Today I am so pleased to welcome Eli Easton and Tara Lain to Joyfully Jay. Tara and Eli have come to talk to us about their latest release, Coaching the Nerd. They have also brought along a great giveaway. Please join me in giving them a big welcome!

 

Excerpt

A body lay on its side on one of the long benches that stretched between the lockers.

“Sean?” Even though I couldn’t see his face, nobody else had hair that red. “Are you okay?” I rushed to him and knelt.

“Unnh.” There was sound, but no movement.

“What happened? Did you fall? Hit your head?”

“Nooo.”

I scrunched down so my ear was next to his mouth. “What is it? Your heart? Your lungs? Why didn’t you tell me you have a condition—”

“My shoulders.”

“What?”

“I’m—I’m stuck.”

I popped up to kneeling and stared at his collapsed form. Now that I looked at him more closely, he resembled an Ikea dresser gone wrong, with his arms scrunched up in a sweatshirt and his T-shirt hiked over his fish-white belly.

“Don’t just stare. Help me! I’m incapable of voluntary movement.”

Carefully, I took hold of his pretzel-like arms and shoulders and lifted him to sitting.

“Oh God.” His moan ricocheted off the lockers.

“What? Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.” He flopped his head against my bicep like it was too much trouble to lift it. “Mostly, I can’t lift my arms.”

“Oh no. Maybe a stroke or—” The light dawned. “Oh, you mean your muscles are that sore?”

“Nooo. It must be more than that. I’m sure if I check the Physician’s Desk Reference, I’ll find a disease that strikes with agonizing pain overnight and renders one incapable of movement. Lockjaw, perhaps, only for the entire body.”

I chuckled “Since you’re, like, twenty years old, you probably just overdid it. Sorry. I should have stopped you.” I felt kinda bad about it. As his personal trainer, I should have realized we were doing too much. But the weights had been so light!

I grabbed the sweatshirt that was on one bent arm but caught over his shoulder and the opposite wrist. “Let’s get this off.” I tried to be real gentle, but he moaned and whimpered the whole time I loosened the shirt and pulled his T-shirt down.

Finally, he was sitting with both arms cradled in his lap, dressed in a Dr. Who T-shirt and his boxer briefs with his skinny legs sticking out and his red head hanging. Totally pitiful. He muttered, “Perhaps I’m simply unfit for such exertions. Perhaps the wisest course would be to retire from the field of combat.”

I laughed. “You’re so freaking funny, Sean.” I took hold of him under his arms and lifted him to standing. He moaned, but I just grabbed a couple towels from the towel rack behind us. “What you need is a good steam and massage.” I tossed the towels at him. “Get undressed and I’ll meet you in the steam room.” I pointed toward the frosted glass door. “Here, let me help you with that.” In one move, I grabbed his T-shirt and yanked it over his head.

“Holy crap! Warn a guy.”

“Nope. It’s like a bandage. You’ve just gotta rip. See you inside.” I strode to my locker two banks down, stripped, shoved my clothes away, wrapped a towel around my hips, and started to the steam room, then paused in midstep. Did I just offer Sean a massage? I mean, I was good at massages and had given a lot of them, sometimes to football teammates who were injured and sometimes to girls, but that was another story. Sean was a client. Not a paid one, but still. Was that like getting too familiar or something? Nah. I’d just have to be careful not to hurt the scrawny guy.

A big cloud of steam surrounded me inside, and I called, “Sean?”

“What’s left of me is over here.”

I followed his voice and found what looked like a mummified body lying on the top step farthest from the door. Seriously, he must have grabbed six more towels in addition to the ones I gave him, and now he was lying on his stomach draped entirely in white terrycloth.

Biting my lip to keep from laughing, I said, “I’ll need to move those towels around. Getting rubbed with scratchy cloth isn’t fun.”

“You don’t have to do it.” His voice sounded a little muffled since one of the towels was over his head.

“Yeah, I kind of do because we need to work the lactic acid out of your muscles, or you’ll feel worse tomorrow, not better.”

His head lifted. “Pretty sure that’s not humanly possible.”

“No, actually it is.” I scooched up onto my knees on the lower shelf and moved the towel on his left leg aside. “We’ll start on the less painful parts.”

His head snapped around like he was expecting me to do something really bad, but as I rubbed his leg with light but firm pressure, his eyes closed. “Ohhhh.”

Since his head dropped back down, he couldn’t see me smiling. “So have you ever had a massage before?”

“No.” I got to his foot, and at first, he giggled, but then sighed. “It really feels good though. You’re very capable.”

“Well, I’ve got strong hands, and I have to understand the parts of the body for school, so I know my way around a gluteus maximus, you might say.” I gave his butt a little smack through the towel and chuckled.


Blurb

coaching the nerd coverNerds Vs Jocks, Book 2

Super-bod meets super-brain

What happens when marshmallow-bodied supernerd Sean volunteers to be on the jocks’ flag-football team? It screws Bubba’s fraternity’s chances at the coveted flag football title, that’s what.

Bubba is drafted to be Sean’s personal trainer. He has to whip Sean into shape and make sure he doesn’t F up their team.

Sean may be a supernerd, but to Bubba he’s funny, and wise, and kinda cute. He’s also the one person on campus who doesn’t see Bubba as a big, stupid jock.

One BIG problem. Sean’s motivation for getting into shape is to lose his virginity — and Bubba isn’t happy when guys start sniffing around.

But Bubba’s straight. Isn’t he?

Can a big, dumb jock from Nowhere, Wisconsin change his whole life for a genius who just wants to get laid?

COACHING THE NERD is a total makeover, opposites attract, My Fair Lady trope, bi awakening, campus romance – that grabs your flag.


Bios

Eli Easton bio photoEli Easton

Coming from a background in computer game design, Eli has written over 35 books in m/m romance since 2013. The Mating of Michael (2014) and A Second Harvest (2016) both won The William Neale Award for Best Gay Contemporary Romance, and Eli’s books have won many awards from the Goodreads M/M Romance Group’s Reader’s Choice Awards. She is best known for her Christmas romances, the Howl at the Moon series of rom coms featuring dog shifters, and her Sex in Seattle series, which revolves around a sex clinic in Seattle.

Connect with Eli:

 

tara lain bio photoTara Lain

Tara Lain believes in happy ever afters – and magic. Same thing. In fact, she says, she doesn’t believe, she knows. Tara shares this passion in her stories that star her unique, charismatic heroes and adventurous heroines. Quarterbacks and cops, werewolves and witches, blue collar or billionaires, Tara’s characters, readers say, love deeply, resolve seemingly insurmountable differences, and ultimately live their lives authentically. After many years living in southern California, Tara, her soulmate honey and her soulmate dog decided they wanted less cars and more trees, prompting a move to Ashland, Oregon where Tara’s creating new stories and loving living in a small town with big culture. Tara loves animals of all kinds (even snakes), diversity, open minds, coconut crunch ice cream from Zoeys, and her readers.

She has around 57 books published or scheduled for publication.

Connect with Tara:


Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Schooling the Jock, Eli & Tara are giving away a $20 Amazon Voucher. Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway for your chance to win!

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