Behind the Scenes Blog Tour: GUEST POST, GIVEAWAY & EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT - 'Five Times My Best
Title: Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me
and One Time I Kissed Him First
Author: Anna Martin
Published: May 20, 2016
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Garrett Leigh
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 200 Pages
Tags: M/M; Gay; Bi-Sexual; Friends to Lovers; New Adult; HEA; Coming Out; Coming of Age; Light Angst
Blurb:
When you realize you want to marry your best friend at age six, life should follow a pretty predictable path, right? Maybe not.
As a kid, Evan King thought Scott Sparrow was the most amazing person he’d ever met. At seventeen, his crush runs a little deeper, and nothing seems simple anymore. Scott is more interested in football and girls than playing superheroes, and Evan’s attention is focused on getting into art school. A late-night drunken kiss is something to be forgotten, not obsessed over for the next ten years.
When life suddenly brings them back together, it doesn’t take much for the flame Evan carried for Scott nearly all his life to come roaring back, and Evan discovers that life sometimes has a strange way of coming full circle.
Hello! Thank you for joining me at Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter Blog so I can talk about my new book, ‘Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me, and One Time I Kissed Him First’.
Today I’m going to give you an introduction to one of my favourite characters in the novel, Lacey.
I like to think I have a history of writing interesting and varied female characters in my gay romance novels. In fact, for someone who writes gay romance, I really love writing my female characters! Lacey is no exception.
She’s the sister of one of the novels’ main characters, Scott, and she ends up as the other main character’s best friend. Her relationship with Evan was great fun to write. Lacey is several years younger than Evan and I think she brings him out of his shell and forces him to embrace his more childish side. Evan can be fairly quiet and reserved in parts of the novel, though Lacey is the total opposite. I see her as a bright and exuberant young woman, the sort of friend who drags you out onto the dance floor in a club!
One of the storylines that runs through one section of the story is Lacey’s wedding. This is the first time we get to see Evan as an out and proud gay man, and I really enjoyed writing him at this point in his life, when he’s so much more comfortable with himself. I think Lacey was a big part of Evan getting to that point. How could I not love her for that?!
Here’s a scene from where Evan and Lacey are making final preparations for her upcoming wedding. I hope you enjoy it!
* * *
“Wine.” Lacey suddenly sat upright.
“Pass me your glass, then,” Evan said, already reaching for the bottle.
“No.” She slapped his hand away. “For the tables. We forgot the fucking wine.”
Evan sighed and topped off his glass anyway. “Okay. Do you have preferences for wine, Lacey?”
“Not really,” she admitted and held her hand out for the bottle, then emptied it into her glass. “Oops.”
“Is that the second bottle?”
“Yeah. I like this stuff. What is this stuff?”
“I have no idea. Whatever I picked up at the liquor store on the way over here.” Evan swirled the rosé in his glass and took a hearty swig. “You want rosé for your wedding?”
“Yeah,” she said. A dreamy expression had taken over her face, and Evan wasn’t sure how much the wine could be blamed for that. “I like rosé.”
“I think we’ve established that.” Evan giggled. Oh hell. He’d had too much to drink.
“Fuck you.”
“No thanks, darling. You’re not my type.”
He hauled himself back up to sitting and put his wineglass down on the coffee table. There were seven weeks left until Lacey’s wedding, though there was still plenty left to do. The “to-do list” was supposed to have been what they were addressing this evening. Instead they’d gossiped and drunk two bottles of wine. That was more like what they normally did on a Friday night when Anthony was out of town.
“So,” Evan said. “Wine. I’ll put it on the list. Do you actually want to go and pick wine or just find something that’ll go with the menu?”
“You pick.”
“Nu-uh. I’m not going to choose and get it wrong. We could always ask the caterers to suggest something.”
“That’s a good idea,” Lacey said, pointing at him emphatically. “I’ll call them.”
She reached for her phone, and Evan put a gentle hand on her wrist. “It’s almost eleven, Lace. Call them in the morning.”
“Is it?” she shrieked. “No way. When did that happen?”
“Somewhere between the first and second bottles of wine,” Evan mumbled, reaching for his glass.
“I didn’t eat dinner either. That’s why I’m drunk.”
“Mhmm.”
“I’m going to make something. You want a grilled cheese? I’m in the mood for grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“I can help,” Evan said. “Can’t have you setting yourself on fire this close to the wedding.”
Lacey grunted and hauled herself to her feet. She was wearing sky-blue pajamas with fluffy bunny slippers and one of Anthony’s football jerseys. Evan pushed at her shoulder affectionately as they wandered through Anthony’s huge, gorgeous house, wineglasses in hand, to the kitchen.
“So, we’ve got everything sorted for the rehearsal dinner now? I want to make sure I don’t need to think about that anymore.”
“You don’t need to think about that at all,” Evan said as he pulled a skillet from the drawer next to the stove. “I’ve got that covered with Morgan.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. Morgan’s got your bachelorette party covered too—”
“Wait, you’re not involved?”“No,” Evan said. “Girls only.”
Lacey had taken a seat at the kitchen island, clearly willing to let Evan make her snack for her. He didn’t mind, not really, and moved around her to take butter and cheese from the fridge and a loaf of bread from the pantry.
“But you have to come!” Lacey wailed. “You’re my gay best friend. You’re an honorary girl.”
“Geez thanks, Lace,” Evan said sardonically. “Just what every gay man wants to hear. While you’re busy emasculating me, do you want my balls too?”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, waving his words away. “You know what I mean. You have to come.”
“I really don’t,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll end up carrying you all home on my own, and you know what? I don’t want to be the one responsible for you.”
Anna Martin is from a picturesque seaside village in the south- west of England and now lives in the slightly arty, slightly quirky city of Bristol. After spending most of her childhood making up stories, she studied English Literature at university before attempting to turn her hand as a professional writer.
Apart from being physically dependent on her laptop, Anna is enthusiastic about writing and producing local grassroots theater (especially at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she can be found every summer), going to visit friends in other countries, baking weird and wonderful sweets, learning to play the ukulele, and Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk.
Anna claims her entire career is due to the love, support, pre-reading, and creative ass kicking provided by her best friend Jennifer. Jennifer refuses to accept responsibility for anything Anna has written.
