We’re so pleased to welcome back author Perie Wolford today, with an excerpt from and giveaway of his latest audiobook release, Sam Dorsey and Gay Popcorn, narrated by Joel Leslie.
Take a look at the little tease he’s sent along, and then click on the Rafflecopter widget below to enter for the chance to win one of SEVEN copies of the audio.
Good luck!
Blurbs: Book 1 – Sam Dorsey and His Sixteen Candles
Sam never liked his birthdays because not a single one of them was happy. When he turned one, he fell face-down into his birthday cake. When he turned five, he broke his left arm When he turned seven, he broke his right arm and his left leg. When he turned 12, his house caught fire. Now Sam is about to turn 16 and he is dreading the day. The only birthday wish he has is for Jake who is the Mr. Popular of Arcadia High to even acknowledge his existence, or better yet give him a happy-birthday kiss.
But Sam knows that it’s not going to happen. Or is it?
Book 2 – Sam Dorsey and His Dirty Dancing
Sam is turning 17 this year and he is being pushed towards adulthood too fast. He has a whole bunch of grown-up problems on his hands now. Like how to make a distant relationship with your boyfriend work? Or how to stop yourself from cheating on your boyfriend with a hot friend who wants to be more than friends? Or how to detach yourself from your parents and follow your dreams independently? But all that is just too much for a 17-year-old to handle. So Sam finds himself gravitating towards Eric, a little daredevil who introduces him to fun things, like stealing, lying, drinking, smoking, and having sex.
But we know that things like that can lead you into trouble. Sam doesn’t know about that though, and he is headed towards a disaster. Somebody is just going to have to show him the right way.
Available At: Audible | Amazon
Excerpt: The year is 1985. The month is April. The day is Monday.
And also, it is my birthday.
Thankfully, I’m not awake just yet. The bright, obnoxiously cheerful morning light is coming through my window, but I’m still there in my bed snoozing away, peaceful and happy; not yet aware that my least favorite day of the year has settled into existence all around me.
I fell asleep watching Sixteen Candles on VHS last night and, as always, it captured my heart. Now I’m blissfully dreaming about Jake…
Only, it’s not Jake from the movie. It’s Jake from my school, Jake Timbers, and just like his fictional namesake, Jake is a jock, the permanent and unrivaled king of Arcadia High. He has an expensive and totally drool-worthy car, a gigantic horde of friends and followers who warship him, and a majorly sexy girlfriend.
I’m not a fan of hers.
Anyway, Jake is jogging across the school’s Football Stadium, which coincidentally has his name plastered on it due to his father’s “charitable donation” a couple years back. I suspect it was more about appearances than charity, but it provides me a nice viewing angle, so I’m cool with it either way.
Jake is the quarterback, an overrated position in my opinion, but he’s definitely good at it—I’d even heard rumors about him being scouted by universities, practically unheard of considering he’s only a sophomore. He’s not as bulky as the defensive players on the team, but he’s still very muscular, lithe and quick, with perfectly toned throwing arms. During the spring, before the weather gets too hot, he often comes out here to jog and warm up after school. Most of these days I am lurking nearby, doing some warming up of my own if you catch my drift.
Luckily he doesn’t know about that.
Sometimes I wish he did though. It’s hard work keeping my feelings to myself all the time. Not owning up to them just makes me feel like I’m telling the entire world one long and continuous lie, ya know? But that lie is necessary; for more reasons than one.
So yeah…no confessions from me, just admiration from afar.
In this particular dream Jake is wearing those standard tiny red gym shorts; the ones that are incredibly aerodynamic and leave very little to the imagination. I don’t know who the hell invented them and made them standard issue, but that person definitely has my gratitude. He’s also wearing a RunAround T-shirt that is becoming increasingly wet as his workout intensifies.
And soon enough, almost like clockwork, he sheds the shirt and begins to cool his heated body in the morning breeze.
I look on, as I often do (in my dreams and in real life), with multiple forms of envy.
Jake is only 16, like I am. But unlike me, he already has the body of a grown man. I guess he has sports to thank for that, or his parents’ good genes, or both. In any case, those muscles he has on his chest are fantastic. I can’t keep myself from staring at them.
Unfortunately, he notices me noticing.
He is headed my way now and my heart is working overtime. Relax, Sam, relax!
He approaches me.
Suddenly I am frozen. I’m like a statue. A statue with a blitz of meaningless mind babble: What’s wrong with me? God, I’m sweating. Is it noticeable? I think I’m paralyzed. What do I do?!
He smiles at me deviously. Then, unbelievably, he takes my hand and puts it onto his chest!
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice octaves higher than it should be. I can feel the warmth of his skin under my fingertips. His heart is beating steadily beneath them.
No. This cannot be happening.
“I wanted to feel you on my skin,” he says, confident, not at all shy. He’s not angry or ashamed, just smoldering.
“Don’t you like it?” he stares up at me with twinkling blue eyes. The kind you—well I—can’t help but get lost in.
“Yeah,” I breathe out stupidly.
His eyes are locked on mine, a sultry smile playing smoothly across his handsome face.
“Touch me…” he says finally, trailing off in a way that makes my imagination run wild.
“I already am touching you,” I manage to choke out, not willing to acknowledge the sexy notes in his voice, but still hoping they ring true.
“No,” he whispers with a crooked smile. “Touch me there…”
He takes my hand and lowers it right down his torso, my fingertips barely brushing against slick washboard abs until…Oh Lord! That is too much.
No… No… Ahhhh!
***
“Sam! Get up! You’ll be late for school!”
And just like that reality comes crashing down around me like an eighteen-wheeler.
“Coming Mom!” I shout, trying to shake the memory of skin against skin.
Tentatively, I reach down into my shorts and yep, there’s all the evidence right there—a lot of it too. Ya know, I totally get that a wet dream is perfectly normal and everything, but that doesn’t make it any less awkward, especially factoring in the subject of said wet dream. Sighing and feeling completely less than stellar, I close my eyes, partly ashamed of my fantasy and overall infatuation with Jake Timbers and equally ashamed of my shame. Like, why does everything have to be so weird and messed up and complicated? Why can’t I just feel what I feel and be done with it?
It takes me a couple of minutes to brace myself and get up from the bed. For one thing, there’s an unfortunate amount of sticky goo in my pants that I have to go take care of. And also, I’m not looking forward to today at all. A happy birthday? Not likely.
I reach down into the drawer of my desk and take out a hidden stack of photos. No, it’s not porn! I don’t keep my porn in the drawers. Even I’m not that lame. It’s my own personal collection of ghosts from birthdays past. I keep them here as a reminder of all those truly gag-worthy moments; lest I forget and try to actually enjoy my birthday.
My birthdays have never been happy. Exhibit A: Here is a photo of me when I turned one. I’m such a cute little blue-eyed baby you say? Wrong! The next thing you know that cute baby-boy is gonna fall face-down into his cheerfully-colored birthday cake. Exhibit B: a photo of me turning five. I look so radiant and happy on my new bike you say? Wrong again! Don’t be fooled. There I am a couple hours later with a cast on my left arm. Exhibit C: here is the one where I turned seven with a cast on both my arm and my leg. I don’t even remember how that happened; that’s how used to these experiences I am. But what really takes the cake (pun intended) is the day I turned twelve. My house totally went up in flames, but alas, there’s no picture for that, just one very sad news-clipping.
Most times it doesn’t really bother me. Over the years I’ve just slowly come to the conclusion that this particular day of the year is cursed for me; like my very own personal Friday the 13th. Usually I can just hunker down and make it through the worst of it. But now I am turning sixteen, a relatively “important” number, and I just can’t shake the feeling that something is about to go horribly, wretchedly wrong.
***
Dressed now, casually as usual in my Run DMC T-shirt and jeans, I make my way downstairs, following the smell of the freshly-cooked pancakes. Ron and Julia, my younger siblings, are perched at the table and shoveling food into their mouths. Dad has already left for work, thank God. Not that I don’t like my old man or anything. It’s just that there’s one less person at the table to wish me happy birthday. Which is definitely a good thing, believe me. My evil birthday gremlins can smell well-wishes from a mile away.
“Well, look who finally decided to show up,” Ron says, glancing up from his plate. He’s twelve now and totally in need of a major chill pill. He doesn’t have a respectful bone in his body.
“Don’t talk to him like that, you dipstick,” Julia says, defending me in her own weirdly inappropriate way. “It’s his birthday!”
“Oh yeah? And what he was doing upstairs so long, giving himself a birthday present?” Ron snaps.
“Shut your mouth you dweeb-o-rama!” she counters and smacks his forehead with her spoon.
“Make me!” Ron lifts up his spoon eagerly, ready to retaliate.
“I will, believe me,” Julia replies, deadly calm.
“Come on, I’m ready for it!”
“That’s enough! Ron, you be nice!” my mother finally snaps at him, effectively shutting down the argument. Must be some super-secret Mom power or something.
“Okay, okay, keep your wig on,” Ron says, getting up to place his plate in the sink. “It is his birthday. I better keep myself away. I wouldn’t want to get my hair set on fire or anything.”
I cringe. Eleven; I’d almost forgotten about that one since it didn’t directly happen to me. That year my birthday candles had effectively turned a six year old Ron into a human torch. Needless to say, there are no longer any candles on my birthday cakes, and now there’s a fire extinguisher in our house. Two actually.
I sit down at the table and wait for the bombs to start dropping. Julia is not much of a threat. She’s not gonna wish me a happy birthday since she knows good and well that I don’t like it, but my mom doesn’t believe in the curse. My muscles tense up in preparation.
It’s already starting. I watch in horror as she abandons her pan on the stove, and approaches me, planting her standard “birthday kiss” on my forehead. The next thing you know the words are gonna leave her mouth… happy…
I brace myself, but suddenly the phone starts ringing, cutting her off midsentence. Thank the sweet lord!
She goes to pick it up, her mane of feathered blonde hair trailing several inches behind her. “Hello?” she answers.
It’s Uncle Jack calling, I’m sure. Their entire family of seven is gonna be moving into one of the houses on our street today. They’ve been talking about it forever, but I never actually thought they would go through with it. The thought of having so many relatives in close proximity is infinitely nauseating to me, but I guess there’s really not much I can do about it. I’m still gonna be coerced into celebrating with everyone tonight—even my grandparents are coming.
And of course they’re all too damn loving and thoughtful to completely forget my birthday even exists.
Immediately I start stuffing my face with pancakes in hopes that I’ll be able to avoid any sort of conversation with my uncle. You see, Uncle Jack is a man of very few words, most of those words being rather unpleasant.
Case in point:
“Sam, honey, Uncle Jack is asking if you could help him move the furniture in this afternoon,” my mom tells me still holding the phone to her ear.
I sigh dramatically, of course he is. It’s not like he has five kids of his own to do it or anything.
I nod sullenly and she relays the information to Uncle Jack. I catch Julia’s eye from across the table and she gives me a sympathetic smile that does manage to make me feel a little better.
Chewing fast, I swallow my last bite of pancake and jump up from the table. I manage to pat my sister’s head affectionately and give my mother a quick kiss on the cheek in one fluid motion and then make a beeline for the door.
“Honey?” she shouts after me, but I’m already outside.
“I’ll be late for the bus,” I shout as the door closes.
As soon as I’m in the clear I indulge myself in a small victory smile.
Mission accomplished! She didn’t say it. Now I have to make sure nobody else does either.
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