I have decided to give you 7 paragraphs from page 7 of something I'm playing around with right now. It doesn't have a title, I'm just calling it "Dean and Jess's story."
His short, rich-brown spiky hair had been artfully arranged; his jaw was beginning to show the shadow of a beard that held more than a hint of ginger. Those mossy green eyes had flecks of gold in them, making them look as if they were constantly sparkling—as if there was some joke going on that only he knew about. He was tall but not freakishly so—just a smidge over six feet Jess would guess—a good thing because very tall men always made her feel uncomfortable about her own five-feet-four-on-a-good-day. His tuxedo fitted him perfectly; tailored to suit his broad shoulders and narrow waist.
He was, in short, devastatingly gorgeous.
And he was Hayley’s new husband’s brother.
Jess knew all about him. She’d known his name was Dean before he introduced himself. He was a writer of comic books or schlock-horror novels or something like that, and a nomad, apparently, of no fixed address. The black sheep of the Kennedy clan—the one they didn’t talk about at family gatherings. He’d dropped out of uni and run away. There had, according to Hayley, been a massive fight over Rob’s insistence on having his older brother as his best man.
He was also—what were the words Hayley had used? Oh yeah—irresponsible and reckless and immature. Hayley said they were the adjectives his own mother invoked.
Dean was the centre of most of Hayley’s more extreme hysterics about all the things that could go wrong on her wedding day. Dean would forget the rings. Dean would refuse to wear the suit properly. Dean would bring a hooker as his date. Dean would simply not turn up.
Jess had patiently listened to Hayley’s rants. Listened, while secretly thinking that Dean sounded kind of thrilling, only to silently chastise herself immediately. She had appalling taste in men. Her attraction to Hayley’s brother-in-law-to-be, just from a description of his faults and the potential chaos he could cause, was yet further proof of that.
What do you think? Are you as in love with Dean as I am? Jess is initially wary but, as you can probably tell just from that description, Dean's charms are hard to resist...
I'm not going to worry about tagging another seven authors, but if you want to give it a try, feel free! I must admit it makes me a bit nervous to put words out there that haven't yet gone through the proving oven of the editing process, but (like Jess) I must find some courage to put myself out there...
