Kelly Cannon is satisfied with his life. He has friends, a wonderful family, and a great job. But his love life has reached a new level of pitiful. Why? Well, his heart decided to break all the rules. Don’t fall in love with a straight guy. And definitely don’t fall in love with your best friend.
NFL standout Britton “Blue” Montgomery has pressure coming at him from all sides. From his father, who’s only interested in Blue’s football career. From his coaches, who just want him to play without getting injured again. From the fans. From his agent. And from his mother, who has popped up on the radar after leaving his family years before. And now his relationship with Kelly is on shaky ground, and that frightens Blue more than anything.
When Kelly admits he’s in love with Blue, bonds are tested, and Blue has to decide what’s really important. He doesn’t want to lose the number-one person in his life, but the cost to keep Kelly close might be more than he’s willing to pay.
It’s a good thing his nickname is the Blueprint—it’s time to draft a new set of plans.
Title: The Blueprint
Author: S.E. Harmon
Release Date: March 13, 2018
Category: Contemporary
Pages: 270
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Thank you to Two Chicks Obsessed for hosting me today and a special thanks to all of you who stopped by! I’m here to talk about my newest release, The Blueprint. And what’s a story without your main characters?
Kelly and Blue are such strong characters to me in different ways. Kelly is pretty brainy guy who worked hard to get where he is. He has an awesome family who supports him in, as it turns out, all aspects of his life, and he knows exactly how lucky he is. If he could just get Blue to love him, everything would be perfect…but that’s just a pipe dream that’ll never happen. Right?
And Blue? Well, there’s just something so raw and elemental about football, and watching those gridiron giants do their thing. When I started watching some of the day-in-the-NFL videos in preparation for writing this book, I realized there was much more to being an NFL player than touchdown celebrations and cheering fans. There was a lot of practice and sacrifice and routine and hard work. That really helped me turn Blue from just an NFL stereotype into a real person with hopes and dreams and fears of his own.
Check out The Blueprint, and let me know what you think! I hope you love these guys as much as I do. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for the sequel, Darker Blue.
Just as I was pulling up the Uber app on my phone, a hand clapped on my shoulder. I turned to find Kelly, and he didn’t look pleased. His usually full mouth was flattened into a thin line. Right then and there, under the haze of the streetlights, I realized what my problem was.
I was attracted to him.
I thought he looked kind of sexy, especially in those clothes. The close-fitting black slacks and blue button-down shirt fit his lean swimmer’s form like they were hand tailored for him. It was such a different look from his usual “I’m a cool young hipster professor” vibe.
He wasn’t the type who spent an hour in the mirror before he left the house. He knew how to turn it on when he went out, but as soon as he got back home, he’d be in a holey tee and threadbare jeans. I liked that about him.
I liked a lot of things about him. That realization made my heart beat a little faster. I wasn’t upset that I was apparently crushing on a guy. I was freaked because I was crushing on Kelly.
“What gives?” he demanded. “Why’d you run out like that?”
I didn’t want to interrupt your date. “I need to get some rest. You don’t have to call it a night just because I do. We’re not attached at the… at the….” I frowned as I tried to finish what used to be a very simple metaphor.
“Hip,” he said dryly.
“Hip,” I repeated with a snap of my fingers. And for some reason, I said it again. “Hip.”
He squinted at me for a minute. When he spoke, his voice sounded less pissed off and more concerned. “Do you honestly think I’m going to let you drive like this?”
“I wasn’t going to drive. I was going to call an Ubert. Ubert.” Fucking drinks had made my tongue thick and unwieldy. I scrunched my brows and tried again slowly. “Uuuberr.”
“You sound like an alien who just discovered a new word.” He sighed. “As adorable as you are, I still need to make sure you’re okay. You don’t usually drink that much.”
No, I was most definitely not okay. When did it become okay to fantasize about kissing your best friend? Especially when that friend was a fucking dude? Was it okay to interrogate a friend on exactly how far he’d gone with someone in a bathroom? Was it okay to ask if he let Connor fuck him over that sink? I didn’t think they were in there long enough to get the deed done, but maybe they’d already done it in the stalls. Maybe he was just rubbing against Kelly’s ass and remembering how good it felt to be buried balls deep.
I knew I had to be more than a little buzzed then. Because surely I didn’t leave a bar—a bar where I had a sure thing going on with a hot girl—to worry about my best friend getting some. Surely I didn’t storm out of the building like a pissy bitch—without my keys or any real plan for getting home—when I found out he had hooked up with someone. Surely that was the very definition of drunken, crazed behavior.
“Are you ready to go?” I finally asked.
“Yeah. We come together, we leave together,” he said, and he slapped me on the shoulder.
Oh. Well, maybe I’d been stereotyping a bit. Guess that was a good policy for everyone, young or old, male or female. Whatever. I was going home with Kelly, and Connor wasn’t. That was all that seemed to matter to my inebriated brain.
He hit the unlock button and the alarm chirped, and I got in the passenger side and sank down in the seat. I leaned the bulk of my body against the door and closed my eyes. I needed to get my head on straight. I had practice in the morning, and even though it was probably going to make me hurl, that was still a very good thing. The practice, that is. Not the hurling. I’d be out on the field where I didn’t question whether I was as straight as I’d always thought, where my best friend didn’t look hot, and everything made sense.
Sounded like a plan.
S.E. Harmon has had a lifelong love affair with writing. It’s been both wonderful and rocky (they’ve divorced several times), but they always manage to come back together. She’s a native Floridian with a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Fine Arts, and now splits her days between voraciously reading romance novels and squirreling away someplace to write them. Her current beta reader is a nosy American Eskimo who begrudgingly accepts payment in the form of dog biscuits.
Website: http://seharmon.weebly.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seharmonbooks/
