Tag: novel

One Little Word Prologue

One Little Word Prologue

by fnmanning ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Here’s the prologue to One Little Word. Enjoy!

Luke

My mother raised me right. She would say that everything good about me came from her and my less pleasant qualities were inherited from my father. It’s not that they’re divorced or that they don’t get along. She’s teasing him. They’ve been together 20 some years and they do that, tease and joke and then kiss right in front of me. It’s pretty disgusting.

But I am a good guy. And I mean more than just good to look at it. Not that I’m a slouch there. I see the way girls look at me when I walk through the halls. It could be my sandy blonde hair or the muscles and trim body I’ve developed from lifting weights and playing baseball. Maybe it’s my vibrant green eyes or just the confident way I stroll through school, like nothing and nobody can stop me.

It’s precisely that attitude that got me in trouble. It was a few minutes before school started. Me and some of my buddies from the team walked from the gym after doing our morning weight training routine. We’re sweaty and tired, not just from the exercise but at having to get up so freaking early, though a few guys shoved each other and messed around in their typical fashion.

“My grandma can bench press more than you, Ahmad,” said Joey Wilson, a great catcher whose IQ was much lower than his batting average, which was saying something since his batting average wasn’t that great. My best friend Zach Ahmad didn’t look over at Joey. I don’t even think his eyes were open.

“Got nothing to say to that, Ahmad?” smirked Ted Summers, our team’s back up third baseman.

“If you expect a response from me before 9:00 a.m.” he started haughtily, “come up with something worth the effort of replying to.” He leaned into my shoulder and let me guide him down the halls. Lazy asshole.

“You didn’t have to come work out,” Ted pointed out.

Zach swung his arm around my back, clapping me on the shoulder. “The captain here said I should show initiative.” The last words dripped with disdain.

“I will drop you,” I warned.

He opened one eyelid to peer at me. His tired blue-grey eye projected a surprising amount of menace. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“How did you make captain anyway?” Joey asked me, switching targets. “My little sister can bench press more than you.”

I scoffed at the catcher. “One, you don’t have a little sister.”

“Okay, your little sister can bench press more than you,” he corrected.

I carried on like he hadn’t spoken. “Two, that was basically the same insult.”

“Whatever, you queens.” Joey gestured to Zach and me limping down the halls together. “Going to take each other to prom?”

“How would they decide who gets the fancy crown?” Ted snickered.

I considered thanking Ted because if we got a crown that meant we won something, but I directed a question to the leech on my shoulder instead. “You got anything to say to this?”

He lifted a finger in Ted’s general direction. “Blah-blah, you’re a girl.” Then he pointed towards Joey. “You’re gay, blah-blah-blah.” Zach positioned himself more firmly on my shoulder. “You make a surprisingly comfortable pillow,” he told me. “Why don’t I sleep on you in Spanish class?”

“You’re a vain bastard who’d never do this in front of anyone else?” I guessed. The guys watched, thinking that might get a response. Zach opened his mouth, then shrugged and closed it, conceding the point.

“You’re so gay,” Joey said, laughing at us.

“Better than being a retard,” I responded instantly.

Remember, my mom raised me right. I don’t swear in front of my grandparents or act rude to ladies and I take my cap off for the national anthem. But in front of the guys, it’s different. I may be the most popular guy in my grade but part of that is because I fit in. Juvenile, off-color remarks are the only things Joey and a lot of the other guys understand. I guess I could not say anything, but okay, maybe I’m a macho idiot jock who can’t be the bigger person because I just can’t let the comments slide.

“At least I’m not a pussy,” Joey said. Zach snorted on my shoulder because the catcher basically conceded to being a retard. I mean, mentally challenged.

I responded back as I’m expected to, not even thinking about it, trying to remember if we had any homework in algebra that I forgot to do. “Whatever, you fag,” I said. No points for originality, but I flipped him off too for good measure. He huffed and rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to respond, probably with something witty and original along the lines of I know you are, but what am I.

Except then I heard a sharp intake of breath and a stern voice behind me. “Mr. Chambers. Head to the principal’s office.”

Fuck.

One Little Lie

One Little Lie

by fnmanning ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’m hard at work on One Little Lie, the sequel to One Little Word. My writing process isn’t very glamorous, it’s just a lot of flailing internally, telling myself to write faster, and curling into a ball and crying because I really hate editing.

I’ll be sending out early copies to beta readers who want to provide feedback, and you can sign up for that here. I’m sending out the beta copies in August even if that means emailing them at 11:59 pm on Aug. 31. I  also hope to post a preview soon on Amazon.

For now, I’ll just post the beginning of One Little Lie.

~~~

“Hey, gay boy!” The taunt came as I walked briskly through the school doors. What a way to start the day. Small town bullies had so few targets when almost everyone in our farming community was the same, so the out gay kid known as me was a perfect choice.

Rural Lake Forest (which had neither lake nor forest) was a small city that unfortunately for me felt like a small town. But I didn’t have time to cater to this moron heckling me today. “Hi there, repressed jock,” I replied breezily while attempting to stroll past him.

“Where are you rushing off to, princess?” the bully asked with a sneer, stepping in front of me.

I smiled thinly. “You should really be careful about what you say. You never know who might overhear.” And there’s no way I was pretending to date this guy. You might wonder if that was even an option. You’d be surprised. But that was a story another day.

He scoffed. “I don’t need life lessons from a fairy.”

Being negative so early in the morning would surely earn him bad karma, but it wasn’t my job to stick around and teach him to be a better person. Was that uncharitable? Did my unwillingness to be kind even to those who were mean to me ensure that I would have bad karma too?

Screw it, it was too early for karma.

I resumed walking and the guy jumped out of my way so that he wouldn’t have to get up close and personal with the queer kid. Also because I had two coffees in my hand and he didn’t want to wear them. As I passed him, he said, “We weren’t done yet.” The jerk actually sounded a little sad; he was probably happy to catch me alone.

Now that I hung around with the captain of the baseball team, Luke Chambers, there was less bullying. Reduced bullying and fewer hostile stares meant more me time, which was great since me is my favorite person in the world. Though Luke was quickly gaining ground.

“Sorry,” I apologized quickly, pausing for a moment against my better judgement. My boyfriend Luke was turning me into a softie as I almost felt bad for ruining this asshole’s fun. Remaining cynical and jaded by the world when dating such a dreamboat was a challenge. Oh god, did I use dreamboat in my inner monologue? I’ve been corrupted.

The bully snorted. “Whatever, fag.” Yep, no reason to feel bad.

“That’s the spirit,” I said and tried to go on my merry way.

“You aren’t even going to play along?” he asked with a frown. “You used to.”

True but that was a defense mechanism as I used my words to fluster bullies and then run away. I didn’t have an overwhelming amount of strength. I worked on our family farm, sure, but my diet consisted mainly of sarcasm and root beer and I spent my free time in my favorite science teacher’s classroom.

I told the jock, “I have more important things to do now.”

“Like being queer?” he smirked and held up a hand for someone to high five him for his verbal genius before realizing his friends weren’t around.

“Is everything okay here?” The words were said by a sharp voice. After the quick click of heels, the owner of said voice, the aptly named Mrs. Sharp, was standing next to us and viewing us with keen eyes. She came by too late to hear anything, that was how it usually went, but she made an educated guess that we weren’t best buds.

The stature of this teacher in her early 30’s wasn’t intimidating, but her no-nonsense attitude, cold stare, and hair always pulled tightly into a severe bun made her the instructor that students never dared challenge.

The wannabe bully made a quick getaway and I wanted to follow, but Mrs. Sharp stopped me with her soul sucking gaze and I stood frozen while contemplating the best way to lie to this teacher who could snap me in half with just the powers of her mind.

What a way to start the day.

One Little Word Excerpt

One Little Word Excerpt

by fnmanning ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The hallway was quiet, just us truants, so Mrs. Sharp’s heels clicking on the tiles were loud, followed by a chastised boy, head down and grumbling under his breath. A small throng of jocks trailed behind them.

Alicia and I slowed to watch the scene.

“The rest of you get to class,” she ordered and they scurried off, leaving their leader alone. Luke Chambers. We were a relatively large community, for a farming town at least, so it was possible to not know everyone in your class, though you’d probably recognize their face if not their name. He definitely had the kind of face a boy like me remembered and a body that made me salivate. Everyone knew Luke Chambers though.

He was an all-star, a golden boy. The kind of guy kids like me dream of and don’t tell anyone about. Hot shots like him only dated cheerleaders and mean girls, and oh yeah, just girls in general. I didn’t spend much time thinking about Luke, even though he had dimples and an enticing, toned body. He was hot but an asshole. He thought he was better than everyone else, that was obvious when he had the audacity to hold the door when Mrs. Sharp tried to open it. Rumor was she was the inspiration for Medusa, her glare turned mere mortals to stone. She feasted on the souls of students who displeased her to remain young. No one tried to talk back to her. Unless you were Luke Chambers.

“Please, it wasn’t a big deal.” There were those dimples as he shot her a winning smile. I couldn’t see her react, but if was it like her reaction to everything else, she remained unmoved. I could almost feel the displeased aura radiating off her, and I soaked it in, enjoying the normally perfect, unshakeable athlete’s moment of unease.

“Mr. Chambers, you’ll be lucky if you aren’t expelled.”

There were kids in third world countries that had a harder life than me, I knew that. I may indulge in overdramatics about my suffering sometimes, we all have our ways to cope, but my life probably wasn’t that bad on a cosmic level. Still. Watching Luke Chamber’s face fall as he headed to the gallows, possibly to be expelled, felt like a reward for the torment I endured daily. God smiling on me, saying here’s something to help you get through the day.

“What do you make of that?” Alicia asked.

I smiled. “Karma’s a bitch.”

***

One Little Word is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. If you’d like a free copy to review, please let me know.