Good Morning Monday ~ Throwing Hearts excerpt!
It’s release week for Throwing Hearts!! I’m super excited for the world to meet Leo and Merrick this coming Sunday. They’re adorably cute and fun, a little bit sexy, and super sweet. Kinda just what the world needs right now 😉
The paperback should go live on release day as well, and I’ve sent the file to Glen Lloyd for narration of the audiobook!! So things are moving right along. And the paperback cover is sooo cute! Huge thanks to SJ York for helping make it so perfect! Look at this prettiness…
And as promised, an excerpt… In this scene, Leo is telling his flatmate (and bestie, Kell) all about the cute pottery teacher, Merrick, and what he could find out about him on social media…
~
“Don’t make me wait, Leo,” she said. “I need all the details.”
“Well, he’s not married, and from what I can tell, he is single. There’s no Grindr profile, which is a relief. No photos of him with another guy, no holiday snaps, and his Instagram is all about his pottery studio. He’s been tagged in a few photos and seems to have a really cool group of friends. There’s even a few family photos, and no crazy cult mentions, either.”
“So basically you’re saying that he is single and perfect.”
“Pretty much, yep.”
Kell laughed. “So, show me the pics.” She nodded toward my phone.
I went straight to Instagram and found his profile. “Oh, he’s so cute!” She said. “Gotta love a guy who can put a rainbow flag in his profile.”
“I know, right?”
She scrolled some more. “Did he make these?” They were two large, round ceramic bowls with some kind of crazy glaze. They were refined, minimalist but earthy, and they looked incredibly expensive.
“I think so. Pretty sure he only tags and watermarks his own stuff.”
“Holy shit, he’s clever.”
“Uh . . . Holy shit he’s gorgeous.”
Kell laughed. “That too.”
She scrolled down some more until she came to a photo of six friends at a table in a restaurant somewhere. There were empty plates and wine bottles on the table. They were all laughing, and Merrick had captioned it with “love these people.” There were a few hashtags of friends and best friends, and they looked close and extremely happy.
Kell continued to scroll down through his posts until they found what looked like the grand opening of the studio. That was four years ago, and there was one photograph of Merrick inside his studio sitting at that long table, and he was laughing at something. It was a candid shot and strikingly beautiful. “Oh wow,” Kell said.
And then she did the most horrifying thing anyone could ever do.
She accidentally double-tapped.
She looked at me, aghast. “Oops.”
Holy flying shit balls. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t mean to!” She squeaked and handed me back my phone like it was on fire. “Oh, Leo. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
I could literally feel the blood run from my face. She’d just double-tapped. On his photo. She had just liked his photo from four years ago, on my profile! He was going to get a notification that basically proved I’d been stalking him. “Oh, this is bad. This is so bad.”
“Maybe he doesn’t check his notifications.” She looked stricken. She pulled a couch cushion onto her lap and clung to it. “Maybe he doesn’t use his Instagram much. Check when he posted his last photo; then see how often he posts at all. He might not ever know. He might not even know it’s you.”
“My profile picture is my face, with my name, and that I’m part of the Bridge-the-Gap program is in my bio.”
“Oh God, Leo. I’m so sorry.” Her face lit up then with an obvious idea. “Ooh, we can change your profile picture and your bio. Here, give me your phone. He’ll never have to know.”
“Or I could just move to Peru and become a llama farmer,” I replied, not really joking. How was I going to face him on Friday? “Or maybe I can donate my body for organ harvesting a little sooner than expected.”
“Ooh, dibs on your liver.”
“Bitch, I need that.”
Kell laughed. “Well, llama farming could be fun.”
“I’ll have to tell Clyde we’re going to swimming instead of ceramics. If he ends up drowning Shirley, then I’ll go to prison as an accessory which, to be quite frank, is preferable to facing Merrick on Friday morning.”
Kell made a pained face. “I’ll bake you cakes with nail files in them. I promise. If you go to jail, that is.”
I patted her on the knee. “Thanks.”
“It’s probably the least I could do.”
~
They’re all so much fun!!!
Next week I will have the buy links for you, when it goes live on the 15th.
TALLOWWOOD AUDIO
What is available for preorder is the audio of Tallowwood!! It goes live on the 25th but you can pre-order it HERE
Okay, that’s it for this week… I hope everyone stays safe and I’ll see you all next Monday!
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