Hi guys! We have V.L. Locey stopping by today with her new release Life According To Liam, we have a great excerpt and a brilliant giveaway so check out the post and enter the giveaway! ❤️ ~Pixie~
Life According To Liam
V.L. Locey
There’s always that chance that your heart’s desire is one click away.
Someone needs to pinch web designer/humor blogger/Pittsburgh Ravens mega fan Mike Kneller. Hard. For years, Mike has been living his life for his younger sister Kelly and his four-year-old nephew Liam. He’d opened up his home to Kelly when she found herself pregnant at sixteen and facing having a baby alone. Sure, his days are filled with skinned knees, snotty noses, and the occasional mishap with stuffed superheroes, but he’s perfectly happy because he loves Liam as much as he loves his baby sister. Giving up a social life and going to bed alone is a small price to pay. Little does he know that someone on the Ravens is about to show Ravens goalie Bryn Mettler one of his vlog posts. Of course he’s not going to believe it when his phone rings and the world-famous netminder—and his goalie crush—is on the other end. I mean, life doesn’t work that way for ordinary, hardworking uncles like Mike. Does it?
Bryn Mettler is a superstar athlete and a major part of the Pittsburgh sports society. He seems to have it all. He’s well-dressed, handsome, wealthy, an elite goaltender, a famed philanthropist, and the holder of numerous medals and trophies. To date, there are two things that have avoided him: lifting that big shiny silver cup over his head and finding a man to settle down with. Now that he’s over thirty, Bryn is finding the gay club scene is wearing thin. His teammates’ wives have decided it’s their duty to the team—and to Bryn—to find him Mr. Right. He’s relatively sure the man who’ll capture his heart surely won’t be found on a humor blog. Funny how life likes to take the things that you’re most certain about and flip them—and you—on its ear. When Bryn meets Mike, he is instantly drawn to the warm, funny, sexy man who shares his hectic days with thousands of Pittsburgh natives. Now he just has to convince Mike he is who he says he is so he can get to know him better. Thankfully, Bryn isn’t a quitter. But does he have what it takes to leap into life with Mike, Kelly, and Liam?
Excerpt!
“Is it ready yet?”
I looked into eyes as green as a new leaf and opened the dryer for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. I stuck my hand into the wet, hot ball of clothes. My nephew Liam wiggled into my side to supervise. When I located the small black and green hockey jersey, I pulled it out of the wad of drying pants and shirts, held it to my cheek, and looked back into those anxious green eyes, eyes the same shade of green as my sister Kelly’s and mine.
“Sorry, buddy, but your Bryn Mettler jersey is still damp.” I had to tell the four-year-old. His eye roll was incredible as was his huff of aggravation. “I did tell you not to wear it before the game tonight in case it got dirty.”
“Can we make the dryer go hotter?”
“Not really.” I tossed the tiny wet jersey back into the dryer and shut the door. Liam stood staring at the dryer, willing it to dry his favorite Pittsburgh Ravens player’s sweater faster. I turned to go attend to trying to get the kitchen cleaned up after dinner. It had just been Liam and me tonight. Kelly was out on a date with some dubious looking character from work. I paused at the door to the laundry room and beckoned Liam to follow me. He came along but there was a real possibility he’d trip over his bottom lip. I ruffled up the already wild blond hair on his head as we entered the kitchen. “Why don’t you go play with Captain America while I get the dishwasher loaded?”
“Uncle Mike, the Ravens will lose if I don’t got my jersey.”
“You want to wear mine?” I tugged on the hem of my own Bryn Mettler jersey. We both loved Bryn, starting goalie for the Pittsburgh Ravens. I suspected my admiration for the sexy man in the Ravens net was probably slightly different than Liam’s was. There wasn’t a fan of pro hockey that did not have the hots for Bryn, be they male or female, straight or gay. Bryn was simply breathtaking and by the holy skates of Jacques Plante, could he tend goal. Liam poked me in the side. I jumped and giggled a little bit. “Sorry, I was daydreaming. So do you want to wear mine until yours is out of the dryer?”
His head bobbed up and down. Fearing a juice stain on my brand-new sweater, I, nonetheless, peeled it off and pulled it down over his head. The sleeves drug on the floor and the hem of the jersey puddled on his red sneakers. Liam grinned up at me then ran off, tripping every other step. I tied Kelly’s pink apron around my waist and loaded dirty pots and pans into the dishwasher bare-chested. Such was the life of a thirty-year-old gay man who shared his home with his twenty-year-old sister and her young son. Pink aprons and cleaning up with your nipples exposed. I wouldn’t change one thing about asking Kelly to move in with me when she discovered she was pregnant at fifteen, though, naked nips and all. My parents had flipped out, which, given how they acted when I came out at eighteen, was not a surprise. I had opened my little Squirrel Hill brick townhouse to her after the folks had made their disgust with her “situation” known.
Now it was we three Kneller’s against the world. Kelly worked at a senior care facility during the day as an aide, so I watched Liam. As an independent—and moderately successful—web designer, I worked from home, so I could arrange my schedule to suit Liam’s. I also did a bit of blogging, nothing daily or hugely popular, but “Life According to Liam” did boast over five thousand followers. It always amazed me how many people enjoyed hearing about the upside-down life of a single homosexual man helping to raise his precocious four-year-old nephew and his quirky younger sister. Kelly may balk when I say that but trust me, the girl needs someone to keep her on track. Take the joker she’s seeing a movie with tonight. That baboon is completely unacceptable as a date for my baby sister. I could see the lust in his beady eyes when he picked her up an hour ago. The punk was trying far too hard to be hipster cool if you ask me. What kind of straight man wears skinny jeans?
“Lowlife dirty pervert,” I grumbled under my breath as I wiped up the kitchen counter with a wet sponge. “He’s probably pawing her right now…the bastard.”
“Uncle Mike, Captain America says it’s time to watch your land gauge.”
I grimaced and then slowly turned to look down on Liam, wearing a stern look, cradling his stuffed Captain America doll.
“I’m sorry, Cap,” I said to the battered superhero. “I’ll try to do better.”
“It’s okay. Your tongue is just bad,” Liam informed me then ran off with Cap to right a wrong somewhere else in the house.
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and hurried to finish. The dryer buzzed just as I was turning off the overhead light in the kitchen.
“My jersey is dry!” Liam bellowed and raced around me. Where poor Captain America went was a mystery for the moment.
“Inside voice,” I reminded the tornado as it blew past me. A couple of minutes later, Liam, Cap, and I sat on my sectional in warm shirts. Well, Cap wasn’t in a warm shirt, but I’m sure the fires of righteousness that burn in his chiseled chest keep him warm. “Speaking of chiseled chests,” I mumbled as the Ravens pregame show hit the air with a stunning image of Bryn Mettler taking part in a photoshoot for swimwear. “What a great looking man,” I sighed wistfully while folding underwear emblazoned with PAW Patrol characters. He was tall, dark, and handsome. His brown hair and dark brown eyes made me stupid as did the perfectly groomed dark stubble that always lingered artfully on his firm jaw.
“Uncle Mike, are you going to date with Bryn Mettler?” Liam asked. My gaze flew from the TV screen to my nephew.
“Why would you ask that?” I enquired of the lad. He rolled to his back and stuck his little red sneakers into the air.
“Mommy said before she dated with Aaron tonight that he was handsome.” Liam stared at me as the pregame show slid into an interview with the Ravens defensive coach. “You likes handsome boys, so is you and Bryn Mettler going to be dated?”
I couldn’t keep the soft chuckle from escaping. There we had this week’s blog post. My nephew was a comedic gold mine. Liam’s fine golden eyebrows tangled as I battled to get myself under control.
“I wish Bryn Mettler would ask me out on a date,” I said to the boy. He reached up to touch the tips of his toes, a feat that made my hamstrings scream just looking at it and chewed on my answer like a glob of taffy. Kelly and I had always been open about my being gay. We wanted Liam to grow up in an accepting household. He already knew that men could date and marry other men and that if he liked boys instead of, or in addition to, girls, that was perfectly normal.
“Does Bryn like boys too?” Liam asked as he picked at his sneakers.
“Yes he does, I’m just not sure he likes boys who look like me.”
He took that at face value and then launched into a story about Hulk eating peanut butter cookies. I shook my head, smiling all the while, and returned to folding toddler clothing and watching the Ravens and that sinfully sexy Bryn Mettler roll over their competition. Liam had dropped off after the second period and was now slumbering peacefully with Captain America, who, earlier, had somehow gotten himself wedged into the tray of the Blu-ray player in my office. When asked how this had happened to Cap, Liam told me, straight-faced, that Iron Man did it. Now you can see how I keep “Life According to Liam” rolling along.
About V.L. Locey
USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, Dr. Who, Torchwood, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, two Jersey steers and a flock of assorted domestic fowl.
When not writing lusty tales, she can be found enjoying her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads | tsú