Blog Tour Stop, Excerpt & Contest: Apple Polisher by Heidi Belleau

Hi! I’m Heidi Belleau. All week long, I’ll be stopping by various blogs promoting my new series and novel, Apple Polisher (Rear Entrance Video #1), out now from Riptide Publishing! I’ll be around to answer all your questions and comments, and I’m doing a very naughty week-long giveaway, so stay tuned!

Today, I bring you an exclusive excerpt from the novel. Enjoy!


Excerpt

A couple of candy wrappers. A few guitar picks. A stack of DVD discs, sans cases. Hollywood tentpole releases, mostly: more than a couple of superhero movies, Blade Runner, some anime, and the original Star Wars trilogy—seemed cool cat Max was a closet nerd—and then, halfway through the stack, an obscure title Christian recognized.

His Cheating Wife’s Boytoy.

He’d seen that today. Well, its sequel, technically. On the list of new releases, just before Queef Queens.

Genre: bisexual.

Bisexual.

Christian’s mouth went dry.

“Can I help you find something?”

Christian startled, the DVDs flying out of his hands and across the desk like a deck of cards in a game of 52 Pickup.

Max. Shit. Bisexual Max. He scrambled to pick them up again. Put them down.

Picked them up. “I, uh, uh, do you have, uh . . .”
 Max, leaning against the doorjamb with his wiry arms across his chest, waited patiently.

“Well uh, I just, um. Sorry. I don’t even know what I’m doing in here. I guess I was just distracted and I accidentally— your door—but then I saw your DVDs and uh—so hey, do you have . . .”

Don’t say His Cheating Wife’s Boytoy. Don’t say His Cheating Wife’s Boytoy.

“Spider . . . man . . .” He looked down at the discs scattered across the desk. “. . . Three?”

Spider-Man Three?”

“Yeah. I guess I’m just in the mood for a movie with too many enemies, that spits on the origin stories of its hero.” He hoped it sounded as deadpan as Max was looking right now as he stood there, watching Christian flail, and smiling with only one-half of his perfectly formed mouth. “So sue me,” Christian finished limply.

“Nah, I got nothing against Spider-Man Three. My real question is, if that’s what you want, then why are you holding His Cheating Wife’s Boytoy?”

“What?”

Max didn’t say anything, just gestured with a tip of his chin.

Christian looked down at his hand, at the one disc he still held. Bright pink letters. His Cheating Wife’s Boytoy. His face went hot as if Max had slapped him.

With his dick.

Christian made some kind of half-animal noise of disgust. “Jesus, how should I know? How should I know what kinda perverted movies you have lying around?” He started gathering up the discs again into a stack, slammed down His Cheating Wife’s Boytoy on top, then on second thought shuffled it somewhere into the middle. “Look, I’m sorry I even came in here. Maybe if you don’t want me seeing your porn, maybe you should—you should—put your shit away. This room is a mess! And lock your damn door!”

I’ve turned into a crazy person. A certifiable crazy person.

Get the fuck out of here before you say anything else, crazy man.

Yes, good idea.

“Maybe I wanted you to see it.”

What?

Wait, that hadn’t been the voice in Christian’s head. That was Max. “What?” he said, aloud. “Maybe I wanted you to see it,” Max repeated, voice rich and scratchy as an old record. He pushed off the doorjamb, slinking forward until he and Christian were chest to chest.

“You want me to watch porn with you?” Yuck. No, thank you. Especially not today of all days. And yet, there Max was, and God, how could Christian hear him breathing so clearly, like he was listening through a stethoscope?

Christian knew he should back away, but he didn’t.
“If you’re into that kinda thing.”

“I’m not.”

“So what are you into, Christian?” God, up close, Christian could see he had hazel eyes, etched with flecks of copper. Nothing, he should have said. Teachers aren’t into anything. We reproduce asexually. We feel attraction to nothing but report cards. “About last night . . .”

“Oh, I see.” Max’s eyes shuttered and he backed off, body language turning from slutty tomcat to withdrawn teenage boy in an instant. “Let me guess, you were drunk, you had no idea what you were doing, you’re straight, yada yada. I get it.”

“No.” Stop talking. Stop talking. Teacher. Teacher. Teacher.

Teacher who works in a fucking porn store now, so fuck it, who cares.

“Well, forget it. What I really wanted to say to you when I followed you up here was, I’m sorry for what I said, okay? It’s none of my business what you do with your life. You don’t even know me. Why the hell should I tell you what to do, and why the hell should you listen? I overstepped.”

“But you were right.” Christian took a deep breath, squashed the sound of his mother’s voice in his head, and stepped forward. He cupped Max’s shoulder in the palm of his hand. “I went and got a job at my aunt’s store just like you said. I’ve got to take care of her. She’s the only family I have. What’s being a teacher mean if I have to sacrifice her?”

“Right,” Max said, a little breathless. “Yeah, exactly. Good for you.”

Here goes nothing. “And as to what I’m ‘into’ . . . I’m into you.” Wow, hey. That had been pretty smooth. Could have even made it all the way to romantic, if he’d left it at that and just kissed the damn guy, but of course he didn’t. “I mean, I’m into lots of guys. Well, not lots of guys, but a few. A normal amount. Well, a normal amount for a . . . a guy like me. Well, a guy like me who doesn’t do the club thing. A guy like—I’m gay. Not just when I’m drunk. All the time. Gay. But I do—”

Max kissed him.


Title: Apple Polisher by Heidi Belleau
Rear Entrance Video Series Book One
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic, M/M, Romance
Length: 230 pages/Word Count: 60,800

Summary:

This straight-A student has a dirty little secret.

Christian Blake dreams of being a kindergarten teacher, but making the grade means maintaining a squeaky clean image: no drinking, no drugs, no swearing, no sex. And definitely no falling for his new roommate—tattooed bad-boy Max, who may or may not be a drug dealer.

Most of all, it means no working at a porn store. But Christian’s aunt has cancer, and her beloved Rear Entrance Video will go bankrupt if Christian doesn’t take over managerial duties. Soon enough, Christian finds himself juggling sticky twenty-five cent peep show booths, a blackmailing employee, and a demanding professor who likes to make an example of him.

And then there’s Max, who doesn’t know anything about the store, but hates Christian’s preppy sweater vests and the closet Christian forces him into when they’re together. Max just wants Christian to be himself—even though Max is keeping secrets of his own. Christian struggles to find the impossible balance between his real life and the ideal one he thinks a teacher needs to live . . . all while trying to keep his aunt’s dream alive without losing his own.

Buy it now!
Add it to your Goodreads shelves

Read my review HERE.


Author Bio

Heidi Belleau was born and raised in small town New Brunswick, Canada. She now lives in the rugged oil-patch frontier of Northern BC with her husband, an Irish ex-pat whose long work hours in the trades leave her plenty of quiet time to write. She has a degree in history from Simon Fraser University with a concentration in British and Irish studies; much of her work centred on popular culture, oral folklore, and sexuality, but she was known to perplex her professors with unironic papers on the historical roots of modern romance novel tropes. (Ask her about Highlanders!) When not writing, you might catch her trying to explain British television to her newborn daughter or standing in line at the local coffee shop, waiting on her caramel macchiato.

You can find her tweeting as @HeidiBelleau, email her at heidi.below.zero@gmail.com, or visit her blog: http://heidi-below-zero.blogspot.com.


Giveaway

What would a series about a porn store be without the porn? And so, to celebrate Apple Polisher’s release, I’m doing the only sensible thing and giving away a week long membership to super high quality gay porn website CockyBoys (link obviously NSFW!), home of Christian’s favourite performer, Jake Bass!

Prefer your gay sex in written form? Not legally able to view pornography in your region? You can still enter and get the value of the prize put toward a Riptide Gift Certificate instead!

Either way, all you have to do is leave a comment here with a way for me to get a hold of you. At the end of the week, I’ll pick one lucky winner. Every comment counts as one entry, so be sure to follow the whole tour for your best chance at winning!


Follow the rest of the tour HERE.

10 Comments

Filed under Blog Tour, Contest, Excerpt

10 Responses to Blog Tour Stop, Excerpt & Contest: Apple Polisher by Heidi Belleau

  1. TinaMaria S.

    Great post. I love the excerpt. Can’t wait until my book budget resets so I can get my copy!
    simms.tinamaria@gmail.com

  2. Trix

    This just sounds excellent…I’m loving the tour!

  3. My favourite form of “Shut Up” = The Kiss! 😀

    Like TinaMarie I have to wait for my funds to grow (or rob a bank) but that goes on my wishlist 😀

  4. laurie goudge

    This just sounds excellent…I’m loving the tour!

  5. H.B.

    Loved Christian’s flustered reaction. It made me laugh and think he was cute in a dork-ish way. Thanks so much for the excerpt and for the wonderful tour.

  6. Penumbra

    I love Christian’s reactions to Max 🙂

    penumbrareads(at)gmail(dot)com