Prologue #3
My best friend picked up before the stadium door even swung shut behind me.
“Hey, everything okay?”
“Everything okay?” I echoed in disbelief. “Could you possibly have recommended a bigger asshole for me to interview, Serena?”
“What?”
“Tero Nieminen!”
“What about him? He’s one of my nicest, most down-to-earth clients.”
Oh God, if that was true, the entire NHL was in deep trouble.
“He’s a disrespectful prick!” I yelled, stomping across the huge parking lot toward my light blue Ford.
“This meeting didn’t help me at all. It just reminded me why I prefer my fictional men to live in the Regency era. At least they had manners back then!”
“And denied women their rights,” Serena reminded me.
“I still would have preferred a kiss on the hand from the damn goalie over that Oscar-worthy performance.”
“What performance?”
“It doesn’t matter! God, I can’t do this.” I unlocked my car and sank behind the wheel. “Maybe I should find a new job. Become a waitress.”
“You drop more glasses than plot threads, sweetie.”
“So what? It’s too hard to write contemporary romance!”
“Oh, please. You just write cock instead of member.”
“Serena!”
“What? It’s true!”
“No! I can only write Regency. Every time I try to come up with a male hero, he doesn’t feel real. I automatically want to write a gentleman, but… how unrealistic is that in this day and age?”
Serena laughed. “You just interviewed arguably the rudest hockey player in the league, and women are still falling at his feet. He’s exactly the type of man you’re looking for. A hot asshole. That’s what book-boyfriends are made of.”
“Mine aren’t.”
“Well, then just have him act like an asshole, but secretly he has a heart of gold. You wanted to go to the stadium for research, you met a real-life professional hockey player. Do something with it! Make him an asshole, but fantastic in bed. You can forgive book-men for the first one. If he’s bad in the sack, that’s a deal-breaker. ”
“Serena…”
“You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,” she said firmly.
“You can’t write about a gentleman? Then write about the opposite.
Nova, you’ve been fed up with men since Randy, anyway.
Channel your anger and write men the way no woman should like them…
and then prove that he can still be lovable!
That’s your specialty. Your dukes are always hot and polite, but I still want to slam their ladies against a wall for half the story until they’re finally healed by the heroine’s love.
Give me that exact feeling, okay? I’ll help you with the hockey stuff, but I really have to get to work now.
And stop pressuring yourself. Have fun writing.
You haven’t had that in forever. Love you, you’re my hero! ” And then she hung up.
Groaning, I leaned my head back against the headrest and let my phone drop.
Then I Googled Tero Nieminen. I probably should have done that before our interview, but my creative juices flowed better with an element of surprise.
A video of the Boston Badgers popped up. The team was pouring onto the ice before a game, and their Finnish goalie was standing right at the entrance… where every one of his teammates slapped him on the helmet as he yelled at them.
I rolled my eyes. God, he was just a stupid, Neanderthal-macho-man with no manners and not a single polite bone in his body, one who cared more about dominance than kindness – wasn’t he? He was the literal definition of an alpha male and good lord, that definition showed up in a lot of books.
The video continued, showing highlights from the game. In many of them, according to the subtitles, Tero was making some kind of save, though to me it looked more like he was leading an aerobics class.
Shit, the guy could do the splits!
My neck tingled. Now that could be useful. Not to mention his expression was always pretty grumpy, and I had just experienced firsthand what a fantastic enemy he would make… the tropes were falling into place all by themselves.
God, he could make a heroine’s life a living hell… and the heroine would return the favor.
A flutter started in my chest. Serena was right. I wasn’t on the best terms with men at the moment, and it would be so much fun to get back at the assholes who had littered my life over the past few years.
Nervous, my fingers trembling with excitement, I pulled the notebook from my bag and the pen from my hair and started writing down how I imagined a man like Tero Nieminen lived his life, and what the hell would have to happen for him to become a halfway decent human being.
What it would take for a tough, innocent heroine to fall in love with him after all.
But until that happened… oh, I was going to torture him.
Only in my head, of course. But right now, that felt good enough. One page at a time. I just had to be careful that no one found out who inspired my Neanderthal character. But that would be fine.
No one had to know.