Last Thorsday Night
Holly Lisle
The Thorsday Night Writers were getting down to business when a cold autumn wind swirled through the room, leaving a tall, rugged blond in its wake. He stood in the doorway, looking a little lost and a lot out of place – a man who did not belong.
It’s hard to look out of place in a writers’ group – especially one like ours, which specializes in science fiction and fantasy.
Jason MFA-Working-on-PhD had the mandatory professorial waist-length ponytail, goatee and tweed jacket; William I-Write-Bleeding-Edge-Crossover dressed only in black turtlenecks and black jeans; Carol My-Tiny-Heroines-Can-Kick-Your-Big-Ol’-Heroes’-Asses dyed her hair carrot orange in homage to Robert Heinlein’s heroines, wore elf-green contact lenses, and favoured spandex – which admittedly looked fantastic on her; Apocalypse-and-Dystopia Tophe (short for Christopher) had run out of places to tattoo, and had moved on to making sure he’d never pass through a metal detector alive; and Shora I-Only-Write-in-the-Nude (who thankfully wasn’t writing at the moment), favoured low-cut skintight angora sweaters, miniskirts, and six-inch heels when she did deign to dress.
An ex-stripper, she was smart and tough, hated her job as an office manager, and wrote unfinished fantasy novels about women who conquered the universe by lying on their backs.
In contrast, the stranger’s summer-blond hair was short and neat, and he wore a plain dark-brown T-shirt with a pocket – no clever sayings – and faded blue jeans a little on the tight side (bless you, handsome newcomer).
He did have well-defined muscles; what he did not have was a Look.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said to Jason, and my heart hit the floor at the rumble of his voice.
Oh, that voice. “I had a little trouble finding the place. Thank you for inviting me.”
He glanced at everyone in the room, studied me for a longer moment, and gave me the sort of smile a five-year-old gives an icecream cone. He strode through the circle of folding chairs and took the empty seat to the right of mine.
Which simply doesn’t happen.
Because . . . me, I’m the woman men notice when there aren’t any busty twenty-something ex-lap dancers or sylphlike Heinlein heroines around. We were full-up on both, and they had empty seats next to them, too.
The new guy swung his enormous backpack to the floor beside him, where it made a substantial thud, pulled a legal pad and pen out of it, then leaned over to me and whispered, “What have I missed?”
All the oxygen leaving the room, I thought. When did that happen?
I managed to find my voice though, and I said, “Pizza. When Jason hosts, he always has pizza for us before the meeting.”
“No writing yet?”
“No. Official start time is in ten minutes. You’re not actually late,” I told him.
“We ’re waiting for two other writers to arrive – Narnie, who has a long drive to get here, and Tyler.
” I’d been halfheartedly and sporadically dating Tyler for about four months, a fact I suddenly wished wasn’t true.
Tyler arrived like the king for his coronation, spotted the stranger sitting beside me, and glared at him. He came over and took the empty seat on my other side, leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Who’s he?”
“New guy,” I whispered back. “Jason invited him. We haven’t done introductions yet. We’re still waiting on Narnie.”
Narnie Hampstead was our resident pro. She had fifteen published novels, plus a bunch of shorts in various magazines. Jason had an MFA and taught creative writing, but Narnie actually wrote for a living. She was the one whose crits we all saved and double-checked as we were writing and revising.
The rest of us were wannabes. I was the Wannabe-Least-Likely-to-Ever-Publish-Anything.
It wasn’t that I didn’t write. Seven completed novels gathered dust and mouse droppings in the trunk at the foot of my bed, and I could not muster the courage to send out any of them.
After a year in the group, I’d finally brought myself to read Wall of Rivers, the best of my trunk novels, to everyone. Narnie told me I should send it out, that it was really good.
But I hadn’t. I couldn’t.
Next to me, the stranger was introducing himself. I realized Narnie had come in and taken her seat while my head was in the clouds.
“Thanks, Jason,” the stranger said. “I’m Per Tordonsson. I’m just getting started writing. I didn’t bring anything to read tonight. I want to see how this works first.”
Both Carol and Shora oozed “Hi, Per,” in melting tones. Beside me, Tyler snorted.
“I’m Nila,” I told Per. “I write, but I haven’t sold anything yet.”
Per looked into my eyes and smiled again. All he said was, “Wonderful to meet you,” but he said it like he meant it. Really meant it. Like meeting me was the most important thing he’d done all year.
There may be a moment in every woman’s life when she sees someone she doesn’t know and, for just that moment, wants what she cannot have because every cell in her body is screaming at her that this .
. . this is the person she’s supposed to be with.
Or maybe that’s just me. But right then, right there, feeling the bass vibrations of Per’s voice resonating in my chest, staring back into his eyes, with his left knee bumping my right one . . . that was my moment.
I wanted.
I could feel Tyler stiffen in the seat on my other side. He put his arm around me and said, “I’m Tyler Boothe Mayall, the defence attorney. I intend to be the John Grisham of fantasy.” He was a Thorsday Night charter member, and he’d been using that as his introduction since I joined.
Per called him on it. “Terry Brooks beat you to that thirty years ago, big guy.” This caused Tophe and Carol, who couldn’t stand Tyler, to burst out laughing. Giggles echoed around the rest of the room. I stifled my own laugh, but not fast enough.
Tyler’s arm around me tightened.
The tension between the two men grew palpable.
After Tophe finished reading his latest reworking of his third chapter, which should have been called “Why My Hero Should Drink Arsenic Right Now and Make the World a Better Place”, Per gave Tyler a sidelong glance that would have killed small animals at a hundred yards.
Tyler glared at Per and groped me, and I shook him off. The two of us were not there – never had been.
They were two big dogs, circling. I had no idea what was going on.
But whatever it was, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Halfway through the meeting, Tyler leaned over and murmured in my ear, “Why don’t we get out of here and go to your place? I have court tomorrow morning, and I don’t think I can stand any more of Shora reading.”
While I agreed with him on Shora – her heroine that night had already slept with a werewolf, a were-tiger, two dark elves (one male, one female, both at the same time), and was at that moment being chased by a vampire through the reptile display at the zoo, where I winced to think what was going to desire her next – I was sitting beside the handsome enigma, and the burning question on my mind was, if I hung around, would he smile at me again?
Besides, Thorsday Nights only happened every other week, and I loved them.
“I still haven’t read yet,” I told him. “I brought chapter one of my new story, and I want to get some feedback.”
Tyler said, “Read it another night. I don’t want you going home alone. I don’t trust your neighbourhood,” but he wasn’t looking at me when he said it. He was looking at Per Tordonsson.
Per Tordonsson. Who rested a hand lightly on my shoulder and said, “Nila, please stay and read your chapter. I’d love to hear it.” He looked past me to Tyler. “I’ll see her home, or one of the other men here will.”
“She doesn’t know you, and neither do I,” Tyler said.
Tyler had a point. Per’s interest in me, in my writing . . . it was completely out of place. It unnerved me. But I didn’t want to leave the meeting. I was having fun.
And Tyler was being possessive way past anything our half-dozen dates entitled him to.
We weren’t a couple. We hadn’t slept together.
He’d driven me home one night and had stayed over because it was so late, but he’d spent the night on the couch.
And brought me breakfast in bed the next morning, which he’d gone out to get, and which had creeped me out, though I couldn’t figure out why.
“I haven’t invited you over,” I told Tyler. “And I’m having fun. My neighbourhood’s good, and I’ll be fine.”
He looked completely unbothered that I’d blown him off. “I’ll drop by first thing in the morning, sweetheart,” he said, loud enough that Shora stopped reading, which was a blessing, and that everyone else looked at the two of us with surprise, which was awkward.
Tyler was one of those men who didn’t get it. We weren’t working out, but he seemed to think we were. I decided in that instant that our last date had been just that. The last.
“I’ll bring you breakfast in bed again, baby,” he added.
He might as well have peed on my leg. He was telling Per, “Don’t be there,” without actually coming out and saying it. As if Per and I . . . well, as if there were any possibility for there being a “Per and I”.
“Don’t,” I said.
I was glad to see Tyler leave.
The rest of the evening was fun. Long, but fun.
I read, and people made useful comments.
Per sat silent after I finished reading, blinking like he was trying not to cry, which was crazy, because my first chapter wasn’t sad at all.
He reached over and touched my hand once, just brushed it, and said, “Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to make of that.
Narnie read. Jason read. The Thorsday Nighters talked. We laughed.
At 3 a.m., we were all packing up and telling tired, silly jokes just prior to heading out the door, when Per stepped in front of me and took a deep breath and said, “Before you go, can I show you something?”
I looked at the earnest expression on his face, and said, “Sure.”