Blog Chain: Summer Flings: Do they really exist?

I chose the topic for Blog Chain this time around:

Have you ever written a summer fling? Or are all your fictional relationships the deep, forever kind? If you did write one, how would it begin (the meet cute)? Where would it be set? Give us a few paragraphs sample. 

Surprisingly, though I wrote this prompt, I haven't really written a summer fling. I'll have to think of a new one for the assignment. 

Synopsis: Jaron, a philosophy student visiting hick cousins in Ohio, falls off a hay wagon and lands on a stranger's farm in the middle of nowhere. After blacking out, he comes to with the barrel of Agnes' rifle at his nose. An endlessly practical but lovely corn farmer, she's in the middle of a feud with the mega-farm ten miles upwind, who claims she's growing their patented seeds. The last thing she needs at her door is one of their spies. While Mr. Philosophy waxes poetic about her corn-silken mane and muses over the possibility that reality is completely subjective, Agnes tries to get in touch with his cousins so he can do what men do best and leave. Jaron doesn't remember their phone number, he lost his phone in the fall, and can only tell her their names and horribly mispronounce the town where they live. 

Sample:

"Coshocktown? You mean Coshocton?" Agnes rubbed her forehead with her whole palm. "You're in Plainfield. That's at least ten miles and it ain't flat."

"Well, could I trouble you for a ride?" Ten miles didn't seem that far. Maybe he could take a hike in the morning, after the rain stopped.

Her hand fell to her side and she stared. "Our truck mysteriously stopped working two days back. About the same time another young gentleman came poking around the farm. Another spy!"

Back to the conspiracy theories again. Her patience for his theories on existentialism wasn't likely to improve, either. He'd have to try another tactic. "Our? Is there a Mister Cornsilk?"

Her eyes went from narrowed to slit-thin. "No. And there never will be. If it weren't for this stupid rain and the flash flood warning I'd send you on your way on foot." 

She spun around and tossed a folded quilt. He caught it with his stomach.

"This must be the Midwestern hospitality I've heard so much about," Jaron mused.

"Don't get too used to it."

A little boy with brown hair like a sheepdog and brand new Levi denim walked into the room with a math book. "Explain it again, Aggie? I can't figure out these stupid fractions! Who's that?"

With a deep sigh, Agnes took the boy under her wing and gestured toward Jaron. "This is what a city boy looks like. Take a good look at those skinny limbs and baby-soft hands. It's what happens to a person who forgets how to work." She gave the boy a swat on the bum and told him she'd be in to tuck him in soon. 

Jaron's made-for-children grin collapsed. "Nice. Really nice. You know, you're shaping his reality, too."

Agnes groaned. "Good night!" 

Before he could even think of a response, Jaron found himself alone in a dark, wood-paneled room on a tattered sofa, with only a mutt for company.  

Make sure to check out the other links on the Blog Chain! Catch up with Christine Fonseca to see yesterday's blog chain post,

and check out Demitria Lunetta's tomorrow.

Teaser Tuesday: LOVE ME OR LET ME DIE

I know it's a bit self-indulgent to post clips of your own work. But I'm excited about this story, have spent many late nights writing it, and I'm feeling self-indulgent. So here's a taste of the dark paranormal romance I'm writing with a few holes in the narrative for which I hope you'll forgive me. My main character Lucy is eighteen in the summer after graduation. I'm still trying to decide if that makes it YA or the mythical beast called New Adult. I think the rest is self-explanatory. 

Lucy decided her stupid empath abilities were to blame for the kiss with Chase. He was feeling attracted. Ergot, she was feeling it, too, secondhand. But it wasn't real. Not like what she had with Nick.

She sighed into her pillow and swore not to think about Chase for another second. Saturdays were for Nick. Every day was for Nick.

.... {removed spoilers}

She'd sworn not to think about Chase, and she totally wasn't. She was thinking about herself—her abilities. Just because he shared those abilities didn't mean she had to think about what he did with them.

"Gah!" She buried her head underneath the pillow. It was like Mac's mean trick one day on set when she was bored. "I dare you not to think of a giant, flashing red number twenty-four." Then he'd walked away, and Lucy had tried really hard not to think of that stupid flashing number. She still saw it sometimes when she closed her eyes. The forbidden thought that wouldn't leave.

That was Chase Gillan. 

She called Nick on the drive over to the costume shop. She only wanted to hear his voice, to remember why she'd fallen head over heels for him. To forget the red flashing twenty-four in her mental rear-view mirror.  

"Good morning, my light," his sleepy voice purred.

If there was anything Nick was made for, it was making Lucy forget. She almost ran a stop sign. "Hey, sexy," she answered. "I miss you. Thanks for the flowers."

"Of course." She could hear his smile through the phone.

... {spoilers removed}

She'd been tossing in bed last night for another reason besides Chase and his confusing kiss. No matter how she figured things, Nick had something to do with her burgeoning sensitivity to the paranormal. So could she trust him with her secrets? Did he already know?

Lucy could really use some of that famous lucent clarity about now. 


Thanks for the shout-out, Tiffany!

I'll Show You Mine if You... BLOGFEST!

BLOGFEST! I almost forgot, but better late than never. :)

January 3rd: post 500 words of your Nano novel.

Join the blogfest here.

Setting: Central Park

The sun went down in a splash of color that freckled the horizon. Normally, it would have been romantic, but I wasn’t feeling it tonight, even with Travis’ hand clasped around my own. It felt strangely delicious, being close to them this way—the dust of the Earth once made the brightest stars. People didn’t see themselves that way, but that was just because they couldn’t. They didn’t see what I saw when I closed my eyes. They didn’t see what my third eye revealed: the truth of their origins.

“What are you thinking about?” Travis asked me, brushing the blunt cut bangs from my face, a futile gesture, but a romantic one.

“I’m thinking about you,” I lied. But it wasn’t a lie, really. I was thinking about him. His kind.

His big, country boy hand squeezed mine, and a wholesome, toothy grin made his aura swell a brilliant royal blue. “It’s incredible,” he said. “How do your eyes change so quickly? It’s almost like you’re from another planet.”

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even chuckle. I cried. I know—wuss, right? I’m a total wuss. But if you’d said goodbye as many times as I had in the past three hundred years, you’d know the salty taste of tears by heart. I’d have loved to taste that salt just once, but tears weren’t part of my makeup. The Earth and I were only passing friends. And Travis…

“Oh, Travis.” I looked at our hands with so much longing, my heart chakra threatened to explode.

“What’s wrong? You haven’t been yourself since Carnegie Hall. Are you really so put off by fame and fortune?”

I smiled at his nervous chuckle, grateful for once that I couldn’t produce tears. “You know I have no use for those things.”

“Well…” he squeezed my hand again and wrapped a burly arm around me. Stronger and bigger than most of my chosen ones, he was the softest of them all on the inside. That’s what made this so hard. “Every girl likes to have nice things, right?”

“Not this girl,” I told him, letting my face go slack. “This girl wants peace and quiet and retirement.” And there it was—the first whole truth I had ever told him.

“Why push us so hard, then? Why push me?” For the first time since the purple pink hues of the horizon faded to white, Travis frowned. “You don’t want fame, but you want me to be famous. What do you really want, Azalea?”

Right then, I wished I could zap out—reveal my nature in my escape—a clean break. At least for me. “I want to say goodbye,” I whispered, finally looking him full in the face. “And I want you to understand that it’s not because of anything you did.”

The look of shock—the tense open jaw, the round, lovely eyes—yanked at my soul. I’m sure my eyes turned navy blue, like his aura.

He couldn’t speak. He never could when it came to goodbyes.