When seventeen-year-old Mark Potts fell from a balcony, he lost both the use of his legs and any faith in heroes. Now twenty-nine, he’s long-since come to terms with his injury. His job provides more opportunities for eye-rolling than for riding to anybody’s rescue, but with two kids to bring up, he barely has time for his husband, much less for heroics. Besides, Starr Bradford is a policeman -- how many heroes does one family need?<br><br>Mark and Starr love each other madly, but stress management is a load-bearing pillar of their happiness. When Mark’s coping skills fail him at exactly the wrong moment, he’s left hanging by a thread of words he should’ve kept in his mouth. He has the power to repair their relationship, but when Starr’s workday suddenly goes south, will he get to wield it? Keeping it together long enough to find out is a job worthy of any superhero!

You Had Me at Hero

Their boys were young, and curious about everything—there were a million and one other subjects to explore with them. Mark, who spent all night listening to people rat on their neighbors, didn’t want to raise paranoid isolationists, and Starr refused to have them worry. “We worry about them,” he told Mark with some regularity. “They don’t need to worry about me. About either one of us. About anything—it’s not their job.” He drove them and their friends in the police car to do things like get ice cream and go sledding and basically created the impression that he spent his days rescuing kittens and helping old ladies across the street. Obviously they knew their Pops was a police officer, but Mark and Starr made every effort to emphasize that it was just a job. Some people’s parents were doctors and nurses, others were mailmen and bus drivers, Starr was a cop. A guy had to do something; he played with sirens.


Chapter 10