Summer Romance: New Material

Summer Romance: New Material

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I am trying to go through the books I wrote during the summer and turn them into a bundle but because I love giving myself lots of additional work, I’m adding a bunch of new content to Summer Romance.

Here’s a portion I worked on today:

A pop and a new Carter hairstyle? I had never wanted to say I was hashtag blessed before, but I felt very tempted now. I dragged my eyes away from his hair and told him, “Thanks again.” Then I couldn’t help myself. “We are so totally getting friendship bracelets.”

“Being friends with you is going to be painful, isn’t it?” he asked but with a smile.

“I can’t help it. You’re so…” I gestured vaguely at him. “Right there. And your face is so fun to mock.”

“I have a great face,” he defended.

Privately, I agreed. To him and his great face, I scoffed and said, “Look who’s modest.”

“You’re still an asshole,” he told me seriously. Had I gone too far? He smiled. “And I still don’t mind.”

I pursed my lips in contemplation. “I wonder if there’s a way to put that on the friendship bracelet.”

He gestured to the pop on the table. “Are you going to drink the beverage I so kindly procured for you?”

I made a decision and shook my head. “Nope.” His face fell for a moment and I told him, “We are.”

I got up and went to one of the market attendants behind the counter who wasn’t busy and he got two paper cups for us to use. I brought the cups back to our table and opened the can.

Carter wasn’t lying. He did have a great face. And hair, I couldn’t forget the hair. But his face stole the spotlight now. It was so soft and pleased when I poured us both a cup of pop.

The rest of the conversation was spent talking about trivial matters and trading stupid banter back and forth. I considered this whole day a true sign that we had gotten past the coworkers stage and entered into friendship territory.

New Fall Story

New Fall Story

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Here’s a snippet of what I’ve been working on today. Boy meets boys in a coffee shop.

The scent of coffee hung heavy in the air, naturally, but mixed with other scents of the season. I watched the staff work as I waited in line. I detected crisp notes of apple, hints of warm cinnamon, and the enticing aroma of other fall spices.

Others behind the counter were rushing around frenzied, but now that I noticed one of the baristas in particular, I saw that he was different. It took more than an afternoon rush to rattle him. He smiled at each person who came up to the counter and I was struck by how genuine it seemed. There’s no way he could be so friendly. Not while teenager after teenager poured in here after school for a caffeine fix, rattling out orders and huffing impatiently. Yet he was easy going, the calm in the center of the storm.

Lately, my life held a whole lot of storm and not much calm, so someone like that held a certain amount of appeal at the moment. Even if otherwise he might not be type. I wondered if his brown hair would feel as soft as it looked and what it felt like to have a posture that relaxed posture.

He was a free spirit maybe, or an artist. There were faint marks of color on his arm that he hadn’t quite washed off and eclectic wristbands on one arm. One of bands was a rainbow, which might be why Quinn assumed he played for my team. And the once over he gave me when we finally made it up the counter made me agree with her hypothesis.

~

 

Breaking Rule 17

Breaking Rule 17

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I have several ideas for the tattoos I one day am totally going to get. One of which is the phrase “Never knowingly be serious,” which I want above my ass, because where else would you get a tattoo like that?

I have so many mixed feelings about most of Doctor Who (except for Martha, Martha is my girl) but I love that quote and River is my other girl. They’re the best, fight me.

The exchange I’m reference goes something like this:

River Song: Are you serious?
Doctor: Never knowingly. Never knowingly be serious! Rule 27.

This is a fairly long-winded way of saying I’m about to share some for reals stuff, so look away if you are so inclined. I am a very small time writer so while I’m almost positive no one noticed my almost three week absence, I still feel the need to talk about it anyway.

Life has been kind of wild. Americans and weather buffs might have heard about a Hurricane Florence hitting the southern states of North Carolina and South Carolina recently? I guess by the time it actually got to land it was a tropical storm or something, which I guess is normally how it goes.

I’m fairly new to the coast, but hurricane season happens every year and locals never really leave and the impending disaster is rarely as big a deal as the weather people say. So of course for my second hurricane season, the storm had to be kinda a big deal instead. Even though it was downgraded to a tropical storm, it was slow as hell and gigantic and it rained for a million years like directly over one spot the whole time.

Yeah, my location happened to be in that one spot.

Being relatively new to the area and never experiencing a major storm before, I got the hell out. I was kinda hoping I still wouldn’t experience a major storm and that I’d just spend a few days working and chilling into a hotel before it was safe to go back… but that was not what happened.

At the time of writing this, I’ve been back for two days. I came back the day we no longer had to boil water before using it, hooray. Getting back in is part of what took the most time but fortunately there was minimal lasting damage where I live.  I’m fine, my dog is fine, our house is fine.

The other part of all this is that the natural disaster was coupled with a family emergency. Back in the Midwest, my grandfather passed away. It wasn’t completely sudden in that he was 88 but also wasn’t really expected in that he was planning to have his knee replaced the next week and he bought and slept in a brand new bed for a grand total of one night.

So, with me and my one bag, my dog and her one bag, and my parents who live in the same area and their one bag each, we all went back to the Midwest for the funeral. I thankfully had one nice outfit, because I thought ‘I’m not going to need this at all but I’ll take it anyway.’ Though my mom, who didn’t bring appropriate clothes, bought a ton of new outfits because she had to look nice for church and she had to have options, so who really was the smart one there?

And for my dog, this was the vacation of a lifetime. She got to run around with my nephews and she met all kinds of people who loved giving her human food.

Basically, I have been all over the place for what I am told was a time span of nearly three weeks. I had been living in hotel rooms and was barely at my computer and wasn’t on any kind of regular schedule, so I have lost all semblance of time. I haven’t been answering emails or anything, so I apologize for that.

Very long story short, I’m back now.

 

FREE: The Beginning of One Little Lie

FREE: The Beginning of One Little Lie

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I actually have no idea if I’ve already talked about this, but I don’t think I have… I mean, I could go and check, but who has time for that? I’ve had a crazy couple weeks (a hurricane might have been involved) but hopefully I’ll get around to talking about that later.

Right now, I wanted to mention that the first four (I think its four, I could check but again, I’m not going to) or fourish chapters of my upcoming release, One Little Lie, are available for FREE right now on Amazon.

Here’s a snippet from the book:

It was really easy to get lost in kissing Ryan. Moments like this were my favorite. Not just because I was making out with someone, though that was fun too, but when I didn’t have to worry about defining myself. I had no idea what the hell I was. I didn’t care. Right now, it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to worry about having a boyfriend and could just enjoy touching him, being with him.

It never lasted long enough.

A loud series of knocks came from the other side of the door. “You have five minutes to open that door,” his dad called out, “Or I’m opening it for you.”

Ryan looked as exasperated as I felt when we pulled apart but he smiled anyway. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty we can do in five minutes,” he joked.

“I heard that!” his dad yelled. “You have two minutes.”

“I don’t think you’re keeping time accurately!” Ryan yelled at him. We lay next to each other on Ryan’s bed, our foreheads touching. It started as us catching our breath, but then our mouths drifted toward each other like magnets and we were kissing again.

Ryan sighed. “We should probably stop doing this,” he said.

I nodded and then we both looked down to my hands that were still pulling Ryan’s shirt off. I withdrew them. “Right, sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He pecked me on the lips and his eyes sparkled with fondness.

Maybe that was part of why this felt so different. I never had anyone look at me like that before. Sure, people liked me, I was popular, but it wasn’t like that. From someone who could call me out on my bullshit one minute and then be all sappy the next.

We grinned at each other. Our lips brushed. “As much as I like your dad,” I said when my mouth was free, “You should probably open the door so he doesn’t come back.”

“I don’t wanna get up.” Ryan groaned and buried his face in my chest. “Carry me.”

“Yeah, like that would work.” Ryan was taller than me, though it was hard to tell when we were lying on the bed and he was clinging onto me like an octopus. I poked him in the side with a finger and he squirmed, so I did it again. He clung onto me tighter in retaliation, but I didn’t mind him being pressed up close to me in the first place, so I let him.

“Are you calling me fat?” he asked in a mock scandalized tone but didn’t pull away.

“I’m calling you a giant.” I wrapped my arms around him instead of pushing him away like I was supposed to. This wasn’t cuddling or something girly like that. It was just… a lying down hug. Okay, that didn’t sound any better.

He pulled his head back enough to glare. “You’re ruining the mood.”

“Think your dad did that,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, he’s good at that,” Ryan sighed before pulling away and getting up and opening the door.

“Too bad,” I continued. “I’m sure you were looking forward to doing that yourself.” Ryan was a smartass and could be kinda awkward, so he wasn’t the smoothest guy I’d ever dated. Well, no, he was, because he was the only guy I ever dated. Somehow, he made being weird seem attractive.

He came back and sat on the bed, hitting me in the stomach with a hand. “How dare you,” he protested. “I am romantic and sexy and errrrrotic.” He dragged the ‘r’ sound out while waggling his eyebrows at me.

Okay, sometimes he made being weird attractive and sometimes he was just weird. But still, it was cute coming from him. Even if I didn’t tell him that. “See that right there?” I asked smugly. “Ruining the mood.”

~~~

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Perils of Fake Dating

Perils of Fake Dating

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In One Little Word, Luke needs to use Ryan to get out of trouble. Ryan wants to get Luke back for an old grudge. And then they fall in love? Maybe, but there’s a bunch of other stops along the way.

Here’s an excerpt:

Ryan

My fake relationship seemed to be working out great for my boy toy, but it was pretty inconvenient for me. Time to balance things out. Besides, I could argue it was practical to show up and embarrass him in front of his coaches. I mean interact with him in front of his coaches since he wanted some type of sports scholarship. They should know all about their star athlete and his boyfriend.

I went more subtle than showing up in a cheerleading uniform this time. I wore a pink sweater as it was cold and pink earmuffs for a little flair. Most of the guys had left the field, but Luke was talking to his two coaches at the pitcher’s mound. One of them was older and also the Economics teacher, and the other was younger, probably playing baseball in college.

I jogged up to Luke, giving him a noisy kiss on the cheek and throwing my arms around him. “Hi honey bunny, are you done with practice?”

The two coaches looked at us, blinking and seemingly trying to process. I kept my arms around the rigid jock and smiled enthusiastically at the men.

“Uh, just talking to the coaches… babe,” he said with false cheer. “Give me a second.” He stared into my eyes, telling me get the hell out of here. He didn’t understand me last night, so I ignored him now.

“You’re the cheerleader,” said the older coach.

I had showed up in a cheerleading uniform to his game one time. I guess that made an impression. “My friends call me Ryan, but Lukie calls me his little lemon drop,” I gushed. Technically, it would make more sense for Luke to be the lemon drop: he had blonde hair while I was a brunette, but it was the first pet name I thought of.

“Lukie, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” responded the younger coach. He grinned and Luke flushed while I soaked in the embarrassment.

“Then you’re the only one,” the other coach grunted. God, even teachers had seen the video?

“What?” the younger one asked.

“Nothing,” Luke said quickly. “It’s nothing you need to see.”

His eyebrows raised.

“We’re an internet sensation,” I said proudly. “Don’t be so modest.”

“We’re hardly a sensation,” Luke argued. He’d pried my arms off him and was holding my hand, gripping it tight. I didn’t back down.

I patted him on the chest. “Let’s not fight in front of your coaches.” I turned to the men with an indulgent smile. “You know how he can be.”

“He’s a great player, keeps the guys focused,” said the older coach slowly, not really sure what was happening.

“Oh, so you just fight with me? I guess I’m special then.”

“So special,” Luke agreed.

I narrowed my eyes. “I didn’t like your tone just then.”

“What?”

“I know you said not to do this in front of them, but I can’t help it. That hurt, Lukie.”

“Oh my god,” he huffed, face red again.

“Well, apologize to your… fellow, Luke,” the older coach said. I fought not to grin as he took my side, looking at Luke expectantly.

“He’s just joking,” Luke assured him, sounding nervous.

Perfect. “Oh, so my feelings are a joke to you?” I raised my voice.

“Luke, come on,” the younger one pleaded. They probably hated dramatic scenes when girls were involved; being around a dramatic gay scene was even worse.

“Son, you’re just going to make it worse,” the older one said.

“Your coaches are smart, you could learn something from them,” I told him, not hiding the grin on my lips.

“Ryan,” he started but I opened my mouth. “Lemon Drop,” he said through gritted teeth, and I let him continue. “I’m sorry.”

I sniffed, turned away. “I don’t think you mean that.”

“I mean it, come on, please,” he begged. I should have captured this moment on camera.

“I can’t stay mad at you,” I exclaimed, throwing my arms around him again. The coaches used it as an excuse to leave.

“I’m going to kill you,” he whispered while awkwardly embracing me back.

“Don’t be like that, honey bear,” I quipped and skipped away.

~~~

Faking it

Faking it

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Captain of the baseball team Luke Chambers never falters when he’s on the mound. He can make split second decisions without breaking a sweat. In real life? He might have just told a lie that he was dating the only out kid in school. He should stick to baseball. Get the young adult novel One Little Word here.

In this excerpt, Ryan and Luke pretend to date with varying results.

Ryan
It was another wonderful day at school, being some kind of reverse beard for my amazingly attractive straight friend. My hand was casually linked in Luke’s while we walked down the hall. I still felt a tingle just touching him, but I worked hard to hide it while he tried to suppress whatever instincts told him this was too gay. We made an awkward, stilted pair that somehow people still didn’t figure out.

“You two look so queer.” Lydia watched us with an unimpressed look. I glared at her.

“That’s offensive,” Luke protested.

“Don’t let a teacher hear you say that,” I scolded. I couldn’t pretend to date Lydia too.

“I don’t mean queer as in gay,” she explained. “I mean as in weird.”

“You’re not very comfortable,” Alicia agreed.

“Well, everyone’s staring,” Luke protested.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Please, everyone stares at both of you all the time.”

“Wait, shouldn’t we look queer as in gay?” Luke questioned.

“You should,” Lydia acknowledged. “But you don’t.”

I sighed. We stopped near my locker. I leaned on the metal instead of opening it as that would make this even more awkward since our hands were still joined.

Luke looked around, seemingly trying to gauge how much people were buying this. His calculations didn’t please him because it was like I could see a sign in his heading lighting up that said ‘drastic measures’ as he leaned in to me.

“Don’t kiss me again,” I warned. I couldn’t handle it. Both the hotness and that he then got all weird.

“Dude, we’re boyfriends,” he defended. Yes, a kiss was pretty effective at convincing people; it just worked a little too well on me. Especially now. I faced towards the windows at the end of the hallway while he faced away. Being lit by the sun made him positively glow, like a super-hot angel or something.

I pulled my hand out of his. “You need to relax. You’re trying too hard.”

“But this is… crazy.”

“Yeah, and you don’t let yourself stop thinking about that.” I looked to Lydia and Alicia. “Pretend I’m Lydia,” I said, grimacing.

He considered it for a second, then shook his head. “I can’t.” Thank God.

“Pretend you’re European,” Alicia suggested instead.

Luke nodded like that made perfect sense. “Yeah, okay.”

“That will work for you?” I asked.

Luke shrugged and nodded. “Europeans are weird.”

This was weird. Stupid. He was a terrible actor too, but I still got all nervous and weak-kneed at being so close to him. Luke shuffled his feet, and I prepared myself for insanity. He looked up and past me and something changed. All he did was take my hand and send me a flirty smile, but it seemed way more natural now. Was this him pretending to be European? Did he think Europeans gave bedroom eyes to everyone?

I felt light-headed. I could barely handle him struggling to be my fake boyfriend. I would die if he started to excel at it.

“Well now, this is better,” Lydia said in her version of an approving tone.

“I’m inspired,” he said while looking at me.

I couldn’t help blushing. This would kill me.

“Hey guys,” a new voice interrupted.

“Oh, hi Zach.” I turned my head to see him approaching from behind me. This was awkward, as close to a love triangle as I’d ever get. Holding hands with my fake boyfriend while an actual guy who was interested looked at us, his lips quirked up like this was hilarious. He didn’t seem to notice how weird this was.

“You guys can keep doing… whatever this is.” His smile grew, it was really cute. “I just wanted to see if we were still going to study tonight?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I nodded and unconsciously gripped onto Luke’s hand tighter. He sent me an annoyed look that I ignored. I shyly looked up at Zach. “Yeah, of course.”

“Good.” He grinned at me, sent Luke another amused look, and went on his way.

“You’re studying with him?” Luke asked.

“It’s just studying.” I shrugged.

“That’s an obvious line,” Luke insisted.

“Who cares?” Lydia said, smiling. Her and Alicia took turns giving me a high five.

 

~~~

Night at the Theater

Night at the Theater

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A pretend date from One Little Word.

Ryan

Luke and I went to see the drama club’s fall presentation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream together. He got to pretend he was an out and proud athlete, and I had someone to go the show with, so I didn’t complain. I flailed internally at how date-like it seemed, but I covered pretty well, I thought. Good thing he was fun to laugh at.

We were early, so we stood in line and waited to be let in while I watched Luke with a bemused expression.

“It’s set in the woods. You’re sure one of them doesn’t wander off and die?” he asked hopefully. “It’s the perfect horror movie scenario.”

“This isn’t a horror movie, it’s a comedy.”

“They should have done Romeo and Juliet instead,” he muttered. His acting chops weren’t that good, but they were good enough people bought our act, so privately I thought he would make a good Romeo. With passionate green eyes and dimples, I could see how any naïve, young Juliet would follow him to certain death.

I felt nervous and excited just from the awkward hand holding we were doing, but I didn’t say any of that. “You like Romeo and Juliet?” I questioned instead.

“It has swordfights and death. It’s the Shakespearean version of an action flick,” he reasoned.

“Well, this is like the Shakespearean Hangover.”

He narrowed his eyes. “No way.”

I shrugged. “Everyone wakes up confused in a forest and there’s a donkey instead of a tiger.”

He didn’t look convinced but said, “I guess I’ll give it a chance.”

“You’re so uncultured,” I teased.

“Dude, don’t be like that. I’m your boyfriend,” he teased back, but I couldn’t handle hearing him say those words.

“Shut up,” I said, removing my hand from his suddenly.

Luke frowned. “I’m just joking.”

“You suck at it.”

He doubled down, clutching a hand to his heart and imploring, “Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. Can you ever forgive me?”

I did not melt. I fought a smile while saying, “Pretty sure you’re hopeless.”

“But you love me anyway.”

The words caught in my throat.

~~~

A real romance?

A real romance?

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Luke keeps getting put in gay situations. And now his fake boyfriend Ryan has a real suitor. Luke’s best friend is Zach. Those last two sentences aren’t related to each other… right? Right?

Here’s an excerpt from One Little Word.

Luke

Lunch was awkward. Of course it would be awkward. I had just sucked face with a guy in front of our table. The seniors had gotten up and left, something they usually did when Ryan sat with us, but it felt different now. This wasn’t a video or a rumor. I had just kissed a guy in the cafeteria. I thought the stares were bad before.

“This isn’t right,” Ted said, and some of the guys nodded.

“Come on, man—” I started.

“No, it’s not that,” he interrupted, gesturing between me and Ryan. “I mean, I’m not thrilled about that,” he admitted, looking at us distastefully. Yeah, that was quite obvious I wanted to snap but managed to hold my tongue. “It just seemed like…” Ted looked at Zach and the other guys followed suit.

I looked at him, not getting it. What, Zach had the biggest problem? We were best friends. I’d have thought he’d at least try to be supportive, or pretend to be. Okay, Zach didn’t really do supportive, but I didn’t think he’d go out of his way to be a bigger asshole than he already was. That was true friendship for him.

“Uh, we thought you and Ryan were just pretending,” Joey said carefully. “And just a second ago, we were pretty sure Zach liked Ryan.”

God, Joey was so dumb. The catcher obviously took too many fastballs to the head, even with a helmet. “It must have been a misunderstanding,” I said easily.

“No, he’s right,” Ted said. What? The rest of the guys nodded.

“Zach’s straight,” I informed them. Was that something I even needed to say? He seemed to have a new girl every week.

“Well, actually,” he piped up.

“What?” No, no way. I stared between him and Ryan. Ryan looked down, not saying anything or meeting my eye, and he removed his hand from mine. Shit, I didn’t even realize we were still holding hands.

“Nothing’s going on between Ryan and I,” Zach chimed in when it was clear me and Ryan weren’t going to say anything, “As obviously he and Luke are so in love, but I was inspired by your PDA to come out.”

“How is this even possible? Is there something in the water?” Ted asked sarcastically. Joey put down the bottle of water he was about to bring to his lips, staring at it like it was poison.

Zach looked at Ryan, and the two traded a warm look, like they were in on a secret. What the hell? I suddenly felt annoyed for some reason. I wanted to grab Ryan’s hand again but that felt too petulant.

“Nope, no way,” Ted said. Joey was looking at everyone who passed by our table with suspicion and distrust, trying to see if there was someone with a rainbow sign around their neck reading ‘I’M GAY’ that he missed somehow.

“You’re gay?” is what I asked Zach. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like the rest of us were freaking out, fidgeting and staring at Zach like there was still a hope he could be joking, but Zach just sat there calmly.

“Bi actually,” he said simply, examining his nails like he was bored. He always had neat, even nails. Was that a sign?

“We’re, uh, supportive?” Ted tried to say but asked instead.

Zach sent him a bitch please look. He was always so good at that expression, just like Ryan. Was that a sign I missed? “You don’t have to say that,” Zach informed him.

“No… we totally accept you,” he said in a flat tone.

“I don’t give a shit,” Zach said easily.

The rest of the guys seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank god,” Joey said. “It’s already enough with those two.” He pointed at me and Ryan. “But apparently you’re also a fa—”

Ted elbowed him, and he stopped talking while Principal Simmons walked by. “I mean, uh. It’s fine. I’m…”

“Supportive,” Zach filled in, amused.

“Yeah, that.”

~~~

Secretly Gay

Secretly Gay

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“Let me get this straight,” Zach said, eyes dancing with mirth as we walked through the halls to the cafeteria.

“You mean let me get this gay,” Joey corrected.

“You know what? I’ll accept that,” Zach decided, offering his fist for Joey to bump. “Good one, Joey.” Why were these two my closest friends? Assholes.

“Oh, come on,” I begged.

“No, you come on,” Zach responded. “Your plan is to fake date Ryan, but secretly, so no one finds out.”

I nodded. “Right.” What was so weird about that? Alright, a lot, but still. It could work.

“But you want the administration to find out somehow.” Zach looked at me like I was a moron, but he did that a lot, so it didn’t really mean anything.

“This is so gay,” Joey interjected.

“No, it’s secretly gay,” Zach quipped.

-from One Little Word