Title: Martin’s Wings
Age & Genre: Adult
Romance
Word Count: 104,000
Query:
Martin is a commitment-phobe. He’s also a pilot. All hail breaks loose on his wedding day as icy pellets rain from the sky and he sneaks out the church window, ditching his bride-to-be and flying home to sunny Southern California. Countless one night stands later, he returns to podunk Pennsylvania for kooky family holidays only to find his ex on the arm of an old football rival and his relatives full of helpful sex advice. Martin’s instincts: take wing on the next Triple Seven back to Orange County. But this runaway groom’s bolting days may be drawing to an end after a long-legged runner saunters past his wiffle ball game.
The cute blonde offers Martin a taste of her cotton candy and a taste of his own medicine as she plays flirt and flee with him. Confident, extroverted, and a little bit wacky, Coral’s everything Martin is not. A red-eye flight home would be easier for Martin than a game of cat and mouse with this girl. To find his Happily Ever After and avoid flying solo forever, this pilot will need to stop running away from love and start running to it—if only he could get Coral to stick around for longer than a New York minute.
First 250 Words:
“There’s only one way out of this room, Marty.” Uncle Lars pointed to the altar doorway. “Whether boon or doom awaits you there, no one can know.”
Booooom.
Thunder rattled the sacristy’s stained glass. Martin jumped. High. That’s when the rain started. Sheeting. On Martin’s wedding day. Full on roaring thunderstorm. Deluge, really. One that violently morphed into the rapid, crackling ping-ping of dropping hail.
Doom then.
Squinting out the yellow-tinted stained glass, Martin discerned a flurry of suits and dresses charging the cathedral gates. Icy munitions poured down, riddling car roofs, dinging hoods, and pelting wedding guests. “You know,” Lars said, scratching the skull underneath his erratic Einstein hair, “some cultures consider hail good luck for your nuptials.” Good luck? “There are others, however,” he continued, “who view hail as God’s retribution on the iniquities of humanity.” Bad luck. “Sin lately, Marty?” Ummm… “Did you remember your Mother’s Day gift?” Shit. “Marty! Marty! Marty! Any dick off the street can tell you Mother’s Day is the single most important 24 hours in your Mother-in-Law’s existence. Women who selflessly wipe poop off baby butts and open rent-free basements to socially backward thirty-something sons need to have some kernel of joy in their otherwise bleak lives.”
“She’s not my mother-in-law…yet,” Martin croaked, deep voice catching in his throat.
“She will be. She will be,” said Lars, pitifully attempting a Yoda-ish voice. Drawing no response, Lars shrugged. “At least you’ll get laid tonight. Another thirty years, you might not be so lucky.”
*****.
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