Bigger Than Us (A Steamy Romance) BOOK ONE

Prologue

"Hello caller, you're on the air. What's your name?"

Robin hesitated. He hated phones at the best of times. He couldn't believe he'd actually reached the point of calling a radio phone-in show, let alone an agony-aunt one. His mouth became very dry while his palms went in the opposite direction. He found them sweating so much that he started to worry about short-circuiting the phone. Could a phone short-circuit? He wasn't sure. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe if it short circuited then he wouldn't have to finish making the call. Maybe –

"Caller? Are you there?"

Damnit. The phone hadn't short-circuited, the radio station was still connected and the DJ was asking him if he was still there. He thought about saying 'no' just to confuse matters. Fight the system! But instead he said quietly,

"Yes, I'm here."

"What's your name, caller?" the DJ asked. Robin hesitated. He chewed on his lip as his heart thumped with nerves. He didn't want to give his name. It was bad enough that he was calling at all. What if someone heard? What if someone who knew him was listening? He couldn't take the embarrassment. The more he thought about it, the more he realised this was one of the more stupid ideas he'd ever had.

"Caller? You can use an assumed name if you like."

"Evan White," Robin said without hesitation.

"OK, Evan. Hi there," the DJ seemed a little more at ease now that he had a name to work with, false or otherwise, "what are you calling about tonight?"

Robin swallowed.

"I've uh," he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I've got this problem."

"Most people have," the DJ told him, "that's why we have this hour."

Robin gave a nervous laugh.

"Right," he said.

"So what's your problem, Evan?"

Robin closed his eyes and drew in his breath. You see, the thing about Robin was that he didn't have normal problems. He never had done. He'd always lived the kind of existence where he'd stumbled from one bizarre crisis to another. Rarely did he live through a nice, normal, average day. There was always something ridiculous going on. He had never understood why. Some people lived a nice, calm, peaceful existence where they had their nice, normal problems and their run-of-the-mill crises. Things you could talk to a friend or neighbour about without wanting to hide under your bedclothes in shame. Things that you didn't feel like the world would point and laugh at you for.

Robin led the kind of life where instead of, say, getting hit by a car he'd find himself knocked over by a clown on a unicycle, randomly rolling down the street. Instead of someone turning up at his door asking if he'd seen their lost cat, someone would turn up holding a cat and trying to persuade Robin that it was his, despite him never owning one. He was the kind of person who would walk down the wrong staircase at the wrong time and somehow find himself dancing, with pompoms, to Hey Mickey in front of 500 people. These were the kinds of things that happened to Robin.

Even so, he was used to that. He was used to leading that kind of life, where bizarre occurrences seemed to plague him. He'd been that person all his life, but I the last year or so everything had gone haywire.

A year that had started with his boyfriend Simon having a near-fatal accident with a file server and going into a coma, continued with the fact that he'd spent his coma time in some other world and been followed home by a madman and then just about reaching its peak when both Robin and Simon suffered a car accident that led to them skipping off to the other world together. Only one of them came back though.

Robin missed Simon more than he could ever put into words. He couldn't express it in any way. It was harder for him to deal with losing Simon for the fact that he knew Simon was gone but still there. He was living on in the other world, but out of his reach. A series of bizarre and dangerous experiences had followed in the last few months which had, each time, led Robin closer to crossing over again and yet here he was, still in the land of the living. It frustrated him – so close and yet so far.

And yet, none of this was even the problem.

He sighed as he tried to work out how to say it. How did he put it into terms that someone outside of the situation was going to understand? How could he find a way to explain it that wasn't going to get him a thousand insults or lots of responses from people who completely misunderstood the issue and tried to offer him the most ridiculous advice possible? He could already imagine some of the responses he would get. He could already hear them ringing through his ears.

And that was why he hadn't spoken to anyone about his problem. He couldn't. It was bad enough calling a stranger on a radio show and pretending to be Evan 'Look at My Gorgeous Beard' White. He didn't have many friends, not close ones anyway, and the last thing he wanted was to get angry with the ones he had when they misunderstood the issue.

Which they were bound to.

"Caller? Are you still there?"

Robin bit his lip again.

"Yes, I'm still here," he said feebly.

"You said you had a problem," the DJ prompted.

Robin looked down. He had a problem alright. It was the kind of problem that he never thought he would experience in his life and not exactly the kind of problem many people ever did. He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.

"Doesn't matter," he said quietly and replaced the receiver.

He walked across the kitchen and switched the radio back on. He'd been asked to switch it off to avoid feedback when he called up. He wished he'd switched the phone off instead of the radio.

"...and that was Evan, calling about nothing," the DJ was saying, "so if any more of you have problems about nothing that you don't want to talk to us about... don't call in. If, however, you have a problem that you do want to share then call us now..."

Robin put his head in his hands and gave a very deep sigh. Normality. That was all he wanted in his life. But once again that tiny little hope evaded him. His life was still made of the same nonsense that it always had been, and becoming more ridiculous by the day.

Thank you rainaangel for being the first to read this.
Thank you aanavats01 for supporting me.

I'll be uploading the next chapter in two hours. Comment, vote and tell me what you think.