Happy Father's Day! A MAN ON Extra Scene!
MILD SPOILER WARNING! If you have read Man On you will adore this poignant full circle scene. If you have not, feel free to read it and then jump into the novel for only .99!
MAN ON blurb:
ONLY .99 during the 2014 World Cup!
Bad boy of European football, Nicolas Garza is about to hit American shores with a vengeance. Signed by the Detroit Black Jack Gentlemen as lynch pin for their expansion club, Nicco only half believes he’s making the right move. But with a past full of ghosts and rotten behavior chasing him from his homeland, he has no real choice.
Parker Rollings is a college soccer superstar, but his parents’ plans for their only son do not include professional athletics. When the Black Jacks approach him to finalize their roster, Parker leaps at the chance to keep playing, leaving behind medical school, stability and his first and only college sweetheart.
Nicco and Parker face off as bitter rivals for a coveted starting spot at midfield and are forced to channel their negative energy into something positive for the sake of the group—and themselves.
All eyes are on the fledgling team in its debut season. It’s crucial that the Black Jacks prove all the doubters wrong. They must make a good showing in the league and with new fans. But player drama, club dynamics, and misplaced priorities may tear it apart before it even begins
And now….in honor of Father's Day…..a special deleted scene!
Happy Father’s Day!Black Jack Gentlemen Style
by Liz Crowe All Rights Reserved
*****************************************
“You realize that this is gonna be tough. I mean, World Cup level, final game, in the rain and heat against a stacked Brazilian national team level of impossible.” “You realize that does not make me feel in any way prepared to help her, right?”Parker glared at Nicco for a split second before turning his attention back to his simultaneous obsession with the current World Cup match they were watching and his phone, which he clutched in one hand so hard his fingers hurt. He glanced at it, then back at the huge TV screen.“Boys.”The group of players huddled together on the large leather couch looked up at the sound of a female voice. Sara Gordon stood there clutching a bunch of sweating brown beer bottles. As the wife of the man who’d basically conjured the Black Jack Gentlemen expansion pro soccer team for Detroit, she’d never developed a full appreciation for the game, or so she claimed. But she knew how to host a party. The team was gathered at the Gordon’s expansive Ann Arbor home to watch the semi finals. They’d eaten burgers, kicked the ball around with the kids that hovered around the edges of any Gordon party and now sat clustered around the huge television, cheering, in a solid fifty-fifty split for either Turkey or Uruguay in a surprise pairing. Neither team had been expected to get this far. Their coach, a Turk named Metin Sevim was pacing and cursing. Every man in the room was mesmerized by the action.Everyone but Parker.He smiled at Sara and started to stand, excusing himself for the thousandth time. Nicco put a hand on his leg, attempting to calm him but he was claustrophobic, antsy and Nicco’s little pep talk had not helped him in the slightest. “She’ll be all right,” Sara whispered as he passed by her. “It’s soon, right?”Parker’s face flushed red. He hated being so obviously beside himself. Hoping to deflect some of the attention focused on him by pretty much the entire room, he held out his hands. “I can take those around,” he said. “Over here then, hurry up,” Jack Gordon said from the far side of the huge room. “She’s been serving everybody but me for the last hour.”Sara stuck her tongue out at her husband as she handed the bottles over to Parker. “You’re just spoiled Gordon,” a voice called, Parker couldn’t tell from where. His ears were ringing and his heart thumped with anxiety as he passed out the beers, making the politically correct call to get one over to Jack first. The room erupted when a near miss drive came up just short inside the Uruguayan goal. Beers dispersed, Parker leaned against the wall in the back of the room, trying to let the vision of his favorite game played at the highest possible level distract him. It didn’t work. Sighing, he slunk back into the hall and headed upstairs with the sounds of cursing and cheering in his ears. He must really be off, he thought. He didn’t even care who’d scored. The brightly lit kitchen beckoned from the end of the hall so he headed there, smiling at the sight of the various kids in the living room, watching some cartoon or another. His chest constricted on the heels of that, reminding him of his terror level. “Hey there,” Rafe said on his way past him towards the basement door. The team’s co-manager, a former Argentinian star, put a hand on his shoulder. “Is it time?” Parker shook his head, unwilling to talk about it even to the one guy who’d been his biggest supporter during the past months of insanity and drama. Thankful when Rafe read his “leave me the hell alone” body language and kept going past him, he headed into the kitchen, needing space to breathe and think. “Hi,” Sara said, as she loaded dishes into the washer.“Can I help?”“Not ever gonna turn that down.” She smiled and pulled her hair back into a ponytail and plopped into a chair. “Thanks.”“No problem.” After about twenty minutes he had all the dishes loaded, the counters cleared off and wiped down. Sara had stayed quiet, sipping a glass of wine and reading something on her tablet. He sat across from her once the busy work was complete. She glanced up at him, her deep green eyes thoughtful. “The patio could use a sweep,” she said, nodding towards the wall of glass between the kitchen and outdoors.He leapt up, never more grateful for her spot-on intuition that he required something to do that would keep his mind off the fluttering, impending panic attack. Grabbing the broom he found leaning in the mud room he headed out into the warm June night. Once the patio was spotless, he dropped into a cushioned lounge chair, heart in his throat again. What had he been thinking? He was not ready for this step. Especially considering the convoluted nature of how it would go down. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and counted his blessings for a brief moment. He and Nicco were out. They were a couple. They’d weathered the many storms of media coverage both good and very bad. The Black Jacks organization had been supportive of their decision not to be the “face of gay men in sports.” But they’d also fully supported Nicco and Parker by not forbidding them to be seen together in public.He sighed and lay back, staring up into the twinkling stars nestled into the velvety night sky. At that moment, he would have given anything he had to talk to his father. The milestone moment in his life that loomed terrified him. He wanted to hear his father’s deep, reassuring voice. But since he’d thrown off his parents’ plan for medical school and marriage to his college sweetheart, they’d pretty much absented themselves from his life. His mother sent him emails, keeping him up to date on the various cousins he still felt close to and who’d made it to some of his games. But his father had not spoken to him in over a year. And Parker had never felt the giant, gaping hole the most important man in his life had once occupied than he did right this minute. He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, there was a hand on his face, startling him awake. He sat with a grunt, almost tumbling off the side of the wide seat.“Relax baby,” Nicco said. “Scoot over.”Parker made a concerted attempt not to yell at the man he’d finally admitted he loved not that long ago, right on the heels of one of the most alarming conversations he’d ever had with the last woman he’d had sex with. Nicco kept a firm hand on his thigh, calming him almost instantly. He shifted so Nicco could slide in next to him. He grabbed the man’s hand and threaded his fingers through his.“God damn I am freaking out,” he said, putting Nicco’s knuckles to his lips. “You think?” Nicco’s white smile gave him something to focus on not his own creeping panic. They sat in silence a while, comfortable, side by side and Parker sensed his pulse calm, finally. “Who’s winning?”“Not Turkey,” Nicco said, taking Parker’s hand and putting on his zipper. “I’m bored.”“No, you’re not. You’re just as nervous as I am. You just like to fuck to distract yourself.”“And that is a problem because…” Nicco flipped up onto his side and slid his hand under Parker’s tee shirt. Parker sighed, shivering when his lover’s fingertips teased his flesh. He sensed Nicco’s full lips on his neck, then his jaw. He let the man turn his face towards him with the hand that had made it all the way up under his shirt. “I love you,” Nicco said, his mouth mere centimeters from Parker’s. “I know,” Parker said, suddenly desperate for a connection. He gripped Nicco’s face, let his hand slide up into the other man’s hair. “Kiss me.” “No problem,” Nicco said as he did as he was told. For a few seconds, Parker was one hundred percent distracted from what was about to happen to him, to them. He knew nothing but his lover’s lips and his body pressed close on the lounge chair in the soft, Michigan summer night. “Hey!” A voice broke into their increasingly inappropriate groping. “Yo, Rollings! You out here?”In the process of disentangling from Nicco’s embrace Parker dumped himself onto the hard patio surface. “Shit,” he muttered, scrambling to his feet. Nicco rose gracefully, as usual, pulling his shirt tail out over his jeans in the dim light thrown by the kitchen. “Si, we’re here. What d’you want.” Nicco said, irritation clear in his accented voice. “Uh, you left your phone in the kitchen,” the voice said. “You’re getting a lot of calls…”Parker ran past whoever was talking, he never found out, snagging his phone and breaking into a freezing cold sweat. Sara stood with Jack by the front door, holding it open. He stood, utterly frozen for a few seconds. Nicco breezed by and snagged his arm.“Let’s go Papa. Time to make this thing for real.” Parker glanced up in terror. But the cool, calm, dark gaze held him, calmed him and he nodded.
They made it to suburban Detroit hospital in record time. Parker barely remembered it. He’d placed two calls, one to his mother. She’d been excited, and promised that she’d relay his good news the family, reminding him to call the second he know more. The other one had been harder. He’d heard the fear and pain in Ashley’s voice. “Hurry,” had been the one word he’d said to Nicco. They burst out of the elevator onto the maternity floor, skidding to a stop at a nurse’s station long enough to bleat Ashley’s name. The nurse had taken one look at the two men, shook her head, then lead the way down a long hall to a closed door. He heard it then, the distinct sound of female screaming. He stopped, stepped back and sensed himself sliding the floor.“Oh no you do not,” Nicco said, yanking him up. “Hold it together Parker. This is where she needs us.”Parker nodded but knew he was gonna fade. He couldn’t bear it. Ashley was crying now, on the other side of that damn door. The nurse handed them papery gowns and masks. Then opened the door and shoved them into the very depths of hell.
Five hours later, Parker sat huddled in a chair holding a tiny infant who was staring at him in such a way that made his heart pound and his eyes burn with unfamiliar tears. Ashley was knocked out, having endured hours of screaming, blood, shit and pain before they just cut her open and took the damn baby out. But at that moment, all Parker knew was the small boy who was memorizing him with his earnest, dark blue gaze. Nicco perched on the chair arm and touched the boy’s face making him blink and shift his gaze up, seeming to take in both men who were so transfixed by him. “Wow.” Nicco said, his voice hoarse. “Just…wow.”“Yeah,” Parker croaked out, unwilling to admit how very much in love with the tiny boy he already was. “Ross. He’s for real.”They both looked up when the door opened, revealing a tall, suited, handsome and very stressed out looking man. Nicco got up and walked over to him holding out a hand. The man took it but kept looking over Nicco’s shoulder at Ashley’s immobile form on the bed.“Congratulations Anthony. It’s a boy.”The man blinked. “Thanks. Um…she’s…”“She’s exhausted. But fine.”Parker looked up when he sensed the other man nearby, looking down at the infant. “Go to her, Anthony,” he said, knowing that was all the man wanted right then. A nurse came in to check Ashley’s vital signs then turned to Parker. “Okay let’s take baby Ross to the nursery now. You have more visitors.”Parker felt himself clinging to the boy, not willing to surrender him yet. Nicco was back at his side, hand on his shoulder. “Can we share the good news first?”She frowned, obviously wanting to get the baby back. But Nicco was not about to let that happen. “Sure. But not for long.”Nicco put a hand under Parker’s elbow and helped him up, keeping his arm around Parker’s waist as they walked out the door and into the bright morning light of a busy maternity wing. Parker blinked, certain that his fatigued brain was playing tricks on him when he caught sight of the people standing there. “Mom?” he said, almost stumbling. But Nicco kept a firm grip on him. “I’m…it’s….” He turned to the man he’d been missing so much it hurt. “Dad?”“Give him to me Parker,” his mother said, tears streaming down her face. “Please let me hold him.”Nicco bumped his hip, breaking him out of his stunned silence. Parker’s tall, austere, patrician father stood there with tears in his eyes. Nicco whispered something in his ear, making him smile. “Happy father’s day, Dad,” Parker said, staying close to Nicco, unwilling to hide or pretend anything about what he was anymore. “Happy father’s day to you, son,” the man said as Nicco took the baby from his arms and gave him to Parker’s mother. Parker stood, staring at the man who’d raised him. To his utter shock, the man grabbed his arms, hesitated a split second, then tugged him into a tight hug.
Happy Father's Day Liz Fans.
MAN ON blurb:
ONLY .99 during the 2014 World Cup!
Bad boy of European football, Nicolas Garza is about to hit American shores with a vengeance. Signed by the Detroit Black Jack Gentlemen as lynch pin for their expansion club, Nicco only half believes he’s making the right move. But with a past full of ghosts and rotten behavior chasing him from his homeland, he has no real choice.
Parker Rollings is a college soccer superstar, but his parents’ plans for their only son do not include professional athletics. When the Black Jacks approach him to finalize their roster, Parker leaps at the chance to keep playing, leaving behind medical school, stability and his first and only college sweetheart.
Nicco and Parker face off as bitter rivals for a coveted starting spot at midfield and are forced to channel their negative energy into something positive for the sake of the group—and themselves.
All eyes are on the fledgling team in its debut season. It’s crucial that the Black Jacks prove all the doubters wrong. They must make a good showing in the league and with new fans. But player drama, club dynamics, and misplaced priorities may tear it apart before it even begins
And now….in honor of Father's Day…..a special deleted scene!
Happy Father’s Day!Black Jack Gentlemen Style
by Liz Crowe All Rights Reserved
*****************************************
“You realize that this is gonna be tough. I mean, World Cup level, final game, in the rain and heat against a stacked Brazilian national team level of impossible.” “You realize that does not make me feel in any way prepared to help her, right?”Parker glared at Nicco for a split second before turning his attention back to his simultaneous obsession with the current World Cup match they were watching and his phone, which he clutched in one hand so hard his fingers hurt. He glanced at it, then back at the huge TV screen.“Boys.”The group of players huddled together on the large leather couch looked up at the sound of a female voice. Sara Gordon stood there clutching a bunch of sweating brown beer bottles. As the wife of the man who’d basically conjured the Black Jack Gentlemen expansion pro soccer team for Detroit, she’d never developed a full appreciation for the game, or so she claimed. But she knew how to host a party. The team was gathered at the Gordon’s expansive Ann Arbor home to watch the semi finals. They’d eaten burgers, kicked the ball around with the kids that hovered around the edges of any Gordon party and now sat clustered around the huge television, cheering, in a solid fifty-fifty split for either Turkey or Uruguay in a surprise pairing. Neither team had been expected to get this far. Their coach, a Turk named Metin Sevim was pacing and cursing. Every man in the room was mesmerized by the action.Everyone but Parker.He smiled at Sara and started to stand, excusing himself for the thousandth time. Nicco put a hand on his leg, attempting to calm him but he was claustrophobic, antsy and Nicco’s little pep talk had not helped him in the slightest. “She’ll be all right,” Sara whispered as he passed by her. “It’s soon, right?”Parker’s face flushed red. He hated being so obviously beside himself. Hoping to deflect some of the attention focused on him by pretty much the entire room, he held out his hands. “I can take those around,” he said. “Over here then, hurry up,” Jack Gordon said from the far side of the huge room. “She’s been serving everybody but me for the last hour.”Sara stuck her tongue out at her husband as she handed the bottles over to Parker. “You’re just spoiled Gordon,” a voice called, Parker couldn’t tell from where. His ears were ringing and his heart thumped with anxiety as he passed out the beers, making the politically correct call to get one over to Jack first. The room erupted when a near miss drive came up just short inside the Uruguayan goal. Beers dispersed, Parker leaned against the wall in the back of the room, trying to let the vision of his favorite game played at the highest possible level distract him. It didn’t work. Sighing, he slunk back into the hall and headed upstairs with the sounds of cursing and cheering in his ears. He must really be off, he thought. He didn’t even care who’d scored. The brightly lit kitchen beckoned from the end of the hall so he headed there, smiling at the sight of the various kids in the living room, watching some cartoon or another. His chest constricted on the heels of that, reminding him of his terror level. “Hey there,” Rafe said on his way past him towards the basement door. The team’s co-manager, a former Argentinian star, put a hand on his shoulder. “Is it time?” Parker shook his head, unwilling to talk about it even to the one guy who’d been his biggest supporter during the past months of insanity and drama. Thankful when Rafe read his “leave me the hell alone” body language and kept going past him, he headed into the kitchen, needing space to breathe and think. “Hi,” Sara said, as she loaded dishes into the washer.“Can I help?”“Not ever gonna turn that down.” She smiled and pulled her hair back into a ponytail and plopped into a chair. “Thanks.”“No problem.” After about twenty minutes he had all the dishes loaded, the counters cleared off and wiped down. Sara had stayed quiet, sipping a glass of wine and reading something on her tablet. He sat across from her once the busy work was complete. She glanced up at him, her deep green eyes thoughtful. “The patio could use a sweep,” she said, nodding towards the wall of glass between the kitchen and outdoors.He leapt up, never more grateful for her spot-on intuition that he required something to do that would keep his mind off the fluttering, impending panic attack. Grabbing the broom he found leaning in the mud room he headed out into the warm June night. Once the patio was spotless, he dropped into a cushioned lounge chair, heart in his throat again. What had he been thinking? He was not ready for this step. Especially considering the convoluted nature of how it would go down. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and counted his blessings for a brief moment. He and Nicco were out. They were a couple. They’d weathered the many storms of media coverage both good and very bad. The Black Jacks organization had been supportive of their decision not to be the “face of gay men in sports.” But they’d also fully supported Nicco and Parker by not forbidding them to be seen together in public.He sighed and lay back, staring up into the twinkling stars nestled into the velvety night sky. At that moment, he would have given anything he had to talk to his father. The milestone moment in his life that loomed terrified him. He wanted to hear his father’s deep, reassuring voice. But since he’d thrown off his parents’ plan for medical school and marriage to his college sweetheart, they’d pretty much absented themselves from his life. His mother sent him emails, keeping him up to date on the various cousins he still felt close to and who’d made it to some of his games. But his father had not spoken to him in over a year. And Parker had never felt the giant, gaping hole the most important man in his life had once occupied than he did right this minute. He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, there was a hand on his face, startling him awake. He sat with a grunt, almost tumbling off the side of the wide seat.“Relax baby,” Nicco said. “Scoot over.”Parker made a concerted attempt not to yell at the man he’d finally admitted he loved not that long ago, right on the heels of one of the most alarming conversations he’d ever had with the last woman he’d had sex with. Nicco kept a firm hand on his thigh, calming him almost instantly. He shifted so Nicco could slide in next to him. He grabbed the man’s hand and threaded his fingers through his.“God damn I am freaking out,” he said, putting Nicco’s knuckles to his lips. “You think?” Nicco’s white smile gave him something to focus on not his own creeping panic. They sat in silence a while, comfortable, side by side and Parker sensed his pulse calm, finally. “Who’s winning?”“Not Turkey,” Nicco said, taking Parker’s hand and putting on his zipper. “I’m bored.”“No, you’re not. You’re just as nervous as I am. You just like to fuck to distract yourself.”“And that is a problem because…” Nicco flipped up onto his side and slid his hand under Parker’s tee shirt. Parker sighed, shivering when his lover’s fingertips teased his flesh. He sensed Nicco’s full lips on his neck, then his jaw. He let the man turn his face towards him with the hand that had made it all the way up under his shirt. “I love you,” Nicco said, his mouth mere centimeters from Parker’s. “I know,” Parker said, suddenly desperate for a connection. He gripped Nicco’s face, let his hand slide up into the other man’s hair. “Kiss me.” “No problem,” Nicco said as he did as he was told. For a few seconds, Parker was one hundred percent distracted from what was about to happen to him, to them. He knew nothing but his lover’s lips and his body pressed close on the lounge chair in the soft, Michigan summer night. “Hey!” A voice broke into their increasingly inappropriate groping. “Yo, Rollings! You out here?”In the process of disentangling from Nicco’s embrace Parker dumped himself onto the hard patio surface. “Shit,” he muttered, scrambling to his feet. Nicco rose gracefully, as usual, pulling his shirt tail out over his jeans in the dim light thrown by the kitchen. “Si, we’re here. What d’you want.” Nicco said, irritation clear in his accented voice. “Uh, you left your phone in the kitchen,” the voice said. “You’re getting a lot of calls…”Parker ran past whoever was talking, he never found out, snagging his phone and breaking into a freezing cold sweat. Sara stood with Jack by the front door, holding it open. He stood, utterly frozen for a few seconds. Nicco breezed by and snagged his arm.“Let’s go Papa. Time to make this thing for real.” Parker glanced up in terror. But the cool, calm, dark gaze held him, calmed him and he nodded.
They made it to suburban Detroit hospital in record time. Parker barely remembered it. He’d placed two calls, one to his mother. She’d been excited, and promised that she’d relay his good news the family, reminding him to call the second he know more. The other one had been harder. He’d heard the fear and pain in Ashley’s voice. “Hurry,” had been the one word he’d said to Nicco. They burst out of the elevator onto the maternity floor, skidding to a stop at a nurse’s station long enough to bleat Ashley’s name. The nurse had taken one look at the two men, shook her head, then lead the way down a long hall to a closed door. He heard it then, the distinct sound of female screaming. He stopped, stepped back and sensed himself sliding the floor.“Oh no you do not,” Nicco said, yanking him up. “Hold it together Parker. This is where she needs us.”Parker nodded but knew he was gonna fade. He couldn’t bear it. Ashley was crying now, on the other side of that damn door. The nurse handed them papery gowns and masks. Then opened the door and shoved them into the very depths of hell.
Five hours later, Parker sat huddled in a chair holding a tiny infant who was staring at him in such a way that made his heart pound and his eyes burn with unfamiliar tears. Ashley was knocked out, having endured hours of screaming, blood, shit and pain before they just cut her open and took the damn baby out. But at that moment, all Parker knew was the small boy who was memorizing him with his earnest, dark blue gaze. Nicco perched on the chair arm and touched the boy’s face making him blink and shift his gaze up, seeming to take in both men who were so transfixed by him. “Wow.” Nicco said, his voice hoarse. “Just…wow.”“Yeah,” Parker croaked out, unwilling to admit how very much in love with the tiny boy he already was. “Ross. He’s for real.”They both looked up when the door opened, revealing a tall, suited, handsome and very stressed out looking man. Nicco got up and walked over to him holding out a hand. The man took it but kept looking over Nicco’s shoulder at Ashley’s immobile form on the bed.“Congratulations Anthony. It’s a boy.”The man blinked. “Thanks. Um…she’s…”“She’s exhausted. But fine.”Parker looked up when he sensed the other man nearby, looking down at the infant. “Go to her, Anthony,” he said, knowing that was all the man wanted right then. A nurse came in to check Ashley’s vital signs then turned to Parker. “Okay let’s take baby Ross to the nursery now. You have more visitors.”Parker felt himself clinging to the boy, not willing to surrender him yet. Nicco was back at his side, hand on his shoulder. “Can we share the good news first?”She frowned, obviously wanting to get the baby back. But Nicco was not about to let that happen. “Sure. But not for long.”Nicco put a hand under Parker’s elbow and helped him up, keeping his arm around Parker’s waist as they walked out the door and into the bright morning light of a busy maternity wing. Parker blinked, certain that his fatigued brain was playing tricks on him when he caught sight of the people standing there. “Mom?” he said, almost stumbling. But Nicco kept a firm grip on him. “I’m…it’s….” He turned to the man he’d been missing so much it hurt. “Dad?”“Give him to me Parker,” his mother said, tears streaming down her face. “Please let me hold him.”Nicco bumped his hip, breaking him out of his stunned silence. Parker’s tall, austere, patrician father stood there with tears in his eyes. Nicco whispered something in his ear, making him smile. “Happy father’s day, Dad,” Parker said, staying close to Nicco, unwilling to hide or pretend anything about what he was anymore. “Happy father’s day to you, son,” the man said as Nicco took the baby from his arms and gave him to Parker’s mother. Parker stood, staring at the man who’d raised him. To his utter shock, the man grabbed his arms, hesitated a split second, then tugged him into a tight hug.
Happy Father's Day Liz Fans.
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