Playing Fastball, page 30
“More, more, more,” the children chant.
“Show’s over. Thank you, thank you.” Todd takes my hand and lifts it. “Take a bow.”
What else can I do? I have potting soil in my eyelashes and I’m marinated in fruit punch. I bow and manage to escape while Todd waves his bandana signals and throws candy into the crowd.
So much for the sexy siren act or at least the perky intern come-on. I settle for fruit punch dirt queen and duck for the service stairs.
I don’t know her, G whistles in the wind. She’s not with me.
Shut it. I’m trading you in for a goddess who’ll help.
I stomp down the hall. I’m halfway to my room when I hear footsteps. “Tigress, wait up.”
What now? Does the rookie of the year need a babysitter?
Jay catches me, leaving a trail of coupons and flyers. Fumbling in his orientation folder, he says, “I can’t find my keycard, and I need to use the bathroom. Sixteen hours is a long flight.”
Gah. Don’t tell me he hasn’t peed since Korea.
“Come with me.” I yank the folder from him and powerwalk to my door.
Jay rushes in as soon as I slide the keycard. There’s a man scream and a thump, followed by a door slam and the sound of fluid hitting the toilet bowl.
“Who’s that?” Preston Jook, the guy who’s pretending to be my boyfriend, points at the closed bathroom door, then grimaces as he takes in the dirt and juice I’m bathed in. “And what the hell happened to you?”
“Long story. How’d you get into my room?”
He waves a keycard. “Easy. I showed them we were in a relationship on Facebook and they gave me a card.”
For the fourth time in the last hour, my jaw scrapes the floor. “But we’re not really in a relationship. It’s Facebook only. They can’t be handing out keycards to anyone who walks by.”
He flashes me a cheesy grin, looking as strained as a constipated child. “Lesson eight. I flirted with the receptionist. Mastered the art of charm. I complimented her clean good looks and how this hotel excels in customer service. She was eating it up, telling me how she scored the highest in all rubrics. Of course, the highest scoring service agent couldn’t turn down my woeful tale about wanting to surprise my girlfriend with an engagement ring.”
Part of me’s proud of Preston’s achievement. The middle child of an academically enriched family, he was so lacking in polish and charm that his father hired me to improve his image. Three months ago, he could never have pulled off a keycard heist on the strength of a Facebook relationship status.
“Good for you.” I pat Preston’s back. “I’ll write this up in my report for your father. Now you have to leave since I’m a mess and there’s a famous baseball player in my bathroom.”
The bathroom door opens, and gulp. The ballplayer, major league pitcher to be exact, fills the entire door frame.
“Jay Pak!” Preston squeals. “I love you. 2.49 earned run average, a 97-mph fastball. And you’re here in America. Squee!”
[To read more, please buy PLAYING THE ROOKIE.]
ROARING HOT! EXCERPT
If you love excitement and dangerous sports, you’ll love Roaring Hot! - Billionaire Biker Romance - a story combining motorcycle racing, reality shows, and Zen Buddhism. On the surface, Teo Alexiou is an arrogant playboy who gets what he wants. He meets his match in actress Amy Suzuki, a woman he hired to play his girlfriend. The fun starts when he falls for her, and suddenly, the billionaire bad boy is wishing she’d cut the act and show him her true heart.
Roaring Hot! - excerpt
Copyright 2014 © Rachelle Ayala
Chapter 1
“I’m not afraid of Japanese girls.” Twenty-seven-year-old Teo Alexiou blinked in disbelief at his grandmother’s onscreen image.
Oba-chan grinned toothily through the chat window. “Then why haven’t you dated any?”
“Haven’t gotten around to it. Too busy enjoying the women of the world.”
“Last I looked, Japan’s still part of the world,” Oba-chan said in her matter of fact voice, the one she’d used on Teo whenever he was too stubborn to pick up his toys or refused to wash his hands before dinner.
Teo wiped his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “Take a number. I’m still working my way through Europe and Latin America.”
It wasn’t that he had anything against Japanese women. After all, he was part Japanese, thanks to Oba-chan, but knowing his grandmother, any dalliance with a Japanese woman would carry expectations—expectations a young, single, swinging motorcycle racer was unprepared to fulfill.
“You’re taking too long,” Oba-chan said. “I’m not getting any younger. Do you think it makes me happy to see you with all those party girls? Two or three on each arm. It shames me that your father didn’t instill more honor into you.”
Why would his father, a Greek billionaire, waste his time instilling honor and respect when the world was full of jets, yachts, and continents of sexy women?
Teo felt like reminding granny that she was the one who’d raised his father. She couldn’t fix him from his playboy ways. Was it any surprise Teo’s Filipina mother left him with his grandmother and joined a convent?
Being traumatized at such a young age, try three, made Teo a crazy bastard. If it wasn’t for Oba-chan and racing, he would have joined the ranks of the drug addled billionaire boys’ clubs.
“What do you want me to do?” He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth. Oba-chan had an uncanny way of extracting her pound of flesh from anything he promised.
Her catlike grin elongated as she stroked her cheek with one long fingernail. “My eightieth birthday’s coming up. Your father’s thinking of surprising me with a gala party at one of his properties. I prefer Beverly Hills over Paris. It’s going to be swank.”
Sweat erupted under Teo’s collar, and he swallowed hard. She was setting him up. No doubt. The longer her prefaces, the bigger the deal. That woman was seriously scary. How would she know what his father was planning?
“I can go to a party, no problem,” Teo said. He made a show of glancing at his watch and yawned. “It’s getting late here. I have a race tomorrow.”
“I know.” Oba-chan leaned into the webcam, making her face take the shape of a wide-eyed guppy. “Move your camera around. I want to see your bed. Is it occupied?”
He swung his front-facing camera at his empty bed. What did she think? That he’d distract himself the night before a race? Hadn’t she taught him to quiet his mind and meditate? Preserve his concentration?
One micro-second was all it took to wipe out and crash. Of course after the race, all bets were off and his bed became a revolving door.
“Good boy, you’re redeemable,” Oba-chan said. “As I was saying, my birthday party is in three months. My challenge, should you be brave enough to accept, is for you to bring a girlfriend.”
Teo’s stomach took a flying loop. Girlfriend was not in his vocabulary. Hook-up, vacation fling, one-nighter, friends with benefits, groupie, yes, groupies were the best, they even came in pairs or triplets.
“A date to your party? Piece of cake.” Teo put on his most charming grandson smile.
“Not just any date, a relationship. From now until my birthday, you’re to find and hold onto a real girlfriend. Got it?”
“Yeah, well, sure. How do you define a real relationship?” Prickly heat wiggled under his skin like the feet of a million centipedes. Even though he was only one-quarter Japanese, he still respected his elders and wanted to please his grandmother.
“I have my ways,” Oba-chan deadpanned. “I’ll know if it’s not real. Don’t cross me. Three months. Think you can stick to one woman?”
He heard the sound of knuckles cracking, something his grandmother always did before applying the belt of correction back in the days when she brought him up. What she was asking him was impossible given his sport.
“I’m on the road, a different race circuit every two weeks. Qatar, Australia, Malaysia, Argentina.”
Oba-chan wagged her finger. “You have all this technology and oodles of cash. Surely you can afford to fly her to your races. I think you’re scared.”
No way. He liked women he could take or leave, but he wasn’t afraid. He just didn’t have the time or energy to invest in a relationship.
“I can afford a lot of things,” he said. “Sticking to one woman isn’t something I want.”
“It’s because of your mother, isn’t it?” Oba-chan’s nostrils flared. “You have to remember, she didn’t leave you, she left your father.”
Same difference. She’d left both of them, except Papa hadn’t cared. Teo’s heart twisted with that old, familiar pain. He didn’t want to be disrespectful, but the conversation was over. He’d agree and deal with it later.
“I’ll do it.” He puffed up his lips. “Only until your birthday, then I’m breaking it off.”
“Fair enough. I expect you to … how do you kids say it these days … to ‘hook up’ with someone right away.”
“Hai, Oba-chan!” He saluted her. “Anything else?”
“Nope, she doesn’t even have to be Japanese. Sayonara.”
Amy Suzuki dipped her manicured fingertips in Tabasco sauce. How the heck was she going to land an acting job if she kept chewing her nails to the bone?
“Yow, that looks lethal,” Peter, her roommate, said. “It’s the same principle with cat repellant, except it won’t work if you actually like hot, spicy food.”
“Who’s going to be there again?” Amy wiped her fingers with a napkin and cinched up her mesh swimming bag. Crashing a pool party held by one of the biggest directors in Hollywood called for subtlety. Of course it helped that Peter was one of the lackeys, or as he called himself, a PA, or personal assistant. More like personal ass-kisser, but hey, at least he knew the gatekeepers at Amanda Silver’s pool party.
Peter snapped a towel at her. “All the most influential directors and agents, not to mention the Queen Bee herself.”
Amanda was as old as Hollywood, but a nod from her could mean a bit part in a miniseries, or a stint on a cable network drama, a decent start.
“Sure this is going to work?” Amy tugged her bikini straps in place. “I need to land a part soon or I’m on the streets.”
Peter quirked a flamboyant eyebrow. “Did I hear you right? You’re finally going to let me pimp you?”
“Stop it!” She slapped him playfully. Peter, her best friend, was always joking around, especially since he’d covered her rent since graduation. Rent she was determined to pay back.
Amy’s stomach curled with anxiety. Her parents weren’t happy she hadn’t landed a job, as if anyone other than engineers and business students had jobs lined up directly out of college. It was either find a “real” acting gig, or go back home and live under their thumb. Cutting off funds was a sure way to add pressure.
“Waterproof mascara coming up.” Peter waved the wand in her face.
Amy obediently leaned over the kitchen counter and let him deftly apply the lash lengthening strokes. She should be counted lucky to have a roomie interested in cosmetology, although here, in Los Angeles, men were always perfecting their makeup skills on anyone who’d let them.
“While we wait for that to dry, let’s do the moisturizer.” Peter squeezed a dollop on his fingertip and dabbed it over her face. “You’ve such pretty, porcelain skin. Don’t want to ruin it.”
“I’ll stay under the umbrellas,” Amy said. Where other actresses sported the tans needed to portray beach girls, Amy was of Japanese descent and the roles she tried for required paler geisha-like skin.
“Not with the sunscreen I’m about to apply.” Peter bent under the counter and pulled out a supersized container of SPF gadzillion sunblock.
For the next forty minutes, Peter covered Amy from head to toe with sunscreen, then finished with her foundation, eye shadow, and lip gloss.
“Ta dum! The ultimate natural look, makeup without looking made up,” he proclaimed with a loud smack, kissing his own palm. “You’re fit to be the next princess on Game of Thrones.”
“Only if they write in a Japanese one,” Amy grumbled, flipping her sunglasses over her eyes.
The movie industry these days were no longer interested in martial arts films, preferring epic fantasies which unfortunately were populated by Caucasian fairies, elves, hobbits, dwarves, and wizards.
Peter grabbed her hand and twirled her around. “You’re going to be a star. I know it. Let’s get our asses to the party and wow them.”
[end of excerpt]
To read on, please pick up Roaring Hot today!
EXCERPT - WRITING ASIAN ROMANCE CHARACTERS
Did you enjoy my characters? Would you like to know how I approach writing characters with an Asian background? Please read an excerpt from Writing Asian Romance Characters.
Excerpt Copyright © 2020, Rachelle Ayala
Have you wanted to enrich your romance novels by including a diverse cast of characters?
Do you want your stories to reflect the society around you?
Are you unsure how to portray Asian characters in a balanced way that does not perpetuate stereotypes?
If so, I can be your mentor and help you develop Asian romantic heroes and heroines that are strong, desirable, talented, and flawed—in other words, well-rounded characters, who, like all romantic heroes and heroines deserve and find a happy ending.
I have experience in this area, having grown up Asian American and have written many romance novels with Asian heroes and heroines. I’ve also read widely in both literature and fiction areas, as well as taken ethnic studies classes and researched Asian American history. For more detail, please go to the ”Who Am I?” chapter near the end.
While I’m not able to represent billions of people, I can be your guide in finding resources to deepen your knowledge while pointing out areas to pay attention.
I will also encourage you to let your characters fly, no matter what their background and to not let fear hold you back when developing your Asian characters.
In this book, I will go over common myths and stereotypes, respectful ways of describing Asian characters, and the tropes to avoid. I’ll briefly touch on the history of the various Asian groups in America and point out to you the difference in experience based on when the Asian ancestor immigrated.
Interracial and multicultural romance is a thriving romance market, and I will talk about some of the concerns and opportunities when writing characters who come from different backgrounds.
I will also point out the difference in writing historical Asian fiction versus contemporary romance and romantic suspense with Asian characters. In addition, the Asian American experience will be completely different than that of an Asian Australian. Since my background is in the United States, I will concentrate solely on the immigrant experience to the United States. The important thing is to understand the historical context and circumstances of each wave of immigration and place your character’s family in the milieu you choose.
So, come along, brave romance writer, and let’s show the world that love truly does conquer all.
[Following is a chapter from Writing Asian Romance Characters]
The Need for Sensitivity
Even though the romance genre is viewed as an escape to a happy fictional environment, your reader still lives in the real world. These days, you cannot escape issues of racial tension, accusations of cultural appropriation, canceling of people’s opinions, and general unrest dealing with the effects of racism.
While romance authors do not want to inject politics into our stories—never recommended—we do not exist in a cultural vacuum and our words do affect other people, especially our readers and any curious people who might be using your book as “research.”
Therefore, we should get things right, make sure we don’t knowingly spread stereotypes, and write our characters and settings respectfully.
Changing Reading Audience
The reading audience is composed of people whose social norms are always changing. Demographics shift and so do reading tastes. While I would never use the excuse that something was “okay” back in the 1970s—it wasn’t okay, but people didn’t recognize the problem—once we realize and agree that a portrayal is problematic, we have a duty to stop using that kind of trope.
For example, non-consensual sex was never okay, but the concept was tolerated in romance novels in the 1970s. Back then, editors and publishers accepted bodice rippers because those types of stories sold. I was not a romance reader back then, but I recently forced myself to read one of those stories for research purposes and it drove me nuts.
While I would never go back and criticize an author who wrote bodice rippers, and you are free to write whatever you want, the market of readers who enjoy that kind of story is disappearing.
The same thing is happening with representation in romances. There is a desire for stories to reflect their communities, and this means a diverse cast of characters in books that are read by all readers, rather than the segregated stories of the past marketed to a certain segment of the reading population.
Historical Boundaries
As much as we might not like it, life for most women a hundred years ago was not one of affirmation, choices, equality, and self-determination. Throughout history and in many places around the world, women were treated like objects. In the best case, they had enlightened fathers who protected them and allowed them to write or speak their mind. However, the average woman’s life was barely livable by today’s standards.
Historical romances or women’s fiction that take place in Asian countries or in the West with early Asian immigrants have to be accurate in describing the sad state of affairs. Women were taught to demur to men, to not look them in the eye, and to not talk back.
