Meet Mia Epsilon and her hero, Robin Bates from Wedding Belle Blues

Please give a warm welcome to Robin Bates from Wedding Belle Blues by Mia Epsilon today as we sit down and see what makes him/her tick.

What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not saving (the world, clients, your mate)?

Ride my motorcycle. There's nothing like having the wind in your face and open road in front of you or the power riding a bike gives you with the freedom you feel taking a curve.

What is it about your love interest (Anna) that makes you crazy in a good way?

God, so many things. She has this long blonde hair that sort of flutters when she talks and makes me want to just run my hands through it and these huge brown eyes that usually tell everything she thinks. Her smile lights up a room and she has this sort of shy sense of humor. But really, it's this ratty blue nightshirt she wears, just seeing her in it makes me absolutely crazy to get her horizontal.

Do you sometimes want to strangle your writer? Thrash her/him to within an inch of their life? Make them do the stupid crap they makes you do?

Yeah, I do. I mean get this: Anna and I are having dinner with her mom and the waitress decides to flirt with me. Not bad, but enough to be noticeable when I see Anna start gritting her teeth and muttering under her breath. Then the waitress bends down right in front of me so I have a whole face full of boobs. I mean, any other time I would have sort of enjoyed the view, politely told her no, I had an even better view sitting beside me and then teased Anna out of her green eyed jealous thing, but there's Anna's Mom sitting right across from me. Her mom, geeze. How could this writer do this to me? But the worst thing the author did was show Anna photos of some British dude named Benedict Cucumber or something like that. Now Anna gets all mooneye over detective shows and British accents. Like it wasn't bad enough I have to compete with her obsession over that bumbling bow tie wearing Doctor Who guy.

Favorite food?

Pizza though after eating it for a while it makes you sort of sick of it. I love a great burger, medium rare, on a toasted bun with mayo, ketchup and garlic. Anna makes these incredible ginger cookies I could eat by the handfuls.

Tell me a little bit about your world. What are your greatest challenges in that world?

I just graduated with double majors (business and elementary education, talk about different worlds) and have started my first teaching job. I think I should be committed for wanting to teach six and seven year olds when the noise level reaches ear drum split heights or when I have to get up at OMG o'clock for morning bus duty. I also tutor student athletes who need extra help off the playing field so I get to go to a lot of college and some pro games for free. Then there's Adam, my best guy friend, several fellow bike riders, and Anna. There's always Anna.

The greatest challenges right now besides paying off student loans, balancing work and tutoring, and riding and watching games with Adam are how the hell I'm going to stop Anna from marrying Doug Dufuss. Yeah, that's not his real name, but that's who he is: a dufuss for not seeing what a wonderful woman Anna is. And his mother, God, she makes Attila the Hun look tame. Not that I can't handle either one of them, I just wish Anna could see them for what they really are instead of believing all people have some good in them.

Describe yourself in four words.

Just a normal guy

What do you do for a living?

Well, like I said, I'm a teacher, first grade to be precise. I love it, even when I think I should be locked up in the mental ward in all the chaos. I see all these little brains just waiting to expand and grow and be filled with knowledge, but the thing is I want to learn from them, too. We're going to have a great year these kids and me.

What do you fear the most?

That Anna is really going to marry Doug Dufuss. I'm okay if we have to stay friends, just I don't want some other guy, especially one who doesn't deserve her, sleeping with her every night and seeing that ratty nightshirt or worse, what's under the nightshirt. I don't want to lose my best friend.

Thank you Robin Bates for joining us on 'Meet the Character' day here at Dawn’s Reading Nook Blog. You can find all of Mia Epsilon’s books at Breathless Press.

Wedding Belle Blues
Breathless Press
Contemporary Romance
Available at Publisher / Amazon

Anna is planning the perfect wedding, but she doesn't anticipate her future mother-in-law's offer of help' which translates into take over. Her groom-to-be avoids her and insists their growing problems are just 'bridal nerves'. Worst of all, her best friend, Robin, begins to act strange. Everyone around her has his or her own agenda. What's a girl to do when she begins to realize the perfect life she envisioned is all a lie?

Robin has two great loves in his life: his best friend Anna and his motorcycle. Not one to make a scene, he supports Anna in her plan to marry the wrong man and regrets she can't accept his 'dare devil' lifestyle. But when push comes to shove, he's more than willing to make the necessary sacrifice and prove he is the man she needs.

As the wedding date nears and plans shift into high gear, Robin and Anna grow closer and not just as friends. Each must decide what the perfect life truly means while trying to negotiate the maze of wedding plans, secrets, and hidden motives. Will someone be left singing the blues?

EXCERPT:

"Chasing you would be a wasted effort"

Anna slammed the lid on his hand. "What do you mean? I'm not worth the chase?"

"Hey, starving teacher here." He knocked on the inside of the box and glared at her. "And don't be ridiculous. Of course you're worth a chase, but even I can recognize a no win situation regardless if I can't fully give up on it or you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The liquid blue fire in his eyes singed her as he spoke. "I didn't give the let's-forget-this-ever-happened-and-just-be-friends speech. I didn't stay too afraid to see where our relationship might have gone. No win situation."

"I thought...but you never said...I mean we'd..."

He just stared at her, face unmoving, his chest rising and falling as his breaths increased. He was, she realized, getting angrier by the second.

She swallowed and tried to find words, any words, to defuse the tension. "I couldn't bear to think of losing you as my friend. We did the best thing for us."

"We did the best thing for you."

"But you...you agreed with me. You said you didn't want to risk our friendship either."

"What the hell could I say?" He shot to his feet, knocking the pizza box to the floor. "You didn't give me a choice. Either be your friend, only your friend, or leave your life."

"I never said we couldn't be friends or you had to leave my life." She whispered the words. Yet it had been close.

"Even now you won't face it." He muttered a curse which shocked her with the anger behind it. "Will you? You won't admit maybe we could have—"

"I faced it the morning after. I'm not an idiot, Robin. When you date a woman, it's like your skydiving adventures. You have a thrill, anything goes, and it's awesome and you're on the high of it all. Then you land and it's over. You never talk to the woman again, let alone have a friendship with her. I didn't want our friendship to be over. I still don't. I can't give more than I am. I can't."

"Why, Anna?" He stopped right in front of her, hands on his hips balled into fists. "Why can't you give more? Because of Doug Dufuss?"

"No. Because I can't just have sex with you and then watch you leave!"