Friday, July 27, 2018
A beach bag isn't a beach bag without a good romantic comedy inside! And we've got the perfect book for you.
Check out this excerpt from Another Shot at Love by Charlene Ross (previously published as Frosted Cowboy)...
I study the drink menu as if my life depends on it. And I guess in a way it does. It’s time to shake things up. I will not be drinking my usual margarita or cosmo tonight.
“I’ll have a Frosted Cowboy,” I tell the bartender as I look around the bar at this supposed Hollywood hot spot and wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Every woman in the room is wearing some kind of cowboy getup and bright red lipstick à la the newest Katy Perry video featuring her incredibly sexy rodeo-star boyfriend-of-the-week. And the men, sans lipstick, don’t look much different.
“What’s in this thing?” I ask the bartender.
“Can’t be giving away all my secrets.” He winks.
I bet he goes home with a different girl every night. Maybe tonight, it could be me. Oh God, what am I doing here? I’ve never gone home with a guy at a bar in my life. And where is Natalie? She’s late, and I’m already starting to feel a buzz from my new favorite drink. I should have tagged along to her work dinner instead of meeting her here.
I hope I don’t look too stupid in these satin pants and a western shirt. And this ridiculous cowboy hat has already ruined my hair for the night.
“Everybody will be wearing a hat at this place,” Natalie said when we went shopping. “You’ll totally stand out if you’re not.”
I thought standing out was a good thing.
“Don’t you think I’m a little old for this fake cowboy gear?” I asked her when I looked in the dressing room mirror.
“No way!” Natalie said. “You look hot. Thirties are the new twenties.”
Sigh. So here I sit amongst super-hip, ultra-skinny, beautiful people; a thirty-two-year-old Katy Perry wannabe, waiting for my fabulous single friend. If I had known the bar scene was going to be like this, I might have forgiven Kyle. Of course it’s pretty hard to get over walking in on your fiancé and a slutty paralegal from his office in the discovery phase. On the kitchen counter. I couldn’t picture myself chopping vegetables there again. But honestly, spraying the counter with a little bleach and pretending I’d never witnessed him inserting his brief into her filing cabinet might be preferable to hanging out in hipster cowboy bars every Saturday night.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bar. Under this stupid hat, I have mousy brown hair I’ve been disguising as strawberry-blonde for as long as I can remember. My hairdresser has been trying to convince me for years to ditch my just-past-the-shoulders style, but being a creature of habit, I find that if something works, you stick with it.
The lids of my light-green eyes are caked in glittery eye shadow, and for once, my nose, which is small and turns up a bit, isn’t shiny. I rarely wear lipstick even though my full lips are probably my best feature, but tonight they’re glossy and pink.
I’m relatively thin, but I don’t have that great of a figure. Broad shoulders, small boobs, and an ass that could give Kim Kardashian a run for her money. Fortunately, I was blessed with a small waist and flat stomach, a bit of an hourglass shape. A pear-shaped hourglass anyway.
My hot bartender boyfriend slides over another Frosted Cowboy and points toward the end of the bar. “From the guy in the cowboy hat.”
They’re all wearing cowboy hats.
“That guy?” I ask hopefully, pointing to the hottie at the end of the bar. “The one with the light blue shirt with pearl snaps?”
“Nope,” the bartender tells me. “The one with the big Smith & Wesson belt buckle standing next to him.”
I look down the bar to spot my benefactor. Ugh. It figures.
He strolls over to me. “Looked like you needed a fresh drink,” he says.
“Thanks, but I was getting ready to leave.”
“But I saw you walk in,” he says. “You just got here.”
Oh great, a stalker.
“My friend’s late. I’m not into hanging out alone until she gets here.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth I realize my rookie mistake.
“Why don’t you hang out with us until she gets here?”
Mr. Pearl Snaps smiles and raises his glass.
Well, well, well. Maybe I will stay. But I need to figure out a way to lose Mr. Smith & Wesson. Pretty tricky considering I’ve been out of the game for seven years, but I’m always up for a challenge.
“Thanks,” I say, picking up my Frosted Cowboy. “Why not?”
“Hi,” I say to Mr. Pearl Snaps.
“Hi yourself,” he shoots back. Wow! This guy is even better looking up close. He looks exactly like Chris Pine. Except with darker hair and brown eyes. “I’m Tom, and I see you’ve already met Bill. What’s your name?”
I shake my head and realize I’m staring. “Sorry. For a minute you kind of looked like someone else.”
“I know. I look just like Chris Pine but with brown eyes. I get that all the time.”
Did he say, I look just like Chris Pine?! Ha! What an ego! Is this what single guys are like these days?
“That’s quite a coincidence,” I say. “People are always telling me I look just like that chick who was on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition this year. We both have green eyes, and we are both women. Of course I’m not an emaciated lollipop with a boob job, and we have different color hair, but other than that…”
“Touché,” Tom says to me, tipping his hat.
“Zing. She got you there, buddy,” Bill says. “I’m gonna like hanging out with you.”
“I haven’t decided if you guys get to or not.”
Tom looks at me with those deep brown eyes and says, “You’re feisty. I like that.”
Oh my God. Tom may have quite the ego, but he is so sexy. Feisty. No one has ever called me feisty before. I was just trying to be funny. I don’t know if I can keep all this feistiness up.
Find Another Shot at Love on Amazon.
