Novel Excerpt: The Crown: Ascension
Here's the first chapter of Hannibal Tabu's debut novel. The basics? Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl turns out to be 8,500 years old ... much hilarity ensues.
James woke slowly, aware of a pleasant amount of warmth in front of him, and the covers being in a more chaotic fashion than he was used to. He opened his eyes slowly, and saw the shell of black braids on the pillow next to him. He could make out the alarm clock on the nightstand -- 4:17 AM -- and realized he'd only been asleep a couple of hours, so happy with just being near Tonya he felt lighter than air. Four months he'd been dating the cagey vixen, first just running the normal plays and looking for the end zone. After the first three weeks, he found himself staring out the window and daydreaming about her when he was in the middle of transcribing an interview, or finding her name typed randomly through copy as he ran the spellcheck. The way she talked about politics, how good it felt chuckling at
Seinfeld with her on the couch -- everything was interesting and alive when they were together. When she accepted his invitation for the family's Labor Day barbecue, his father Pete joked that James looked ready to hang up his jersey at the Forum.
He pulled Tonya close, hearing her sigh contentedly, and thought about the evening. Picked her up for dinner at Roscoe's at 8:30, just because she found it so funny when the waitress called "Mama" bent his ear for leaving his elbows on the table. One of the Lakers was having a birthday party at the Century Club, and one of James' endless list of friends at record labels had dropped a pair of passes into his lap, so they danced for hours in the decadent nightspot. After the Century Club turned out its patrons, James playfully suggested a nightcap at home, and was really surprised when she agreed to it. One Amaretto sour later they were dueling with tongues on his leather couch as Maxwell crooned, "... you shouldn't know these things ... about me-ee ..."
Grinning, he thought about the experience they'd shared that night. Other than making out, he'd not made any attempts to make it past second base with Tonya, telling her that it was her decision, and he'd respect it, he just wanted to be with her. The way she tasted, the smooth fluidity of her curves moving against his hands, his chest, his thighs. She was very vocal and very appreciative, so he had to guess that she was happy with his performance as well.
Worth the wait, he thought to himself.
James frowned as he felt the Coronas and the Amaretto pushing against the side of his bladder. Carefully, he eased his arm from under Tonya's neck, brushing kisses across her shoulder to quiet her groan of displeasure. A quick visit to the bathroom later, he smiled as he came out and saw her sleeping there, curled up and serene. Delight washed across him like a high tide, and he felt like his feet weren't even touching the ground.
He made his way out to the living room to tidy up some, and as he picked up the glasses from the coffee table, he noticed sleepily,
Do I always have to bend over this far to ... ah whatever. In the kitchen, he carefully placed the glasses in the sink, and then frowned at the window.
There's dust on the top sill of this window! I gotta get a cloth and ... hang on a second ... how can I see the top sill? I'm only 5'11"!
James looked down, and saw his feet hovering easily a foot above the floor. He remained that way for a while, neck slanted and eyes staring downward, as if trying to force his brain to reconcile the completely impossible thing his eyes were trying to relay. His mouth hung open in dull surprise, and a droplet of saliva made its way free and succumbed to gravity, falling past his feet on the way to the floor. Finally, out of options and unable to figure this out in any way, James' brain threw in the towel and allowed him to faint, his entire body finally surrendering to gravity's very patient embrace.
When the heavy thud of James hitting the kitchen floor shook the bed, Tonya leapt into consciousness, sitting up in bed suddenly. "Shit," she muttered, "this is gonna take some explaining."
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