Winner: Bowen

Noah vs Bowen
Round 1 Match 6

Thank you to Literary Misfit & The Literary Gossip for championing these two fine men!
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Why you should vote for Noah

Come along on a journey with me and let Noah Keating woo you with his literary prowess.

Noah is adorably book-nerdish while also being devastatingly handsome. He’s smart and he’s witty and he can pull all things literary into any discussion to help make his point.

Spending a semester studying abroad, Noah thinks he knows exactly what he’s doing with his life. But as usual, Life steps in and throws him a few challenges.

The first time Noah and Jordan meet, they are trapped on a train, but Noah smoothed it over by pulling out his worn, well loved copy of The Great Gatsby. Instantly, though two strangers, they are connected by one simple piece of fiction. And then after their book connection, he totally kisses her worries away. It’s no minor kiss either, its a kiss that is spiraling out of control.

Noah has such a magical way with words. Here’s but a few stellar examples.

“You,” he says. “you are what came over me on the train. And its not because you’re attractive or that you love books enough to quote them back to me. And it’s certainly not because you made what could have been an unbearable situation infinitely better.”

“You are unending turbulence. I do and say everything wrong when I’m around you, but isn’t that what falling is? It’s messy and difficult, and sometimes it even hurts.”

“Keep saying that. Will you?” I ask.
“As you wish,” he replies, his lips so close to mine.
“As you wish.” His eyebrows rise as I echo his words.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I love you, too.”

After a misunderstanding leaves Jordan and Noah on the opposite side of friends, they need a huge nudge to work things out. What better way to do that than being cast into the roles of two of Shakespeare’s characters for a performance needed for a final grade. As they practice for the play, Noah and Jordan fall further for each other though they might not be ready to admit that. But on the night of the final performance, not only do they nail their performance, but they become Beatrice and Benedick. And really for two literary lovers, what could be more perfect than that.

In their own comedy of errors, during a rehearsal, Noah and Jordan end up stuck between two doors, and in order to calm Noah down of course conversation turns bookish.

He Takes a breath. “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

And thus follows an argument over the need to read the book, The Princess Bride, over just watching the movie. And as Noah says…… ”

Our boy, Noah, might not talk real dirty, but he’s not afraid to pull out the big guns, and by Big guns, I of course mean Books. From Shakespeare to The Princess Bride and even A room with a View and Dead Poets Society. No literary masterpiece is safe.

Noah has a touch of ‘bad boy’ in him too, brought out of course with tattoos including a new one he gets in the book, “The poets are right.” The quote brings things full circle in the book in a way because the quote is from a book/movie that Jordan and Noah argue about in a literature class they share early on in the book.

“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.” ~ E.M. Forster; A Room with a View

While Noah and Jordan’s story in If Only, isn’t full of steam, it certainly doesn’t lack Passion. Passion that is shown through many layers. But mostly Noah uses his Passion for Literary works to prove himself and show his true feelings. What could be more swoon worthy than that?

Championed by Literary Misfit

Find out more about Noah Keating in If Only by AJ Pine

Why you should vote for Bowen

I love Bowen Driscoll for so many reasons. His brilliance in both words and with a paintbrush. That if he loves you, he gets to name you – ex., “Ruby Tuesday, Rubik’s Cube, Rubella, Righteous Ruby, Barney Rubel” or my most favorite – Ladybug, the name he chose for his Sera. Or the part of him that is so sick of the violence in his world, that he uses a paintbrush to silence it, along with his demons. That he fought so damn hard to resist Sera, because he didn’t think himself worthy of her love. That to me is the very essence of this amazing man. But let’s be clear – we are not here to canonize Bowen, because this man ain’t no saint. In fact, if dirty-talking were an Olympic sport, Bowen would be a gold medalist. Hands. Down.

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Take these quotes for example:

“How’d you get my eyes to look so accurate and you couldn’t remember my mouth?” “It’s not that I can’t remember it, Ladybug. I just…” He groaned in his throat. “When I look at your mouth, I want it on me. I’m not thinking about the gentle swell of your upper lip”

“Too much, Sera. You make me feel too much.” Her smile dipped at the edges. “Is that a bad thing?” “No.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Not as long as you’re with me to shoulder some of it. Sometimes I get worried I’m not enough to carry it all.” ”You’re not the only one who feels too much.” Her gaze searched his. “You have to help me, too.”

“See, I’m wondering if keeping my hands off you will buy my way out of hell. God knows I’ll have experienced the worst hell has to offer already. You think he’ll make me go through it twice?”

“You’ve got innocent eyes, but a hot, greedy body. God help me, I would never stop banging you.”

“Do I come across so helpless?” “Not helpless, baby.” The right words eluded him, so he just told the truth. “I don’t know how to explain it. I want to walk beside you everywhere and absorb anything bad, so it won’t touch you. Won’t change you, make you like me.”

“And you are not your name. You’re more. So much more. To me, you’re everything.” She drew in a deep breath. “I need the mural artist, the fighter, the man who might have lost his way for a while, but still remained good where it counted. I want the man who loves one minute and rages the next. The man who suffers through church and makes me egg sandwiches. The man who touches me so perfectly.”

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So if you are looking for a dirty-talking, mural-painting, street-fighting, larger-than-life hero who will not only take a bullet for the woman he loves, but will make her an amazing egg sandwich, Bowen is THE man. After him, everyone else will pale in comparison.

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*Drops mike*