An Everyday Hero

By E.J. Russell

A different kind of home invasion...

When Adam Tyler's sister announced she was pregnant, Adam decided to move from Portland, Oregon, to Phoenix, Arizona, to fully embrace the uncle experience. However, he didn't count on the move being delayed until three days before Christmas--and three days before his sister's due date. And he definitely didn't count on finding a scorpion in his bedroom. Cue the panicked calls to exterminators.

A different kind of knight to the rescue...

Garrett Strong doesn't consider himself at all remarkable--his ex certainly didn't think so--and Garrett's pest-control business is circling the drain. Although Adam is his first new client in months, that isn't the only reason Garrett goes above and beyond for him. He feels a real connection to the younger man and intends to do everything in his power to make sure Adam feels safe and welcome in Phoenix--venomous intruders notwithstanding.

An Everyday Hero is a short and sweet opposites-attract, age-gap rom-com featuring a fish-out-of-water geek (who still manages to get a bit soggy), a stand-up blue-collar guy (who can't see his own worth), unexpected additions to the holiday festivities (some less welcome than others), and more than one serious discussion about the true meaning of the word hero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reality Optional Press
• Release date: Apr 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781947033160

E.J. Russell

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Book preview

A different kind of home invasion…

When Adam Tyler’s sister announced she was pregnant, Adam decided to move from Portland, Oregon, to Phoenix, Arizona, to fully embrace the uncle experience. However, he didn’t count on the move being delayed until three days before Christmas—and three days before his sister’s due date. And he definitely didn’t count on finding a scorpion in his bedroom. Cue the panicked calls to exterminators.

A different kind of knight to the rescue…

Garrett Strong doesn’t consider himself at all remarkable—his ex certainly didn’t think so—and Garrett’s pest-control business is circling the drain. Although Adam is his first new client in months, that isn’t the only reason Garrett goes above and beyond for him. He feels a real connection to the younger man and intends to do everything in his power to make sure Adam feels safe and welcome in Phoenix—venomous intruders notwithstanding.

An Everyday Hero is a short and sweet opposites-attract, age-gap rom-com featuring a fish-out-of-water geek (who still manages to get a bit soggy), a stand-up blue-collar guy (who can’t see his own worth), unexpected additions to the holiday festivities (some less welcome than others), and more than one serious discussion about the true meaning of the word hero.

For my friend Toni, who moved to Phoenix and found a scorpion in her living room.

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Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God-oh-God.

Adam squealed. He could admit it. He absolutely, positively squealed because there was a freaking scorpion in his new house.

He raced across the room and out the sliding door onto the patio, kicked off his flip-flops, and waded into the pool.

Scorpions couldn’t swim, right?

He stumbled a bit but caught himself before he fell, rescuing his cell phone from a watery, chlorinated grave.

Okay. Now what?

He blinked in the bright sun. Oh. Sunglasses. He pulled them off the top of his head and jammed them on his face, wiggling his toes, so dark against the pale aqua pool bottom. Maybe I should become semiaquatic. However, spending the rest of his life underwater would seriously cut into his social life, such as it was, not to mention being really bad for his business. Computers were notoriously intolerant when it came to full-body immersion.

So instead, he googled exterminators, only to discover that Phoenix had a veritable shit-ton of them. I should have checked that before I moved. Anyplace with that many exterminators—especially ones that specialized in scorpions and, OMG, rattlesnake removal? I can’t even….

At least back in Oregon, all he’d had to deal with was moss and the occasional opossum or raccoon. And last he checked, moss wouldn’t sneak into your shoes and kill you.

Adam picked the first company in the list. "Hello, there’s a scorpion. In my house. I need to—"

Yes, sir, we can schedule a technician for a week from Thursday.

"A week from Thursday? The beast is in my bedroom this very instant."

It’s Christmas week, sir. We can’t—

Never mind. I’ll try somewhere else.

But it was the same story with the next six companies. Nobody could come out and rescue him right now, and even though it was pushing eighty degrees, his toes were starting to prune up standing in the pool. Besides, Christmas was mere days away, for pity’s sake, and he hadn’t strung a single light or hung a single mistletoe bough. That’s because the movers have been delayed. Again. So I don’t have a single light or mistletoe bough.

He’d known in his gut that moving the week before Christmas was a lousy idea. He should have waited until the holiday frenzy died down in January. But his new niece was about to make her first grand entrance, and Adam wanted to fully embrace the uncle experience. That’s why he’d decided to move here when Candace told him she was pregnant.

But then he’d landed a big web design project and delayed putting his condo on the market, and then the first sale had fallen through, and then the second sale had fallen through, and when he’d finally gotten the thing off his hands, the buyers had wanted a long escrow, and God. He’d been damn lucky to find a house that was vacant in Candace and Luis’s subdivision.

Vacant except for a freaking scorpion.

One more time. Please, Mr. Exterminator, save me. Adam closed his eyes and stabbed the screen with one finger. He peered down at the random choice: Strong Pest Control. Strong. Strong is good. I need strong. So let’s hope the company lives up to its name. He repeated the number several times to memorize it, then keyed it in, since the listing didn’t even have a live link. Their web developer should be shot.

After five