The Forbidden Summer

E(Van)der

Summers always meant a return to the peaceful lake cabin, a special place where Père and I had made countless cherished memories together. Waylon was my grandfather—-not by blood, but by love. We fished, swam, worked side-by-side, and for the longest time, that was enough to satisfy my growing feelings for him. Until one summer, it wasn’t.

I started noticing how his eyes lingered and how our closeness felt different. The tension between us was impossible to ignore, but neither dared to voice our feelings. Then we found the key to the shed. Buried beneath dust and time were the letters of two men—Harold and Elliot—who had once loved in secret, their story mirroring our own in ways we couldn’t dismiss.

As we unraveled their past, our own feelings became unavoidable. But was our love destined to stay hidden like theirs, or could we finally break the curse of Pathfinders Lake?

The Forbidden Summer is an MM romance between a young man and his step-grandad with a 34 year age gap, loads of mutual pining, and a forbidden summer adventure. Part of the Pathfinders Lake multi-author collaboration.