As I mentioned in my previous blog, The Birth of my First Book, the first scene I had thought of for Cool for the Summer was the one where Gabriel first sees Xander dancing at a party. For the next few days, Cool for the Summer is being offered for FREE on Amazon Kindle. You don’t even need a Kindle to read it. You can just down load the free app from the app store. Below, is an excerpt from that first scene in my brain. Hope you enjoy it enough to give the book a chance.
Two hours later, Gabriel has his third drink in hand, a cup filled with some concoction labeled ‘jungle juice’ and is feeling on the good side of drunk. He is standing with Darien who is talking to a group of people about musical interests, of fucking course. He has honestly kind of checked out of the conversation, preferring to look around the room to people-watch. He is standing in the kitchen, which gives him a great view of the living room and even some of the porch.
He lets his eyes wander slowly over his surroundings, observing people’s drunken behavior with amusement. One girl is already looking completely shit-faced and is being led outside by her friends. If it was some dude doing the leading, Gabriel would have intervened, but he figures she is in good hands with her friends. His eyes slowly track their way to the makeshift dance floor. The beginning chords of Cool for the Summer by Demi Lovato begin to play through the speakers.
The first thing he notices are gold boots. Shiny, pointed-toe gold boots on large feet. His eyes slowly work their way up very long, very lean legs in a pair of obscenely tight skinny jeans. The person’s torso is covered, if you could call it that, in a sheer black shirt with pink flowers, only about two and a half buttons done up. The shirt allows a torso and arms full of stark black tattoos to peek through.
Next, he sees dark, black, wavy hair brushing the shoulders of the sheer shirt. It reminds Gabriel of the ocean at night, a certain darkness about it that is both scary and beautiful. Suddenly, Gabriel wants to go swimming. His hair looks like it would be soft to the touch and makes him want to run his fingers through it. Finally, Gabriel’s eyes land on the person’s face, and fuck. He has full pink lips, a strong jawline with a cleft chin, and hazel eyes with bright gold flecks that stand out, even across the distance. They match his boots. He is smiling, his teeth straight and white.
Goldie, as Gabriel begins referring to him in his head, is dancing with two girls. His long legs are moving to a beat of their own while his hips bump and grind with everyone else. His arms are thrown above his head, and his forehead is glistening with a light sheen of sweat. He is, quite possibly, the most beautiful person Gabriel has ever seen, from an objective standpoint. Gabriel’s alcohol-addled brain doesn’t process the fact that he has been checking out a guy for the past few minutes.
Gabriel continues to watch the man’s body sway with the crowd around him. bump and grind with the others around him. Every now and then, Gabriel sees a pretty pink tongue peek out to wet his plump lips. Occasionally, he will throw his head back with the song to expose the long column of his neck that Gabriel wants to mark. When the song begins to come to a close, Goldie’s hazel eyes lock with his own.
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Xander is just drunk enough to allow two of his female friends to lead him out to the makeshift dance floor of the house party, so for the past few minutes, he has been bumping and grinding to the music. He lets his eyes scan the crowd of people dancing around him, then surveys the rest of the partygoers until they land on a very attractive man that is surrounded by a small group of people. He has a red cup resting in his hand while pretending to be interested in the conversation that is going on in the small group around him.
The man is dressed in a simple outfit that hugs his curvy frame perfectly. His lightly tanned arms are littered with tattoos. Xander’s eyes linger on some, but there doesn’t seem to be a theme among them. It’s almost like his arms are a sketch pad that represents his life. His shirt looks old and worn, the collar stretched from repeated wearings. The dip of his shirt reveals prominent collarbones and a partial view of a scripted tattoo scrawled across the skin there that Xander very much wants to uncover. He can’t quite make out what it says, but he has the sudden urge to trace the words with his tongue. Finally, his gaze settles on the man’s face. He has a wide jaw, firm but thick lips, and the most beautiful gray eyes Xander has ever seen. They look like the ocean on a stormy day, and Xander wants to drown in them.
Xander notices the man’s gaze is starting to move toward the dance floor when the song changes, so Xander, always the performer, decides to put on a show. He begins to move his hips and legs seductively to the beat of the music, careful to avoid the gaze of the stranger. He knows he is attractive and knows his best assets, so he plays them up. He licks and bites his full lips, flips his hair, and exposes his long neck in the hope that his gray-eyed man is actually watching. As the last lines of the song pound through the speaker, he decides to chance a glance only for his gaze to lock with those same gray eyes from across the room.
After the song ends, Xander finds himself politely excusing himself from his friends on the dance floor. He notices the man has looked away and seems to have engrossed himself in the conversation of the group around him. Xander doesn’t want to just fling himself into the conversation, especially since he doesn’t recognize anyone in the group. He was forced to the party by his roommate, Conner, who is a music major, but is glad he came since it has been a good celebration for the end of the semester.
I hope you all enjoyed this small excerpt. I may add more to my blog in the future. Thank you for reading! Follow me on my social media for more!
L. M. Archer 