My Book Boyfriend Derek as Shane

My Book Boyfriend is a weekly meme hosted by Missie of The Unread Reader. Its a chance to pay homage to the hotties that haunt the pages of the novels we love. These are the men who stay in our thoughts late at night, who plague us during our long hours at work, who cause us to stare off into the starry night and sigh, because we want them here with us. Yes ladies, its the Book Boyfriend...

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Today's book boyfriend is Shane from the Morganville Vampire series! When I first began the Morganville Vamp series, I was kind of jaded with Paranormal YA. I thought I had read it all and was just re-reading the same stories and characters over and over again. Especailly love interests. I was so sick of the hot but moody, sexy yet brooding, over-angsty, jaded yet lovable, love interest that Edward Cullen seems to have spawned. The Cullen-esk model typically has dark hair, a supernatural secret, and a temptation to eat the heroine, despite his all-consuming and soul-binding love for her. But Shane changed that. He kep the sexy and broody...but he's blissfully human and his main interest in the heroine is truly in her...not her blood, not in eating her...but in being with her and knowing her. He's protective, without needing to be an alpha-werewolf, sexy without being paranormally sexy, and at times so completely human that you can't help but fall in love with him despite his many flaws. 

Shane is a special character for me. He is one of those guys that made me fall in love with YA books all over again so I had to choose someone really special for my Shane. I decided to take a risk and am putting in a guy of my own from real life *gasp*. 

Meet my next door neighbor growing up...Derek (Sorry the pictures aren't great...I can't find the few very cute ones we've taken together over the years, so I just facebook creeped for a few of them) I've had "real-life" book boyfriends in the past, but not when I had so many followers. It was way back when I first started the blog and I figured they would never in a million years find me. Now...well, it's still highly unlikely, but you never know who is a friend of a friend of a cousin of a sister of a friend. So I'm kind of terrified because if Derek ever found out about this post, I will never EVER live it down with him or his family. 

To touch on me and Derek's past:

Derek is the single person, outside of my family, that I have known the longest. I met him at two weeks old, and he was four....I'm told it was a momentous occasion where I spat up on him then had a little stinky problem located somewhere in my diaper. It was love at first bowel movement. Hahah...okay so not really, but our families have been close to say the least. Growing up, Derek was quite literally the boy next door. Our families have lake houses next door to each other, and while Derek and my brother would play together, me and Derek's sister Hannah would play together. Sure I thought Derek was cute, but he was just Derek...my friend...just one of the gang. The four of us would always be tubing, skiing, swimming, and just hanging out in general...so I never really thought about Derek as anything other than a friend.

Things didn't start getting weird between us until I hit my awkward pre-teen years. And oh man, were thing awkward...Not only did I have to suffer through triangle boobies, booty shorts(with a little too much booty and belly...), and too much makeup...but I also had to deal with the parental units (both mine and Derek's) constantly trying to play matchmaker with us. It probably would have never occurred to me to have a crush on Derek without the meddling of our parents. Like I said, I had never really seen him as anything other than a friend...another brother who I only saw on the weekends. But right around the time when he went into high school and I went into middle school I started thinking that Derek kind of looked like a sexy, muscley Harry Potter...and the parents decided that we would be a cute couple...Cue the "Mrs. Derek ________" and "Oh, if you guys got married we'd be family!" and all the other thousands of things parents can say to embarrass an 11 year old. The worst part is that things started to change between me and Derek. We couldn't just hangout without our parents going "awww" and I think we were both confused about how to act around each other because out parents made us feel like we were supposed to be in LURVE or something...but we were too embarassed to talk about it. 

One day, all the teasing got to be too much for me so I thought I would be smart and get everyone off my back once and for all. I had to convince them that Derek was nothing to me, that he was less than dirt...so that they would just stop teasing me already! So I decided to try a carefully constructed comeback that took my pre-pubescent mind about a week to come up with...The next time they started in on me, asking if our wedding colors would be his favorite or mine, I stood up, stared them all in the face and yelled,"Fine, I'll marry Derek...WHEN PIGS FLY!" Oh..Emm..Gee...I've never seen happier parents. They all proceeded to crack up, Derek's mom and mine hugging each other to keep from falling over, and my dad literally crying with laughter. Instead of securing my continued (if feigned) indifference regarding Mr. Derek...I now had to deal with the humiliation of a failed comeback, and the phrase "When Pigs Fly" being cemented into our families' everyday lives. Since that day, Derek's mom and dad have bought me countless pigs with wings. I got flying pig posters, flying pig statues and stuffed animals, not to mention every time me and Derek would hang out we'd hear "Hey! I think Pigs are flying over by the lake, shed, garage, etc. 

Now, me and Derek are still friends. We've never gotten together, and I don't really see that in the near future. He grew from a sexy, muscely Harry Potter that my adolescent self had a HUGE crush on to a gorgeous, still muscley guy who looks nothing like Harry Potter, but still makes all my friends swoon all over themselves when they see him. He still lives next door at the lake which makes for lots and lots of fun, shirtless eyecandy when he and his friends have parties. I literally had to slap my friend Kelcey when she saw him last summer at the lake house because she was drooling so much. Would I ever fool around with Derek? Status Unknown. Would I ever date Derek? Status Unknown. He's been part of my life for so long that he's practically family, but I think crossing that last boundry would be a little too much for our friendship to handle. My best friend and I are taking a trip through Europe, and we invited Derek along with us so who knows...we'll be in some of the most romantic cities in the world and anything can happen...

Who knows...Pigs Might Fly ;)