Sample Sunday: An argument with the girlfriend

Despite the weather, summer is coming fast. So for this week's Sample Sunday, here's an excerpt from my hot summer novel, One Shade of Red. This one introduces the reader to the hero's long-time girlfriend, the girl next door: Kristen.
 

Image: Angry Girlfriend by jasonippolitoLicensed under Creative Commons

Argument with Kristen

“Well, look who’s here. Hello, stranger.” Kristen’s voice had that clipped sneer in it. She folded her arms across her chest.

I put on my best smile and held out the flowers from the grocery store. “I finally got the bank account straightened out. Wanna have something to eat and hang out?”

It had taken a week of text messages, emails and a fax between me, Nick and the bank before the bank would give me access to the Pool Geeks account. I could deposit the cheques as well as take money out. So, finally, I wasn’t paying for the privilege of working. The first thing I did with the access was take out a hundred bucks to take my girlfriend out.

Kristen couldn’t suppress her smile when I held the flowers under her nose, although she tried to. Finally, she took the bunch and sniffed. “Well, since you brought flowers ... Where are we going?” She looked up at me, blue eyes shining through the flowers. Her mouth slowly spread into a smile.

“Why not Mama Toni’s? And my parents are away for the weekend, so I got a DVD.”

Kristen pretended to think about it for about two seconds. “Let me put these in some water.”

I stepped inside her house — her parents’ house — and waited like I had so many times before. Mrs. Petri came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “Oh, hello Damian,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down?”

My breath caught whenever I saw Mrs. Petri — even after all these years. She was the neighbourhood beauty: tall and fit with bright blue eyes that she had passed on to her daughter. Her hair was done up high, exposing her long neck, and she wore a sleeveless t-shirt and short pants. I wondered why she always showed more skin than her teenaged daughter.

I followed her to the kitchen and sat at the table; I knew from experience not to sit on the “good furniture” in the living room. Mrs. Petri poured me a cup of tea from the pot that was always filled. “Would you like a cookie?”

I took one from the plate in the middle of the table. Mrs. Petri baked regularly, and I loved her cookies. That’s how I first made friends with Kristen. When I was five, I was in a bunch of kids who came over to the Petris’ to play. I went back for the cookies. Through school, Kristen and I alternated coming over to each other’s houses for homework and other activities. I preferred being at her place, sitting at her mother’s kitchen table and munching on cookies. Those cookies were all that got me through long division in Grade 3 and A Separate Peace in high school.

I ate three cookies before Kristen returned from upstairs, dressed in her going-out-for-cheap-dinner clothes: khaki pants, a scoop-neck blouse and sensible shoes. She had tied her long, straight brown hair into a pony-tail. Kristen resembled her mother in her blue eyes and symmetrical, delicate features, but she was smaller, shorter. She was like a pretty doll: perfect and fragile. The prettiest girl in my grade, she was more for looking at than holding.

“Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Petri,” I said as Kristen pulled me to the front door.

Mr. Petri came in from the garage at that point. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m taking your daughter out for dinner and a movie,” I answered as cheerfully as I could, but I dreaded the response I knew was coming.

“You know you’ll never save money for university if you keep eating in restaurants,” he said. “A boy your age who lives on his own should know how to cook for himself.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Kristen said, pulling me out the front door.

“It’s alright, Mr. Petri,” I said, trying to sound casual and relaxed. Short but with broad shoulders and muscles that rippled in his lower arms, Mr. Petri always made me feel nervous and inadequate. Come to think of it, so did his daughter.
“I just got paid by three different customers.”

I knew what he was going to say next: “You should save that money in a bank. You never know what you might need tomorrow.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Kristen repeated and pulled me out the door.

“Be sure to have her home by midnight!” Mr. Petri called after us. And of course, it took three attempts to get my car started as Kristen’s father watched us from his front porch. By the time I could pull away from the curb, my face was burning.

Kristen and I could never agree on Mama Toni’s restaurant : I thought it was expensive; she thought it was cheap. Of course, she never paid for the food. She thought it was a quaint little place with mementos and pictures from Italy and New York on the walls; I pointed out that it was part of a chain and was owned by a foodservice corporation in Philadelphia. But we both liked the food and I liked to show off just a little by drinking Italian beer — which cost over seven bucks a bottle.

Hell with it: I felt the pool-cleaning cash burning a hole in my pocket.

Kristen ate about a quarter of her plate of pasta; she refused wine on principle and sneered at me every time I took a sip of my Moretti.

“So where are your parents tonight?” she asked while we waited for the bill.

“Up at the cottage for the weekend.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“I don’t live with them anymore, Kristen. I’m a grown-up now. So are you. Besides, this way we have their whole house to ourselves.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I thought you said you didn’t live with them anymore.” She sipped her water delicately. Even though she could be judgemental and fucking annoying, she was very pretty in a delicate, little-girl way. A little too thin, maybe. She’d like it if I said that. She worked hard to keep her weight down.

“I do have a key to the front door. So we can watch the 50-inch plasma in full theatre-surround sound.”

She dabbed her lips with her napkin, then folded it carefully to cover the food left on her plate, as if she couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. “What DVD did you get?”

“Fight Club.”

“What? Why?”

“Hey, it’s the perfect couples movie.” I had been waiting all day to say this. “For the ladies, Brad Pitt gets naked. For the men, big, fat, ugly guys beat him up. What more could you ask for?”

I thought it was pretty funny. I still do.

What did you think? Leave a comment!

One Shade of Red is available on 

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

iTunes

Sample Sunday: cleaning the pool in the hot sun

It's the long weekend, the beginning of the summer season for many in the northern hemisphere. Some of us start to dream of the luxurious, lazy season ahead, lying by the pool ... any pool ... because most of us don't have a pool ...

In reality, the weekend for most of us means cleaning barbeques, raking lawns, turning garden soil ... it's a lot of work.

For this week's Sunday sample, I have an excerpt that shows all the work that goes behind the idylls, lazing in a backyard pool. This is from my second novel, One Shade of Red.

In Chapter 2, the hero, Damian, has to re-clean his first —  client's pool, for free, because he didn't do it right the first time. Ah, the trials and lessons of youth.

So there I was, back at the pool under the mid-afternoon sun, scraping and scrubbing disgusting, smelly slime off the tiles. I had taken my shirt off and put it back on again when I felt my skin begin to burn, and now the cotton was saturated with sweat. Every so often, I reached into the pool and splashed my face. I thought about getting into the pool and staying cool while I cleaned, but I didn’t dare the risk of making Mrs. Rosse any bitchier.

“Now even the fussiest bitch has to be happy with this,” I muttered as I wiped off the very last of the gunk.

“That’s much better,” made me jump and I dropped the debris net into the pool.

I turned to see Mrs. Rosse in her jogging suit: tight blue-and-white top stretched across her breasts, matching tight shorts, expensive Nike running shoes with the top edge of pink half-socks peeking above the ankles. I made an effort to raise my eyes to hers, away from the outline of her nipples pushing against her top. I dropped the bucket and slimy water slopped onto my feet.

“Sorry to scare you,” she laughed and stepped to the edge of the pool. “I just wanted to say that the edge looks great. Nice and clean, now. I guess it’s my fault, really, letting it get as dirty as I did before having someone in to clean it.”

“I didn’t hear you come in,” was all I could think to say. I wondered if she had heard my out-loud thought about fussy bitches.

She laughed, but carefully inspected all around the edge of the pool. I got down on my knees, face burning, to try to fish the net out without getting all wet. When I stood up again, she was standing right in front of me.

“You’re awfully cute,” she said. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. What do you say? I tried to smile and tried even harder not to look at her nipples. “I think you deserve a tip for your hard work,” she added.

What did you think? Leave a comment.

And if you want more:

Get One Shade of Red on Amazon.com
Get One Shade of Red on Amazon.co.uk
One Shade of Red on Smashwords

Sample Sunday: Boxing in the market

Happy first Sunday in May! I'm now back from my Mexican vacation and can pay attention to the blog again.

Image of “Thermae boxer," National Museum of Rome,
by Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009),
used under  Creative Commons

For Sample Sunday, I'm continuing my own tradition of posting action excerpts from my first novel, The Bones of the Earth. The selection below is from Part II: Tests. Here, the hero, Javor, meets for the first time a man who becomes his most valuable friend: Antonio.

Javor stepped back and found himself backed into a vendor’s stall. The locals yelled, protesting, telling the combatants to get away from their produce. The soldier stepped in and swung a heavy fist at Javor’s head. Javor ducked and the fist hit the vendor, who crashed to the ground. But the soldier did not take just one swing at a time—his left caught Javor on the side of the head and he, too, flopped onto the ground, smashing a flimsy table and scattering cheese.

The locals gathered tried to clear their property out of the way of the fight while avoiding fists themselves. Javor struggled to his feet when the Roman’s boot hit him in the chest, but it struck the amulet, which deflected the blow. Javor rose again to see the soldier in a boxer’s stance: fists up, elbows in, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. Javor copied him. The man was at least twenty years his senior, toughened with years of drilling and war. He was a head shorter, but much broader. Thick muscles showed where his tunic parted. He clearly had the advantage over Javor, but he waited. He’s measuring me, Javor realized. He’s looking at my size, my moves. Javor lunged forward and jabbed at the soldier’s jaw.

He connected with a smack, but the Roman barely flinched. He grinned and jabbed back, catching Javor on the chest, again striking the amulet. It clinked and a painful grimace crossed the soldier’s face. He shook his hand, looking puzzled, then jabbed again with his other hand, getting the same result. Now he had two sore hands.

He swore and aimed a blow at Javor’s nose, but Javor dodged and struck back at the same time. This time he hit the soldier in the nose, splattering blood across his face.

The Roman stepped back, grinning. “Oh, ho! The brat has some fight in him!”

What’s the matter with you? It was just a bunch of stupid apples!” Javor shouted, dodging another swing of those heavy fists. This time, a fruit stand shattered and collapsed.

Javor jabbed again and hit the soldier’s arm, then followed up and hit him in the chest. He thought he felt a crack, and the soldier grunted suddenly, doubling forward. But he straightened and closed in, ramming his fists repeatedly into Javor’s chest. Incredibly, Javor barely felt anything. He grabbed the Roman’s head in both hands and pulled down while bringing his knee up and to smash his opponent’s face.

The soldier staggered backward, mouth bloody, spitting out teeth. He looked up and grinned hideously, blood streaming down his chin, sticking his tongue out through the gaps in his teeth. He laughed, but he was enraged now.

And from behind him, two more off-duty soldiers ran to his aid, carrying thick clubs. “Hey, Antonio!” called the first as he ran past the soldier and swung his club at Javor’s head.

Without even thinking about what he was doing, Javor checked the soldier’s wrist with his forearm and then kicked. He spun on one foot and kicked with the other; his foot connected with the second soldier in the side and sent him sprawling. But the first was swinging the club again. Why did I leave my sword behind? He dodged, jumped onto a table which immediately collapsed under him, leaving him standing on squashed fruit. A club swung, missed and landed on a table of vegetables, splattering Javor with pulp.

Javor saw a hand with a club and kicked the wrist, then seized the club as it fell. He swung it up at the other club as it came down. They collided with a bone-shaking thud that he felt all the way up his shoulder.

The new soldier was tough and brought the club down hard on the club Javor held. His hand went numb and he dropped the club. The second soldier was on his other side, grabbing at Javor’s left arm. Again instinctively, Javor jumped in the direction the soldier pulled, sending him off-balance. Somehow, Javor ended up standing on the man’s chest. He spun again in time to block the first soldier with a kick to the chin. The man staggered back, tripped and fell on his back.

But Antonio, the trooper who had started the whole fight, was still there, face bloody and hideous, snarling like a hound. Faster than Javor could think, he grabbed the young man by the tunic and pulled him close as his right fist cocked back for a brutal blow to Javor’s face. There was nothing Javor could do—the legionnaire’s grip was like iron.

Liked it? Hated it? Leave a comment!

Action sample Sunday: The Avar horsemen

Image of Avar horsemen courtesy REH: Two-Gun Raconteur

This week, I am again presenting a fan favourite: an action excerpt from my first book, The Bones of the Earth.

This passage comes from Part 2: Tests. In this section, the hero, Javor — cast out of his own village because of his autism and tendency to attract trouble — and Photius, the mysterious traveller, have found refuge in another village. But it’s not long before the village is attacked by raiders, a group of the horsemen who swept across Europe during the Dark Age. Javor and Photius have tried to organize some defence of the village’s wooden stockade, to little effect.

The riders charged from all directions at once, standing on their saddles to vault the stockade. One landed behind Javor, whose sword seemed to find its own way to the raider’s head, biting through the mail and killing him on the spot. Javor wrenched the sword free of the falling body and ran toward another attacker. His sword led the way, piercing the man’s chest.

But there were too many of them. They killed villagers indiscriminately. Spears and swords bloodied tunics and skirts. Mstys wielded a scythe, cutting down the raiders until a blow to his head knocked him down. Photius had his sword out and Javor saw him dispatch two raiders before another blocked his view.

Javor swung his sword, but the raider was quick and skilled and engaged him in a terrifying bout. Time after time, Javor barely dodged swipes of the curved blade. He couldn’t connect and was conscious of his own lack of skill and experience.

The other man knew he had the advantage. He hit Javor on the arm, then on the head with the flat of his blade. He drew no blood, but the pain slowed Javor down. He swung his blade again and missed again. His opponent seemed to go for his chest, but suddenly swiped savagely at Javor’s legs, tripping him. Javor went down hard. The amulet fell out of his jerkin then, but its chain was still on his neck, and Javor grabbed it unconsciously. The curved sword struck his back, ringing on the armour, but it didn’t penetrate.

Javor rolled on top of his sword. He tried to get out his dagger, but the raider brought his down on Javor’s chest. The blow winded Javor, but the armour held, ringing.

I hope you liked that. Leave a Comment below, one way or the other!

And if you want to find out what happens next, you can get The Bones of the Earth on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Smashwords, iTunes, Barnes & Noble and other e-tailers.