Today, I'm looking back
at Christian and Shea from Against the Wall,
book 7 in the Firsts and Forever
Series.
I love these two! Christian, my free-spirited artist with a
secret, and sweet, self-conscious police officer Shea are perfect together. But it didn't start off smoothly.
Here's how they met. Christian is in a crowded nightclub with his new friend Chance and is just looking for a one-night stand. But Shea turns his world upside down -- once they both get past this awkward beginning:
“There’s a seriously hot
guy staring at you. Did you notice?”
“No. Where?”
“Diagonally across the
dance floor. Royal blue polo shirt, shoulders and arms like Atlas.”
I spotted the guy in
question. Talk about gorgeous. He was totally built, with short, dark brown
hair and eyes so blue I could see their color even at a distance. He was talking
to three other guys. They all seemed to be about the same age, mid-twenties,
but his three companions were all shorter and skinnier than him, and not to be
unkind, but they were clearly dorks. The two white guys were a perfectly
matched set (except that one was blond and the other brunet) who’d worn
long-sleeved dress shirts along with their jeans, totally buttoned up and
stiff. Their African American companion wore a bright t-shirt with the word
Bazinga splashed across the front of it, along with a fedora. I had to wonder
what Captain America was doing with the nerd herd.
“How would you know who
that guy was looking at? This place is wall-to-wall people,” I yelled to
Chance.
“You’re directly in his
line of sight. Just watch him for a minute and you’ll see I’m right.”
The guy appeared to be
having some sort of debate with his buddies. His friend in the fedora pointed
across the bar, directly at me, and yelled something to his hot friend, who
shook his head emphatically. Then one of the buttoned-down white boys took him
by the shoulders, spun him toward me, and tried to give him a push. The hottie
dug in his heels.
He did look up though
and saw me watching him. Maybe. I still wasn’t convinced that I was the focal
point of his attention, though he did suddenly turn a shade of red so vivid
that it was noticeable even among the club’s bright, flashing lights. Chance
leaned in and said, “Why don’t you go talk to that guy? Ask him to dance or
something.”
I glanced at my
companion. “First of all, I don’t dance. Secondly, why would he be looking at
me, out of all the people in this place? Maybe he’s looking at you, you’re
right beside me and pretty damn hot.”
“He’s not looking at me.
Watch.” Chance got up and made his way to the center of the dance floor, then
held his arms over his head and moved his slender body provocatively to the
music. This got the attention of a half a dozen men around him, but not the guy
in the polo shirt. Captain America was still glancing my way every few seconds
while his friends appeared to give him some kind of pep talk. It involved a lot
of hand gestures, yelling over the music and emphatic pointing.
I was still skeptical
that any of that had a thing to do with me, but I had just decided to go say
hello to him anyway when the pep talk finally worked. Captain America took a
drink from the tall glass in his hand, then spun around and took a few steps in
my direction, cutting across the dance floor. In the next instant, his arms
were flailing over his head and he fell like a tree that had been chopped down,
tripping over God knows what and landing flat on his belly. Oh man, the poor
guy was dance floor road kill.
He knocked over at least
ten people on his way down in a domino effect. The slippery ice that had flown
out of his glass took out another dozen, most of them knocking down even more
people as they fell. Chance was fairly nimble and managed to remain standing,
but he was in the minority.
I leapt up to go help
the guy in the polo shirt, but he was back on his feet in a flash. He darted toward
the exit with his buddies in hot pursuit. Chance appeared beside me, somehow
having navigated the wreckage on the dance floor, and said, “Aren’t you going
to go after him?”
“I still don’t know if
he was even coming to talk to me.”
“He was, trust me.”
“And what am I supposed
to say to him?”
Chance grinned at me.
“Try ‘hi’. Works wonders.” When I turned to look at him, he added, “That guy’s
having the worst night ever. I bet he could really use some happy right about
now.”
“You’re right. It was
good to meet you, Chance.”
“Keep in touch,
Christian,” he said with a smile before directing his attention to a couple
guys at the bar.
I looked for the boy in
blue as I cut through the club, but he was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t in the
crowd milling out front, either. I stood out on the sidewalk and looked in both
directions, and finally spotted him and his little group halfway down the
block. I went after them, and as I got closer, I saw they were still debating.
They had their backs to me and didn’t notice me as I approached. “Let’s just go
back,” the guy in the fedora was saying. “It’s your birthday, we’re supposed to
be celebrating!”
“Yeah somehow, after
humiliating myself in front of him of all people, I don’t feel
all that festive, Leo,” the guy in blue said.
I was just a few feet
away by now, so I stopped walking and said, “So, you probably don’t mean me,
which is going to make me feel like such a dumbshit for coming after you.”
The foursome turned to
face me, the nerd herd beaming ear-to-ear as the boy in blue went full-on deer
in headlights. He still clutched the empty bar glass. “Oh, he definitely means
you,” Fedora Guy said. He glanced at his friend, then took a second look and
poked his arm. “Isn’t that right, Shea?”
I hadn’t quite caught
that so I asked, “Sorry, what was your name?”
Cricket, cricket.
His friends stared at
him in anticipation, and finally the buttoned-down blond boy answered for him.
“His name’s Shea. Rhymes with gay.”
His dark-haired
counterpart added, “Today’s his birthday, he just turned twenty-five.”
I stepped a little
closer and looked into those wide blue eyes, noting that he and I were the same
height, six-one. “Happy birthday, Shea. I’m Christian.” I tried giving him a
friendly smile, but that just seemed to freak him out more.
“Dude,” the buttoned
down brunet told his friend in a loud stage whisper, as if I couldn’t hear
that, “say something.”
“I...um...hi,” Shea
finally managed.
I smiled cheerfully.
“Hi.”
His posse took that as
their cue. Fedora Guy chimed in, “Our work here is done! We’re going over to
Bas’s apartment, Shea, so you’ll have the whole house to yourself if you know
what I mean. Nudge nudge, wink wink!” Everybody knew what he
meant, and Shea once again turned a vivid shade of pink.
I stepped a
little closer and carefully extracted the glass from his hand. It was
surprising that it hadn’t broken in the fall. As I handed it to one of his
friends, my eyes never leaving Shea’s, I murmured, “You are absolutely
beautiful.”
“Awwww yeah,”
buttoned-down blond boy said with a huge smile, throwing his hands in the air
and swiveling his skinny hips. “It’s on! Have fun, Shea! But don’t
forget dude, no glove, no love!”
The guy in the fedora
grabbed the blond’s arm and started dragging him down the sidewalk as he
called, “Bye, Shea. Bye, hot guy. We’ll be out late. Real late!
Y’all will have plenty of time to get it on!”
“Oh God,” Shea
whispered, still staring at me. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. What’s life
without perfectly certifiable friends?” My gaze drifted to his full, luscious
lips. I slid my hand around the back of his neck, pulled him to me and kissed
him gently. Every part of me came alive, my pulse quickening and my cock
swelling. I wanted this guy, no doubt about it. He was absolutely terrified
though, and I was a little concerned that he’d throw up on me out of sheer
panic.
A chorus of cat-calls
came from his friends, who by now were down the block but apparently still
watching. I ran my hand down his arm and asked, “Do you want to go back to your
place?”
He nodded but remained
rooted to the sidewalk. Maybe he’d only recently come out and wasn’t used to
being with guys yet. That might explain the terror. I draped my arms around his
shoulders and kissed him again, lightly. Then I rested my forehead against his
and told him softly, “I’d love to go home with you and fuck you all night,
Shea. But that won’t happen unless we actually start walking.”
#####
Christian and Shea have been overdue for a check-in, so I'm going to make a point of bringing them back in my work-in-progress. I'm currently writing Quinn's story. He's a new character I introduced in the latest book in the series, All I Ever Wanted. It should be out sometime in September.
