Sunday, October 27, 2013

Breaking All The Rules - An Excerpt



Deniece Malcolm’s baby sister is marrying her ex, even though she knows there’s a rule about dating exes. Rules are made to be broken right? Deniece doesn’t think so, but she’ll help with the wedding and break a few of her own.


I've posted other excerpts from Breaking and I always begin at Chapter 1 of any project I have because well doesn't it need to be good from the first word? I think so. Anyway, today I decided to pop around and I pulled an excerpt out of chapter 5. Deneice Malcolm, our heroine, has a rule about dating younger men, but our hero, Ethan Wright is becoming pretty irresistible.

An excerpt from Chapter 5 
 I felt a stabbing pain in my heart. I’d dubbed myself Mrs. Terrance Wright in high school and now my sister would have the title. I sighed. This was too weird.
I lie on the bed for a few minutes listening to my sister move around downstairs, then outside and eventually heard her car start and pull away. I had yet to ask her where she and Mr. Terrance Wright were planning to live. This house was bigger than the one Terrance owned or rented or whatever was his situation. I’d been afraid to ask her, not wanting to learn that that they would reside here and raise their babies in this house, because if they did it would no longer feel like home.
I rolled over on my stomach and pressed my made-up face into the comforter. I just didn’t know. Everything about her choice of husband made the marriage difficult for me to stomach. Of course she hadn’t been thinking about that when she’d gone out and slept with him. I groaned. Now I knew for sure why you stayed away from the exes.  I’d never really thought about the implications of it before. I just knew to follow the rule. Whomever had made it had to be a woman that had been through this “ish”, because only someone who had been where I was could possibly understand all the factors that could come into play when someone close to you dated an ex.
I stood and surveyed myself one more time in the mirror. The makeup made me look like I was going on a date. I couldn’t have Ethan thinking I was going to break my “no dating younger men” rule. There was enough rule breaking going on right now. Besides, he was Terrance’s cousin, dating me would mean he was with Terrance’s ex. Did men care about that? I wasn’t sure.
“Why are you even going there in your mind?” I asked my reflection. “Ethan is a friend and he wouldn’t ever be anything more.” I walked into the bathroom that joined my bedroom to my sisters and washed the makeup off my face, reapplied my moisturizer and a little lip gloss just as the doorbell rang. I turned to leave the room and then turned back to the mirror and pointed at myself. “Ethan is just a friend,” I repeated. “He’s twenty-nine, Terrance’s cousin, and he appears to be backslidden. They’ll be no opening your mouth tonight.”

I turned off the light and made my way down the stairs. I pulled the door open and all that I’d just told myself seemed to evaporate into a mist in the sky. Ethan was standing there looking all kinds of yummy and chocolaty. Once that woodsy scent coming off his body hit my nostrils all I could think was that I wanted to break every rule I had ever made. 
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