About Nobody's Hero
Jamie Monday lives in two different worlds. With his family, he's the golden child of awakened superpowered society. He's meant to do Great Things and pass on his powers -- with the appropriate girl, hand-picked by his mother.

He's already failed at the former, so he can't bring himself to tell her that the latter isn't happening, either.

With his friends, he's the social director and life of the party. He's also an out gay man with an appetite for the quick and easy lay. It's tough to have a relationship when you're hiding off-the-charts electrical powers, but Jamie doesn't mind.

Not until the prickly, paddy rocking, geeky-hot new guy at work shows him what he's been missing, anyhow. Kellan Shea's singular combination of dirty mouth and pure soul makes Jamie spark right from the beginning. To break through Kelly's defensive front and get to the gentle heart inside, Jamie will have to reconcile his split life: come to terms with his past, his family, his powers, even his nightmares.

Easier said than done, but if Jamie doesn't step up and own the truth, he could lose his love before it gets off the ground.

Coming in March from Loose Id!

Character Stats

Jamie Monday by Astro. Click to enlarge.

Name: Jamie Monday
Age: 28
5'11"
Hometown: Cleveland
Current Residence: Same old Mistake by the Lake
Occupation: Sales Lead, Humphries Consulting
Powers: Electric
Level: High
Control: Huge
Politics: If I had a code name, it'd be Super Liberal.
Religion: Agnostic
Favorite music: Massive Attack, Hot Chip, Chemical Brothers, MGMT, Tricky--mainly, I just want to feel it. The dirtier your bass, the closer I am. Desert Island Album: Gorillaz, Demon Days.
Favorite movie/TV: Anything involving Bela Lugosi. Desert Island Movie: Mark of the Vampire.
Favorite book: A Tale of Two Cities comes to the desert island with me, too. I dare you to find a book more perfect. No, really, I'd love to read it.
Favorite fictional character: Mina Harker
Favorite food: Thai. Or Mexican. Or Lebanese. Actually, just food. In general.
Favorite drink: Honeyed Fox seasonal brews, Great Lakes Elliot Ness or Sam Adams Old Fezziwig Ale. Philosophical question: Hey, Boston Brewing Company, why can't we get Fezziwig in six packs? You only sell it two months out of the year and you give us two bottles out of a whole case? That's just cruel.
Favorite sport: Baseball. Your average All-American Boy, that's me.
Favorite artist: My wall's covered with golden age movie posters. I like the Asian stuff in the museum, though, especially the Japanese paintings.
Favorite news outlet: Washington Post, New York Times, CNN
Favorite superhero: The Flash or Human Torch, cuz they're mouthy. Also always liked Emma Frost, just for rocking the thigh-high white leather boots.
Favorite supervillain: Dracula
Describe yourself in one word: Divided

Kellan Shea by Astro. Click to enlarge.

Name: Kellan Shea
Age: 23
6 ft ish
Hometown: Medina, OH
Current Residence: Cleveland, OH
Occupation: King of the Code Monkeys
Powers: N/A
Level: N/A
Control: N/A
Politics: Socially liberal, fiscally lost
Religion: Catholic
Favorite music: Flogging Molly, The Pogues, The Waterboys, The Tossers, etc. Dyed in the wool to go in for Paddy Rock, but I love music. All of it.
Favorite movie/TV: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Favorite book: If I can only pick one, maybe Slaughterhouse Five. Or Sandman. Or Of Human Bondage. Hell, I don't know.
Favorite fictional character: Peter Parker
Favorite food: Barbecue, but it has to be Carolina Gold
Favorite drink: Powers Irish Whiskey
Favorite sport: I'm a runner, but I'll watch pretty much any sport known to humankind.
Favorite artist: I got into comics because of McFarlane's Spider-Man--was before my time, but an uncle of mine gave me all his, and I was hooked. So, typical comic geek answer, there. There's still a Greg and Tim Hildebrandt Spidey hanging in my old room at my parents' too, and I love their Lord of the Rings stuff. But ask me who my least favorite ever is. Go ahead. Here's a hint: you actually made me hate Shatterstar and Rictor. Then you tried to un-gay them when Loeb and finally PAD made them stop sucking. Go fuck yourself.
Favorite news outlet: I try not to pay attention. I catch up on the conservative version of it at family gatherings and swing it a few pegs to the left and usually keep up okay.
Favorite superhero: Spider-Man. But since I already said Pete, maybe Beast. Old school Beast, whose biggest complaint was that Bobby ate all the Twinkies.
Favorite supervillain: Carnage is a pretty scary bastard. Either him or Apocalypse.
Describe yourself in one word: What kind of bullshit question is that? Here's a word: fuckoff.


Excerpts
Sexy Excerpt
I kept my back turned as I popped the cap off the whipped cream. “What’s that saying about love and war?” I tilted my head back and shot some cream into my mouth. It was stronger than I’d expected, like a frothy shot of vodka with just the faintest almond flavor. I swallowed unhurriedly, though I felt him stalking me just feet away. “Mmm, it’s good too.”

Kellan attacked, wrapping me up in his arms; happily, he had continued taking his shirt off after I’d abandoned him. I doubled over as if to protect the can, my protests drowned out by laughter as he wrestled me to the ground. He pinned me on my back, straddling my hips and holding my wrists over my head, his lips inches from mine, grinning.

I smirked and let go the can.

He snatched it up, using one hand to pin my arms to the floor, and put it out of reach near his left knee. Then he leaned back over, positioned himself just above me again, settled his ass down right on my crotch, and said, “Aw, lookit you, all defeated.”

I arched my back, rubbing my swelling cock against the inside of his thigh. “Unh, I dunno, Kelly. Feels like winning to me.”

He shifted his hips, increasing the pressure. Boy had a future as a lap-dancer if the whole code-monkey thing didn’t work out. He took a deep breath of me, put his lips not half an inch from mine, so I could feel them move. “Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Guess no one ever taught you: best way to get something you want is just to ask for it.”

“Kellan?”

“Yes?”

I arched again, sighing, mouth just open enough to let him get the right idea. “May I please, please have some?”

He bit back a smile.

I stuck out my lower lip. “Pretty please? Sugar on top?”

“See, who could say no to that?” He rearranged me so I could sit up, then put his ass to the floor.

I scooted forward between his legs and threw mine over his thighs. I ran my fingers down the trail of dark hair that led from his chest, down his belly to the little wrinkles sitting up created just above the low waist of his jeans. I eyed his erection, obscenely filling out the denim, and strangled a manic urge to get it out and get it in me right then.

By the time I raised my eyes again, he had the lid off. He squirted a decent-sized dollop of fluff onto two fingers and then held it out to me.

Always just what I fucking needed.

I took him by the wrist and guided his fingers into my mouth. I closed my lips, sucked the cream slowly, running my tongue first along the bottom, over his knuckles up to the fingertips, then turned his hand over and licked my way up the inside.

He smiled, openmouthed, and licked his lips almost as if he didn’t even realize.

I tickled the inside of his wrist, then sucked his fingers in as far as they’d go, until I felt them pressing at the back of my throat.

He gasped. “Jesus.”

I sucked as I pulled his fingers out of my mouth, dragged my teeth carefully over the fingertips, and finally kissed them. “More, please?”

His dark eyes had that look, the one that told me he was far gone and open to suggestion. He moved to oblige me, and this time I licked it off his fingers all at once, then leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. I opened up and pushed at least half of the sweet-sharp confection into his mouth with my tongue.

He moaned, swallowing and pulling me closer until I was in his lap properly, his mouth working its usual magic against mine but tasting like vodka and dessert.

I shifted us around until I had him pinned against the back of the couch, still on the floor. Whipped cream can forgotten on its side, the tables fully turned, I pulled back and said, “Sweet, huh?”

He ran his sticky hand up my side, two fingers of the clean one tucked into the front of my jeans. “Uh-huh.”

I laughed and kissed him again, feeling him up, sinking into his skin, breathing him until nothing else existed. But silence made the thoughts come again, if boiled down to their simplest, most instinctive form: I love you, I love you, I love you, please, please, please don’t hate me.

I had to shut it up. “Kellan?”

“Hmm?” He kissed at my neck, sucking here and there.

I shivered. “Now can I have what I really want?”

“Huh?”

“You, baby.” I reached between us, undoing his fly one-handed, then slipping my fingers into his pants. “You’re so much sweeter than that.” Another kiss, and I licked at the roof of his mouth to illustrate my plans for the immediate future.


Shouty Excerpt
“Sorry about that,” I said.

He dug his underwear out from behind a pile of magazines and stuffed it into the bag.

“Mom doesn’t usually just turn up like that.”

When he turned, the force of his dark glare shut me up. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and his right hand made a fist at his side. His voice was pitched sharp and hard, almost unrecognizable. “Problem with the water in my building? We work together?”

I leaned back against the door, knees going weak again, this time irretrievably. “No, it’s not -- I didn’t mean --”

“Maybe I’m getting the definition of boyfriend wrong, but this is not what I meant.”

The guy could throw a verbal kidney punch even when he wasn’t aiming. That one, carefully placed as it was, knocked the air out of me. “That’s…that’s so not what that was a --”

“Oh, so it’s not that I embarrass you.” He strapped up his bag and threw it over his shoulder. I noticed belatedly that his T-shirt was slightly crooked, one edge of it pulled up high enough to show skin, wet patches betraying the uncharacteristic haste with which he’d dried and dressed. “For a second I thought you didn’t want your mom to know you’re fucking tattooed white trash. My mistake.”

“The hell? Christ, Kellan, where’d that come from?” But as soon as I said it, I realized exactly where it came from. I saw my mother through someone else’s eyes: her shiny blond hair, gray meticulously covered by sunny highlights, swept up in an elaborate twist at the back of her head. Her high forehead, her clever eyes, just the right touch of subtle makeup. Her simple but expensive designer slacks-and-blouse ensemble, her Tiffany pendant and diamond ring the size of a meteorite and Prada bag and shoes.

And Kellan, the poor kid in hand-me-downs, who I would’ve pretended didn’t exist in high school, his heart written across his naked body in permanent ink for all to see.

He covered the distance between the living area and the front door in a few long strides and stood there like a boxer glaring down the opposing corner. “You tell me.”

My head throbbed. It was stupid, all so stupid, just a misunderstanding. I had lied to her, but in a way that she’d be sure to understand. But how to explain that to him without it sounding like some miserable excuse? Jesus, why hadn’t I just shuffled her out and apologized to him right away for the crappy introduction? Why hadn’t I…?

Both his hands clenched then. I knew if I didn’t say something, he’d push past me and be out the door. The first thing I could think leaped out of my mouth, “It has nothing to do with you or --”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“Oh, so if it was your mom, you would’ve just said, ‘Yeah, meet my new boyfriend’?”

“That’s exactly what I would’ve said.”

“And she would’ve been okay with that?”

“Jamie, my mother is the most amazing human being I know. But whether she loves it or hates it doesn’t alter a fact.”

I ran a hand through my hair, pulling on it. All my clever explanations, my smooth excuses deserted me. I just stared at him and wished so, so hard that I could tell him the truth. “She’s not ready to hear it so bluntly. I’m having lunch with her. I’ll talk to her about it then, I swear.”

“Right. She’s not ready.” Then he paused, mouth slightly open, as if having an epiphany.

I had a sick, sinking feeling he had.

Confirmed when he said, “Jesus. Does she even know you’re queer?”

I closed my eyes. “Kellan.”

He took an audible deep breath, and when I opened my eyes again, his hands were spread wide in front of him, chest rising and falling with controlled slowness. He said, in a tight, frightening voice, “Okay. You know what? It’s none of my business. Nothing about you is any of my fucking business.”

I pushed off the door and took a step nearer, reaching out for him. “No, it is. You’re right. Just, you don’t understand.”

“I noticed.” He stormed past me and reached for the doorknob.

“Please, don’t just walk away. Let me explain.”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“But --”

“I’ll say something I can’t take back.” He looked over his shoulder, biting his lip, but his eyes still burned hot and dark. “Megan will have to be your shortstop today. Tell everyone I’m sorry.”

“Kellan --” But before I got any farther, he was out the door. He closed it in my face -- gently, but it still amped me hard. The charge started in that place deep in my middle, the source of it, and jumped from wire to wire until it raced all through me, begging to get free.

I turned around, let little lightning bolts arc across my hands, jumping from finger to finger. The visible, tangible expression of all my frustration, everything I held inside, everything I wanted to scream from the fucking rooftops.

I shoved one hand forward, sending a bright blue arc from my fingertips, right into the nearest poster frame on my wall. The plastic sizzled; the paper curled in sudden frenzied electrical flames.

I put it out before it set off the alarm and emptied the whole fucking building. Feeling like exactly what I was: a giant fucking five-year-old. Lonely, frustrated, and pathetic.

Shit. And this is why I can’t have nice things.

Or nice boys.


Bonus
Nerdflirt Snippet via Superpowered Love

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