on the rough concrete floor, careful to not actually sit. The thought of people’s bare feet on the floor and all the bacteria and fungi that could be transferred that way freaked me out to no end. I put the first aid kit rescued from the empty lifeguard tower down just outside the radius of the spray and opened it.

Holding out one hand, I said “Foot,” as a doctor might say, “Scalpel,” during surgery. Kate pulled her foot out of the water and put it in my hand, barely flinching as I pulled at the jagged edge of the cut on the inside of her delicate arch. I ran one hand up her calf unconsciously, trying to comfort her. It was smooth, freshly shaved that morning. “It’s not that bad.”

“It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore,” she said, “but um….” Kate put one hand on my head to steady herself as I began to root through the first aid kit for antibacterial wipes or creams. “About that night….”

“What night?” I asked, finding some Neosporin and holding it up triumphantly. I raised my eyes to meet hers but instead of a smile, I was greeted with a serious expression. Kate’s lips were pressed tight together, her nostrils flared. “Oh.”

“The night you kissed me,” she elaborated. I glanced away, uncapping the tube of Neosporin.

“We already talked about it. We were high,” I said, trying hard not to blush under her stare. I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my neck, and felt my hackles rising. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.” I applied the cream liberally to the cut on Kate’s foot, being as gentle as possible.

Kate hissed and jerked away from my touch anyway. I grabbed her leg once more to steady her. “Almost done, almost done,” I murmured quickly, rubbing my thumb over a little patch of blonde hair she’d missed when she shaved her legs in preparation for our beach day.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Kate echoed, curling her toes anxiously as I reached for a bandage. “I’ve been thinking about that. Saying that it doesn’t have to mean anything doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean anything.”

I didn’t look at her as I opened a package of sterile gauze and began to wrap her foot slowly.

“What does that mean?” I asked, not getting my hopes up. “Do you…want it to mean something?”

Kate sighed in a dramatic, put-upon way, as if I was the one being cryptic. “No. Yes. I don’t know. Do you want it to mean something? Because I think it might already mean something.”

“Well, what do you think it means?” I held her bandaged foot in both my hands, rubbing it softly. Her toes were ice-cold.

“I think it means that you like girls,” she said bluntly, and at my sharp intake of breath added, “Which is okay. It’s okay to like girls.”

“I also like boys,” I pointed out, letting go of Kate’s foot. She seemed to take it back reluctantly, not quite putting it back down. “I kiss boys sometimes.”

“And you kiss girls sometimes,” Kate laughed awkwardly, wrapping her arms around herself. I stood up and met her eyes.

“Just you, actually.” I bit my lip. “I almost had to kiss Lisa Zimmerman in a game of seven minutes in heaven, but I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad you were my first girl-kiss.” My heart was racing about a mile a minute, but I kept going. “You’re much prettier than Lisa Zimmerman.”

Kate smiled genuinely for a second before she bit her lip and it fell away. “If I… also, maybe….” She trailed off, dragging the toes of her injured foot back and forth across the concrete.

“Liked girls?” I ventured, treading carefully in unfamiliar waters. My stomach fluttered anxiously.

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. How did you know?”

“I don’t know anything,” I laughed. “It’s just…a hunch. A feeling, maybe, that it’s not any different. Looking at a guy and thinking that I wouldn’t mind if he kissed me, and then looking at a girl, and….”

“Not minding if she kissed you either,” Kate finished for me, sighing. She nodded decisively. “I get that part. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“I thought it might weird you out. Or, you know, Jessa can be a little — literal, when it comes to the Bible, y’know? And even though she supported my Gay-Straight Alliance in theory, it’s….”

“Different, yeah.”

I took a step closer to Kate, keeping eye contact. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted. I thought, maybe —

The door swung open and both of us jumped. I took a step back, realizing for the first time just how close to Kate I’d been standing. Leaning toward her, too close to be innocent.

“There you are!” Jessa crowed, spotting us and throwing her hands up. “You two disappeared without telling us where you were going!”

“Kate cut her foot,” I said quickly, my heart racing as though I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. “I was just fixing her up.”

“Yep,” Kate corroborated, her lips smacking on the p. “All fixed up. See!” She held up her foot as proof. “Dr. Corinna to the rescue!”

Jessa looked between the two of us, her eyes narrowed. “You two are up to something.” She blinked and then looked at Kate, her face falling. “You told her, didn’t you?” She pointed an accusatory finger. “Blabbermouth!”

“I didn’t,” Kate said in the same moment I asked, “Told me what?”

Kate and Jessa had a staring match, and possibly an entire conversation with their eyebrows that I couldn’t decipher. “Why don’t you go collect the others, and then we can go for ice cream after Corinna and I clean this mess up?” Kate said slowly and deliberately.

Jessa nodded quickly, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Duly noted.” She turned tail and walked out of the change room without a glance back.

“What was that about?” I asked, pulling a face at Kate. Instead of responding, Kate walked up to me and pressed her mouth to mine in a soft, dry kiss. I blinked and it was over. She rocked back on her heels, pulling away. “And what was that about?” I repeated, not even caring about the first thing anymore.

“Since we have school on your real birthday, we’re having your party today. You’re getting an ice cream cake. Brandon and his friend have gone to pick it up.”

“Robert,” I corrected instinctively. “And I meant — why’d you kiss me?”

“Every girl should be kissed on her birthday,” Kate said sweetly, and then bent down and swept the mess of supplies back into the first aid kit. “It’s like, a rule.” She clicked the box shut with a resounding noise. “Besides,” she continued, not looking at me. “I wanted to test something.”

“And?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and suddenly feeling very exposed in a thin white dress covering my two-piece bathing suit. “What was the result of your experiment?”

“I proved my hypothesis.” Kate turned to me, finally, and I could see that she was smiling. “I mean, I don’t think I’m ready to, like, take you to prom or anything. But — yeah. I, um…I don’t have to be high not to mind.”

“I don’t mind either,” I said. She took my hand briefly and squeezed it before we left the change room together. We sat next to each other at the ice cream shop where I pretended to be surprised about my ice cream cake, and in the back of Jessa’s car on the long drive home her bare knee was pressed against my bare knee, and I didn’t move my knee even though I could have. Because I didn’t mind.

(I got a real kiss on my real birthday too, the next morning before school. I didn’t mind that either.)

If you’re interested in reading the rest of Out of Order, get the book directly from JMS Books (eBook $3.99, all formats) or on Amazon ($4.99 for Kindle).

Note that the novel is a murder mystery, and contains drug use, gun violence, and a lot of Big Feelings. For the full blurb and reviews of the book, see the Goodreads listing:

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