NANOWRIMO | WRITING | ROMANCE | PLOTTING HERO
Every Choose Your Own Romance Needs A Second Sexy Hero
Can a childhood friend who knows her secrets become Athena’s greatest love?
If I want readers to choose between love interests, then I need to create separate personalities, and give Athena the chance to explore different parts of her heart.
In The Rockstar’s Wife, Shae had to decide between her husband who could sing his love to fifty thousand people, but couldn’t say it to her in private, and her first love who’d chosen the bottle and drugs over her.
In The Unfaithful Wife, Nina had to decide between her cheating husband who was always sorry when he got caught, and the man who’d made her feel desirable for over ten years.
If Athena’s first love is a forbidden second chance, then her second love needs to be someone different. Here’s a day in the life of Cody.
Cody
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I wake up from a week-long bender to this shit? I mean, what the flaming fuck?
Once I recharge my phone, there’s a dozen messages from my mum, hundreds of party invites from friends of friends who know I can always score good gear, but none from dear old dad.
Could he pull his dick out of his new bride for five seconds to give me a heads up? Or did he really want my reaction to be captured by the first so-called media journalist to ask me how I feel about my latest step-mum?
If asked, I’d more than likely explain that I’d wait until they’d survived their first wedding anniversary before meeting her. Two of his previous marriages hadn’t made it that far. Three somehow made it to five years. Only my mother had made it to double digits. Then again, she was the only one who’d loved him before the money made everything go to shit.
Cody: Geo?
Athena: Dads
Cody: Y?
Athena: shrug emoji
Cody: Poison?
Athena: clean
Cody: WTF?
Athena: time to face life and grow up
Cody: WTF and why?
Athena: Stormy Waters are recording new album. Think I want to watch him work.
Cody: Gonna let him hear you sing?
Cody: Dad got married
Athena: I saw. Sux to be you
Cody: Want company
Athena: sure
Flights from Bali to Sydney were a breeze to book and I even decided to slum it in the cheap seats. No one recognized me as Cody Wilson, son of legendary bassist Stone Wilson, but everyone recognized a party animal. My blonde shaggy hair had the ‘got out of bed and freshly fucked’ look that women adored. My ice green eyes had the permanent red tinge that attracted stoners like flies to honey.
Fifteen years of every martial art class I could find meant I feared nothing and no one, other than silence and my own thoughts.
Athena, clean? No fucking way.
We’d partied with our parents from bassinets to backstage. She’d poured me my first shot and I’d scored her first pills. She’d watched me lose my v-card to one of my father’s groupies, and I’d watched her fall in love at the beginning of the night and lose him by morning.
My best friend and constant.
A couple of quick texts and I had enough gear waiting for me at Sydney airport to satisfy three rows of new customers on the plane. I’d never count myself a drug dealer, but if these tired travelers didn’t have connections but wanted to hit the Sydney party scene with a full tank of gas, then I was just fulfilling a need. Doing society a favor.
“Mr. Wilson, Mr. Wilson,” a journalist shoved a microphone in my face as I waited at baggage claim. “What are you gonna call your new step-mum?”
I guess ‘money-hungry slut’ wouldn’t go down well.
As the journalist kept up with questions, my new customers vanished. No one wanted the sort of publicity I was about to unleash. Fuck.
It all happened in a flash. I stepped backwards, trying to escape, and bumped into a father who was holding his daughter’s hand. She squealed, he punched me. I fell back into the reporter who lost her microphone and camera and screamed that I’d hit her. For the record, I didn’t hit women. Ever.
The father had let go of his daughter, grabbed me by the tank top and took another swing. It grazed my cheek, but I let it slide. His third punch to my face was an overreaction. It was also his last conscious thought as I took him down in one.
Hours later, my father’s lawyer had accessed the security footage and pretended not to be surprised when it proved the debacle hadn’t been my fault. The journalist issued an apology to me and after a couple of thousand dollars was handed over, the father agreed not to press charges.
And instead of partying the night or week away with my new plane buddies, I was in a cab headed to the Southern Highlands.
I needed a friend, and Athena Galis was the oldest one I had.
There’s a lot to work with. Cody Wilson is going to have history and depth with Athena. Will he drag her down, or will she help him?
Follow me as I prep, plan and write my next Choose Your Own Romance — The Rockstar’s Daughter.
