Hiya! It’s Saturday Snark Day at Marie Sexton’s blog again! I particularly like this exercise– it’s a challenge to find the moments in your work that made you choke on your own coffee (or soda!) and try not to spray it over your computer screen. Humble? No. But fun to go back and read what made other writers crack up– definitely!
This is from Believed You Were Lucky, which is in the Three Fates Anthology and it shows us Hacon Haldor, who is usually a very cautious sort of fellow, dealing with the consequences of a particularly magical night:-)
Hake walked in a little early and gave her the coffee while he sipped
his own—also a caramel double latte, although usually it was a small
coffee, black—and he smiled absently at Emma’s narrow-eyed
scrutiny.
“What?” he asked, and she grimaced.
“You smell different,” she said. She sipped her coffee
suspiciously.
“Smell different?” Perplexed.
like lilacs on you, even though I think it’s supposed to smell like men’s
stuff. It was my first tip-off that you were gay.”
summer-weight coat and take his briefcase back into the tiny office
behind the reception room. (He also made a mental note to change his
body wash and his deodorant, because that right there would have been
some good information to have when he’d been trying unsuccessfully
to pick men up at clubs after his breakup with Andre.)
“And what do I smell like now?” he asked when his office was
settled and his computer was booting up. He glanced at the clock—he
had fifteen minutes before his client actually showed up. They had time
for this.
“Mmm… something hot! Something a straight guy would use.
It’s like… I don’t know. Wood chips and horse sweat and mint and
ambergris—whatever it is, you should keep it!”
Hacon blushed—a true blush, he knew it—and Emma looked at
him curiously.
“Come on, Mr. Haldor—what is it? What are you wearing?
Give?”
Hake mumbled into his coffee, and she insisted on making him
speak up.
“What?” she asked one more time, and he blushed some more and
said quite clearly, “It’s Ivory soap and Leif.”
Hooray! Thanks for joining in!
I just did one of those weird snort/wheeze combos at the last line.
Hee! Good one!
Thanks so much for sharing, Amy!
That's funny.