Nun Too Soon: A Forced Proximity Romantic Comedy (Bad Habit Book Club 1)
1. Helen
This is not a romance.
…at least, not a very good one, not yet. I furrow my brow in a way that I hope looks as though I’m encountering a complex issue with the microfiche database, instead of struggling to find the right verb choice for my work in progress.
Moaned? Groaned? Whimpered? What should Rosamund do when Axel laps at her nipple through her lacy bra with his rough tongue? My go-to is usually a whimper, but I’m worried I’m beginning to overuse the word. Not that most of my writing group is probably paying that much attention to my synonyms or lack thereof, but I live in almost constant fear of betraying myself—making the one mistake that will out me for what I truly am.
“Kimberly. Hello, Kimberly?”
It takes me a belated moment to realize my coworker Erica is trying to get my attention. It’s an easy enough mistake to make on my part, considering the fact that my name isn’t Kimberly—it’s Helen. Yet in all our time working together, Erica has never called me by the right name. It’s been Kimberly since my first week, and that was almost two years ago now.
When Erica first called me the wrong name, I tried to correct her, but she always insists the misnaming is intentional: “Because you look like that girl, Kimberly? From The Magic School Bus, you know, that educational cartoon from when we were kids.”
I tried my best to see the nickname as a sort of endearment, only when I pulled up an old episode of the show to see what Kimberly looked like, I discovered there is no character named Kimberly.
It’s impossible to know whether Erica’s a little deranged or a mastermind manipulator, having cornered me into years of responding to the wrong name.
I quickly minimize my Word document, even though Erica is still across the room. “Yes, Erica?” Notice that I have managed to use her correct name. Just saying.
“Can you take over checkout?” Erica nods toward the clock, then clasps her hands together in the motion of a prayer, her lacquered pink nails gleaming under the fluorescent light. “I’ll be late to my appointment if I don’t go now.”
I stifle a sigh. This is another point in favor of either Erica’s delusion, or her genius. She has a standing weekly appointment with a “chiropractor” due to a “chronic back illness,” though more than once my coworkers and I have spotted Erica at places that are definitely not the chiropractor’s office during this time period: the movies, the nail salon, and perhaps the most depressing of all, just sitting in the back of a McDonald’s by herself, eating a McFlurry and scrolling through her phone.
But Erica remains adamant that she has to get to her appointment every Monday at three, and so every Monday at two forty-five, out she goes.
“Sure.” I log out of my computer, moving to the checkout counter. I can’t blame Erica exactly, since I myself am using a little downtime at the library to fix the latest chapter of my WIP, but at least I wouldn’t lie about it if anyone asked me. Or at least, not so egregiously.
As I approach the counter though, Erica suddenly straightens, pivoting back toward the computer. “Um, actually, I can stay a few more minutes.” She tosses her hair a bit, sticking out her breasts.
This is all the warning I get as the Red Unicorn approaches the counter, carrying his usual haul of books in a way that nicely showcases the muscles of his forearms.
The Red Unicorn has become a frequent patron of the library, and he’s earned his nickname (of which he is completely unaware) because he has a trifecta of qualities unusual in a man: the first is a sexy, if spotty, Southern accent; the second, a love of reading across multiple genres, including genre fiction and poetry, often scorned by men of his age/demographic; and the last is that he is an attractive ginger, which I don’t personally think is all that unusual, but my friend Matilda assures me is a true rarity, especially combined with the other two aforementioned qualities.
It would be easy enough to find out what his real name is; I have it on file, after all, available every time he uses his library card. But I prefer to think of him as the Red Unicorn, a perfect fantasy man who may or may not exist as I imagine him, but who happens to stop in at my library at least twice a week.
In his presence, all thoughts of Erica’s chiropractor appointment seem to have disappeared, and she is suddenly all attention—and all breasts, as she practically puffs out her chest on display, easy to do in her low-cut blouse that is unbuttoned just one button too low. I say this not out of judgment, but a little envy. I get nervous if even my clavicle is on display. Turtlenecks are usually my go-to, a few sizes too big.
“Hi there.” Erica’s voice is almost as low as her blouse, and unusually breathy, too, like she has asthma, but the sexy kind. “See anything you like?”
I can’t blame her, honestly. The Red Unicorn is attractive enough to justify an over-the-top cleavage display and ASMR sexy voice. I might have tried the same myself, but it’s hard to pull off a good boob display in a men’s extra-extra-large turtleneck, and my sexy voice sounds unnervingly like Minnie Mouse.
Instead, I awkwardly linger, watching as Erica continues her aggressive chest-thrusting, and waiting to see how the Red Unicorn will respond.
“Just these, thanks.” He seems distracted—not unusual, since he normally seems distracted and a little distant, but I thought Erica’s breast showcase might have been enough to catch his attention. Clearly Erica did, too. With his lack of response, she looks a little crestfallen and loses some of her swagger.
Her dejection doesn’t last long though, and she rebounds quickly with a lingering hand graze as she takes the last book from the Red Unicorn—brazenly enough that I can’t help my eyes from widening, both astonished and a little impressed by Erica’s moxie. This is one of my curses, I’ve been told; people can always read my every thought on my face. I like to imagine I would be extremely GIFable, were I to venture into reality television.
“Is there anything else I can do for you today?” Erica purrs.
“No.” The Red Unicorn gathers the books, adding a curt “Thanks” before leaving without bothering to give either of us a backward glance.
An awkward moment follows, before Erica checks her watch again and groans in frustration. “Ugh, Kimberly, I’m going to be so late!” And with that, she snatches her purse and is gone so fast she leaves nothing but the faintest whiff of Juicy Couture behind her.
Silence descends. The room is virtually empty now, except for the few patrons using the public computers and Tom, a middle-school-aged child, doing his homework at one of the tables. He’s here often enough that I know him by name. His mother will pick him up in about an hour and a half, looking frazzled and asking him which meal in a sack he prefers for dinner tonight.
Not for the first time, I remind myself that there are worse things than being perpetually, eternally single. My time is my own. I only have to worry about taking care of—and feeding—myself. I can only imagine how stressful it must be to be a single parent, working full-time, at the mercy of the public library system for free babysitting when necessity demands it.
Buoyed by the reminder, I grab my satchel, slip out from behind the counter, and stop at the table where Tom is studying. I wish I could say that I am some kind of child whisperer and that Tom and I have formed a magical bond during his hours spent at the library, but we mostly maintain a friendly distance from each other. For most of my life, children weren’t something I considered a possibility, so I didn’t put much time into practicing for future motherhood, and I can’t say it’s something that’s come naturally to me now that it’s (sort of) on the table. Still, I’m trying.
Tom looks up at me expectantly. There’s really only one thing I’ve found to bridge the gap between our ages. I know nothing about video games, manga, or sports, so those are off the table, but we’ve found one common language that we share.
“Lemon bars,” I tell him, pulling out my Tupperware. “They turned out okay. Tell me if you think there’s too much lemon zest.”
He’s wolfed down one of the bars before I can even finish talking. “It’s good,” he says, mouth still mostly full.
That’s pretty high praise, coming from Tom. I linger awkwardly for a moment, then give a half wave-salute. “Okay. Well. See you next Monday.” Sunday nights are my baking night. I can’t—or rather, shouldn’t—eat the entire yield of the recipes myself, so I always share with Tom when he’s here on Monday afternoons. “Enjoy!”
Tom grunts in response. Yes! Another gold star interaction with a youth.
“Hey, Helen of Troy!” A voice catches me as I make my way behind the counter again.
I turn to see one of the library regulars, Shane, standing at checkout. He is a mid-twentysomething, way too young to be considered a true romantic possibility, but I nonetheless enjoy his sweet puppy dog energy. Tall, lanky, and with an impressive mane of corkscrew curls that stand out in every direction, Shane radiates energy, cheerfulness, and a contagious enthusiasm for learning.
In true form, he has a small stack of books under his arm. I inspect them as I take them for checkout. “Quantum mechanics?” I raise an eyebrow, impressed. “Very ambitious.”
At least once a week, Shane chooses a new topic to do a deep dive into, but usually it’s more along the lines of jellyfish, or black holes, or clocks. Quantum mechanics is raising the bar substantially.
Shane nods eagerly. “Well, yeah, I gotta do something to impress the pretty librarian.”
How pathetic is it that it actually takes me a moment to realize he means me? I know by now not to take Shane seriously—he is a chronic flirt, with anything and everything that has a pulse—but I still blush, more from being out of practice with compliments than being genuinely flustered. “I’ll let Erica know,” I joke back at him.
He grimaces. “Please, no. The last time I smiled at Scarica, I got an alarming number of ‘accidental’ texts from the library system, reminding me about Singles Saturday.” He leans in toward me, waggling his eyebrows. “Definitely not interested in that, by the way, unless the Face That Launched a Thousand Ships will be there?”
I smile back at him, though not for the first time, I feel a little ping of uncertainty. Is he really just being friendly, or is the truth about me so transparently obvious that he pities me and is just trying to make me feel better about my sad, pathetic life?
“I’m not much of a Singles Saturday kind of girl,” I hedge carefully.
“Darn.” Shane’s face seems guileless, his smile cheerful as he takes his stack of books back from me. “Wish me luck! I failed biology in high school.”
“It’s not biology,” I try to call after him, but he’s already halfway out the door, whistling to himself as his spiral curls bounce in time with his footsteps.
With Shane gone, a stillness settles over the library once again as I return to my desk. Glancing surreptitiously around, I pull up my document. I don’t normally try to sneak in so much writing when I’m on the clock, but I’m supposed to do a reading for my writing group in a few days, which means my pages need to be sent out by tonight.
The cursor blinks at me tauntingly, reminding me I still haven’t come up with the right verb. Something about my interaction with Shane has deflated some of my romantic energy, making it seem even more daunting than before to finish the paragraph. Which is stupid, because it’s the moment when the hero and the heroine finally let down their inhibitions and give in to their passions. The entire novel is building to this literal (and figurative) climax, and yet I suddenly find that I have zero inspiration to finish it.
So I push aside the little squiggly moral inhibitions that tell me it’s wrong and allow Axel’s fictional face to be filled in by one decidedly more substantial and familiar. The Red Unicorn’s features come to mind—his blue-gray eyes, his cleft chin, his strong, stubbled jaw. His tousled auburn hair, always looking slightly windblown, as if he is forever just finishing running his fingers through it.
Imagining someone I actually know as one of my characters always feels strange and a little sordid, especially when I’m writing love scenes. I know—it’s skeevy! But I justify it to myself in a few ways, namely because the Red Unicorn is more a character to me than a living, breathing person. Despite seeing him around the library for weeks now, we’ve barely exchanged more than a handful of words and a few fleeting moments of eye contact. Further, the heroine of my story, Rosamund, is nothing like me. She is beautiful, daring, forthright—all qualities that could never be said to describe yours truly. So it isn’t like I’m imagining the Red Unicorn doing a series of naughty things to me—and somehow, I hope, that makes it less creepy.
Suddenly, Axel comes to life in my mind—the subtle woodsy, masculine smell of him, the flash of his blue-gray eyes. Rosamund is helpless against him, overwhelmed by him—and yes, indeed, it is a keening whimper that escapes her throat as his tongue lavishes her breasts.
That ought to be enough to please the ladies of my writing group, I think as I finish the paragraph. They’re always encouraging me to be a little bit racier with my love scenes, to go into more detail, and I’m really trying my best here, letting my imagination fully run away with me.
I just hope it will be enough to keep them off the scent, and that no one will realize they have a thirty-one-year-old virgin—and former nun—in their midst.