I am so excited to be on the blog tour for Lyssa Kay Adams latest book, Crazy Stupid Bromance! I am a huge fan of the series and have posted spoiler-free reviews of all three books in the series so far and today I am sharing an extract from the latest release! I am sharing part two of the first chapter today and if you head over to Leanne's blog, you can read part one. I will have all three of my books reviews from the series linked at the end of this post as well.
Crazy Stupid Bromance is out now and available in ebook and paperback.
Chapter One Extract (Part Two)Noah reached around to squeeze the back of his neck where his bun had become loose. He jerked out the ponytail holder and quickly twisted his hair back up.
“Alexis will love it,” Mack said, eyebrow raised. “You know she will.”
And just like that, Noah let his arms fall limply to his sides. His next words came out in a defeated sigh. “What do I have to do?”
“Just show up Saturday to start learning the moves. I’ve hired a choreographer and everything.”
“Oh yay.”
Mack pounded Noah on the back. “This means a lot, man.
And you’ll see. It’s going to be fun.”
More like torture. Noah trudged behind Mack back to the ta- ble and dropped into his seat. Sonia slid a stack of pink tissue paper toward him. He mumbled a thanks, but then returned his glare to Mack. “But I swear to God, if there’s twerking involved, I’m out.” “Dude, no one wants to see the Russian twerk,” snorted Colton Wheeler, a country music star who’d gotten his start in one of Mack’s four Nashville nightclubs and was now a friend to them all. He was also Noah’s newest client. And he happened to be right about the Russian. The hockey player was big, hairy, and had a
tendency to fart in public.
“What is twerking?” the Russian asked.
Colton dug out his phone and quickly found a video. The Rus- sian’s face turned beet red, and he returned his attention to his paper flowers. “No twerking.”
“Speaking of your birthday,” Mack said, bending in his seat to grab something on the floor. He sat back up with a plastic bag and passed it to Colton, who handed it to Noah.
Noah peeked in the bag and groaned. A paperback book stared up at him with the title Coming Home. The cover image was of a man and woman embracing, and the man held a football in one hand.
Noah tried to hand it back to Colton. “No. It’s bad enough you’re making me dance.”
Colton pushed the book back at Noah. “Trust us. You need this.”
Noah dropped it on the table. “No, I don’t.”
“But you’ll like it,” Mack prodded. “It’s about this professional football player who comes back to his hometown and discovers that his old girlfriend is still there and—”
“I don’t care what it’s about. How many times do I have to tell you that I am never joining your book club?”
Noah was the only guy there who was not part of the Bro- mance Book Club, Mack’s male-only romance-novel book club. The guys believed romance novels held all the answers to relation- ships. And while Noah couldn’t argue with their results—Mack was happily engaged, and nearly all the other members had saved their marriages using the lessons from the books they read—Noah had rejected all of Mack’s literary advances to lure him into the club.
Mack propped his elbows on the table. “All you have to do is read and listen to us, and we can fix this little problem for you.”
Noah ground his molars. “My relationship with Alexis isn’t a problem that needs to be solved. We’re friends.”
“Sure,” Colton snorted. “Just friends. You only spend every other minute with her, go running whenever she calls, play some stupid word game with her on your phone—”
“It’s called Word Nerd.”
“—have a nickname for her that no one else uses, and hang out with her even though you’re allergic to her cat. Did I miss any- thing?”
“I’m also allergic to Mack, but I still hang with him.” Mack slapped a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt. Truly.”
Colton raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying that I don’t understand why you’re friend-zoning yourself on purpose.”
“Leave him alone,” came a calm but commanding voice from the other end of the table. It belonged to Malcolm James, NFL player, resident feminist, and Zen master. “Men and women can be friends without it needing to be sexual.”
“Except in his case, he actually wants to have sex with her,” Colton said.
Noah clenched his fist against the table. “Watch it.”
“Yeah, dude,” Mack said, shaking his head. “That was un- called for. We don’t talk about women like that.”
Colton shrugged sheepishly and mumbled an apology.
Malcolm spoke again. “The so-called friend zone is nothing but a social construct designed to give a man an excuse to justify why a woman might not want to have sex with him. It’s a bullshit lie, and we all know that. So leave Noah alone about his relation- ship with Alexis. We should be commending him for proving that men and women can truly be friends.”
Like a class that had just been chastised by their favorite teacher, the table fell silent but for the crinkle of paper.
It didn’t last long. Mack finally looked up with a sigh. “All I’m saying is that maybe she’s ready, Noah.”
Noah felt something pop in his brain. “It’s been eighteen months since—”
“Don’t say it,” Noah snapped. As if he needed Mack pointing out the calendar. Noah knew exactly how long it had been since he’d met Alexis. It wasn’t the time that mattered. It was the circum- stances.
And they weren’t right. Not then. Not now.
Maybe not ever. Which was as depressing a thought as the idea of dancing.
Noah stared at the plastic bag on the table. He didn’t want it or their help. And he sure as shit didn’t need romance novels to re- mind him that he was currently a walking romantic disaster. Unre- quited love made for a pathetic happy ever after.
But when things broke up an hour later, Noah took the book with him. Because if he had to pretend to read a damn book to get Mack off his back, so be it.
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