Erin Nicholas... romance should always be this fun!: Completely Yours-- Deleted Scene

Completely Yours

Opposites Attract book one

~ Exclusive Deleted Scene ~

Zach and his EMT partner and best friend, Troy, are at the Convention Center in downtown Boston. They've been called to the scene of a ceiling collapse in the middle of the convention center... where Boston's annual Comic Con is going on :)

***

They started into the convention hall.

“By the way, they haven’t fully secured the roof yet,” Troy said.

Zach couldn’t help but glance up. “So more metal, plaster and heavy beams and lighting fixtures could plummet to the earth and crush us all?”

“Pretty much.”

Zach clapped Troy on the shoulder. “Well, let’s get in there then.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

Three figures went running past, almost tripping Zach. They were short and wore identical wigs of shaggy brown hair and had capes flapping out behind them.

“Munchkins?” he asked. He’d seen that movie. Probably. He was pretty sure.

“Hobbits.”

“Ah.” He’d heard of them. He was pretty sure.

“You have to know Hobbits,” Troy said with a laugh.

“Some kind of dwarves right?

“Jesus, don’t let any of them hear you say that,” Troy said. Then he gave Zach another grin. “And go to the movies sometime huh?”

“I go to movies.” Well, at one point he’d gone to movies. But yeah, it had been awhile. Sitting still for two hours straight was not his thing.

“Go to a movie without a sports theme,” Troy said.

“You actually know about hobbits?” No way.

“Yeah.”

Zach shot him a look. “You saw the hobbit movie?”

“All six of them.”

Zach stopped walked. “There are six hobbit movies?”

“There are.”

Zach shook his head. “Who are you?”

Troy laughed. “Come on man, Hollywood had made this stuff mainstream. I don’t know how the diehard fans feels, but I’m guessing the merchandizing people are thrilled.”

A giant leaf-less tree walked past.

“Mainstream?” Zach asked Troy. “Really?”

Troy nodded. “That’s Groot.”

“What’s a Groot?” He really needed to stop asking questions.

“A giant tree.”

Ah, so at least he’d gotten that much right.

“And I know you’ve heard of Captain America and Iron Man and Thor.”

“Heard of them. Not dressing up as them,” Zach said.

He’d heard of all of the superheroes, of course. He didn’t live under a rock. He even knew they were referred to collectively as the Avengers. But he wasn’t going to admit that to Troy. He didn’t care about this stuff. He’d been a typical boy—he’d played with action figures and read comic books. He’d had pretend gun and sword fights with his friends. He’d imagined what it would be like to fly a spacecraft or have x-ray vision. He’d seen a Star Wars movie. One of them. Once. And he might even go so far as to admit that some of the more current action movie trailers looked okay. Like Netflix okay, not pay-almost-fifty -bucks-to-sit-in-the-dark-with-popcorn okay. But he had a recent and very strong aversion to all things related to… well, all of this.

He was here as an EMT, as part of his job. No matter who was hurt, he would help. But that didn’t mean he’d understand any of this, or embrace it, or God forbid, get involved with it himself. This world—okay, more the online gaming world but yeah, he lumped all of this together—had stolen his sister and he wasn’t going to forgive that.

His once bright, happy, outgoing and social younger sister had been sucked into the dark, weird, introverted world of gaming and it made Zach nuts.

“How can you not know these things though, seriously?” Troy asked, walking around a pile of rubble that had, apparently, at one time been a vendor booth of some kind. There was no way to tell what the brightly colored pieces of stuff had once been, but it was now an insurance adjustor’s worst nightmare.

“Why do you know all of these guys?” Zach asked.

“Uh, because I go out and do shit. I go on dates and those movies are better than the Melissa McCarthy movies the women try to drag me to. And because I am on Facebook and friends with women. You should try it.”

“Going out or Facebook or being friends with women?”

“All of the above.”

“I go out.”

Troy scoffed. “You play basketball with us. You shoot pool with us. You watch ballgames with us. You haven’t dated anyone since…”

Zach gritted his teeth as his friend avoided saying “since Josie died”. Because him not saying it almost made the words more obvious.

And he was right. Zach hadn’t dated anyone since his sister had died.

“You need to be on Facebook,” Troy said.

“I prefer real relationships,” Zach returned. And he did. If he couldn’t see it and touch it, it wasn’t real. He was a hands-on guy. He liked to experience life in all its technicolor wonder, up close and personal. A sentiment that took on a new meaning as a woman walked past with her face painted purple, her eyes circled with bright pink, her white hair striped with blue, wearing a long flowing yellow cape over a white body suit.

“You know, you’d probably like Captain America,” Troy said.

One thing about Zach’s friend, he could carry on a conversation by himself for almost an hour if he needed to. Troy just couldn’t shut up.

“Yeah?” Zach asked. Captain America. With a name like that he had to be tough—people were probably trying to kick his ass a lot. “What’s his super power?”

Troy sighed. “Really? Not an inkling?”

“He has the shield thing right?” Zach had seen posters.

“Yes. A shield thing,” Troy said dryly. “But he’s this upstanding, do-the-right thing, never leave anyone behind, follow-the-rules guy. Just like you.”

That all seemed like a compliment, but Zach knew Troy didn’t really see it that way. Troy called him a do-gooder, the way he might say the term mama’s boy to someone else—with a little bit of exasperation and whole lot of you’ve-got-to-fucking-lighten-up.

But Zach couldn’t argue. He’d been a do-gooder for a long assed time.

“You’re just pissed because I get more girls than you,” Zach said, purposefully lightening his tone as they headed toward the center pile of rubble.

He couldn’t deny that women went for the hero thing. He and Troy and the other guys—EMTs, firefighters, cops—all got more female attention in uniform than in civilian clothing. It was a well-known, repeatedly proven fact. But Zach did just fine in any clothing, thank you very much.

“You do not get more girls than I do,” Troy said.

“I definitely do.”

“No way. Chicks like the bad boy thing I’ve got going.”

Zach shrugged. “Maybe for one night. But I’m the guy they want to bring home to mama.”

Troy shuddered. “You’re right. Thanks for the reminder. No do-gooder shit for me. I’m very happy with the one night.”

***

Take me to the Extended Preview of Completely Yours!