reviews_and_ramblings | Excerpt Day: Training Wheels by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

Training Wheels by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox
Release Date: July 25, 2009
Publisher: Torquere Books
Publisher Link: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2094

Blurb: Denny and Sully from the Pit Road series are back, and Denny is having some problems with homework and his lack of a job and with his role in his life with Sully. Denny's not sure what to do, but Sully knows just what they need. Sully knows the key to easing Denny's worries, and is more than happy to make Denny forget everything but him, including physics, at least for a little while.

Excerpt:

Sunday morning, just past dawn. The birds were singing. Denny refrained from picking up a stone and whipping it into the nearest tree. Goddamn things, being all cheerful. They could cut it out.

Denny hadn't had a damn reason to care what day of the week it was for months. He went by dates, due dates for his assignments, physical therapy appointments, checkups with Dr. Halder. Weekends mattered because Sully was home, but Denny didn't care other than that. It had been nearly a month since they'd come back from Sully's folks'; they'd been there more than a week, long enough to worry about the money Sully wasn't making, but it had been good for Sully. Since then, Denny'd had a clean bill of health from Halder and he'd been working his ass off to get back in shape without a care for what day it was. Every day was a day for more work, more getting better.

He took the stairs back up to the house two at a time, feeling the stretch in his bad leg. Stretch and twinge all the way through the bottom of his foot. That was good. Today was Sunday and tomorrow was Monday. Tomorrow, he went to work out at the track. With Sully. Not with-with, not in the same job, but with. It was enough. Denny limped into the kitchen to refill his water bottle. He was crazy. What the hell was he doing?

Sully was still asleep, so Denny had time to ask himself that question a million times as he worked out on the home gym set up over in the corner of the living room. Thoroughly sweaty and still out of sorts an hour later, he put the coffee on before he headed upstairs for a shower. Working out hadn't improved his mood. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. But he had to get an essay done for the middle of the week and get an outline handed in and finish a physics assignment before tomorrow. Before work. Goddamn.

Nothing made it better, not the shower, not focusing on breakfast. Nothing was going to make the fact that Denny was off to work with Sully go away. Tomorrow. Denny thumped a plate of homemade waffles down on the table as Sully stumbled down. "There's your breakfast," he muttered. He threw himself down on the couch and grabbed his physics text. Stupid goddamn physics. Denny knew about physics. It was what made you crash or not. He should've been good at this stuff. Maybe if he hit himself on the head with the textbook enough, he could get out of work.

Sully sat down on the couch and eyeballed Denny for a minute. Denny could feel the weight of his stare and it just made him feel even more twitchy. "Thank you kindly," Sully drawled, patient as ever.

"Eat your goddamn waffles," Denny said from behind the textbook. Waves. Sound waves. Right. Focusing. He peeped over the top of the book to see if his grumpiness had crossed the line.