Chapter 9 Cecily
That night, after Dillon Norway’s opening reading, Nate and I head back to our room. I want to make sure I get a good night’s sleep before Alice Devereaux’s workshop tomorrow morning, and we got up and out so early today, I can only imagine that he’s exhausted too. So we skip the first-night open mic and tell folks we just need to turn in.
He’s being weird. Or maybe it’s me. But earlier, we had a thing. At least I think we did. It was like a staring contest, only every fiber of my being wished he was naked. But then, just as quickly as it started, it was over, leaving me to wonder if I dreamed up the whole thing.
The rest of the day was okay. Okay, maybe a little bit weird. The three youngish girls from last semester (Ashlyn, Kelsey, and Trix) were definitely whispering about me and Nate during dinner, but this time it felt less like they were making fun of me and more like they might be a little jealous—so that was kind of nice. There were other moments too—raised eyebrows and sideways glances at us that came from teachers and students alike. Gurt said hello to me, and I nearly fell over; she must have finally gotten her single because I’d never seen the woman smile before. Trite Tim and Harry Potter both acknowledged me, and Maleficent even sat at our dinner table with us and asked me how my novel was coming. I’m not sure if everyone was just wondering what Nate was thinking for slumming it with the likes of me or if they were giving me credit for leveling up and hitching my wagon to a literal star.
Truth is I didn’t care either way. I was just happy to have someone to sit next to in the dining hall who didn’t completely ignore me.
It wasn’t like we were with each other all the time, of course. He skipped out on Alice Devereaux’s afternoon seminar about flashbacks (and I’m not going to lie, I felt her throwing shade at me, although I couldn’t tell you why, given that I didn’t say a single word throughout the whole thing). He said he needed the time for writing and to prep some stuff for his workshop the next day. And before dinner, there was another hour of downtime, so I holed myself up in a meeting room downstairs in the main house and worked on my query letters some more.
My plan for querying was simple. I created a spreadsheet to track my submissions, and I decided I would schedule them all to send out at midnight on New Year’s Day. I would label the subject line Your First Query of the New Year! and this clever approach would pique the interest of the twenty-five agents I selected for my first round when they got back to their offices on January 2. Nate told me this was not necessary, that it was too gimmicky and that I should just let the work speak for itself, but we compromised because he wouldn’t let me keep my query letter in its original format, which I thought was charming and he said was cute at best, unprofessional at worst.
Rude.
But he also asked me if he could read my manuscript, just to give it another set of eyes before full requests began rolling in. I liked his optimism, so I sent him the PDF, and he said he wanted to spend some time with that as well.
As a result, by the time we get back to our room, it’s after 9:00 p.m., and we’re both pretty beat.
Nate unlocks the door, letting us inside. He offers me the bathroom first. I grab my pajamas and my towel from home out of my suitcase and head in there, locking the door behind me. I’ve got my toiletries lined up neatly on the shelf above the sink, and Nate’s are beside them. While I change out of my clothes, I scan the shelf, reading the labels of his things. Each one is more than just a product; it’s a decision he’s made. Old Spice deodorant, Cetaphil face wash, an electric Norelco razor, a nonelectric Gillette razor, Aveeno shaving gel, Nivea for Men aftershave, a bottle of cologne called Byredo Bibliothèque, a strawberry ChapStick, a blue Oral-B toothbrush, and a tube of Arm Hammer Extreme White toothpaste are neatly lined up on the right half of the single shelf. I lift the cologne from its spot and carefully open it, then bring it to my nose and inhale. He would have a cologne that references books in the name.
Mmm.It’s just a part of the entire cocktail of products that make up his scent, but I can definitely appreciate it.
Stop being a creeper, Cecily,I admonish myself.
I debate whether or not to leave on my bra. I would typically never sleep in a bra at home, but I’m not home, and I’m not sleeping alone. I vacillate over this detail while I turn on the faucet and let the water heat up.
I wash my face with my CeraVe, brush my teeth with my purple Colgate toothbrush and my Crest whitening toothpaste, then slather on hyaluronic acid serum followed by night moisturizer. I line my lips with balm, dab some eye cream where my puffy bags are, dry my hands on my towel, and take my bra off (because fuck it, I’m allowed to be comfortable), wondering if Nate finds my bathroom products as curious as I find his.
When I step back into the bedroom, he looks up from his laptop at me. “Those are your pajamas?” he asks.
I look down. I’m wearing flannel pants with penguins on them that my mom gave me for Christmas, with a red tank top to match. “What’s wrong with them?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t with you.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?“I don’t get it. Do my penguins offend you?”
“Not at all,” he says, grinning. “Not even a little bit. You all set in there?” He nods at the bathroom.
“Uh-huh,” I reply, tucking my dirty clothes into a kitchen-size garbage bag.
He excuses himself to wash up, and I notice he took down the extra blanket from the closet for me. I unfold it over the bed, then peel the covers back and hop in on my side. I snuggle up under them and grab the Jeff Herman book off the nightstand. I continue thumbing through it until Nate returns.
In nothing but his boxer shorts.
Oh. My. God.
The man is a fucking specimen, to say the least. His chest is broad, his abs defined; he’s got a thin layer of that same light-brown, hot cocoa–colored hair that I first noticed in his beard (if you can call it that) the day we met—that—on his chest and then leading down from his belly button to south of the underwear border. He’s got a few errant drops of water on his chest from having just washed his face, and it’s all I’ve got in me not to lick them off him.
“You forget to put on shorts or something?” I say.
“What?” he asks innocently as if he can’t possibly fathom what I could be talking about.
“Nate! You can’t sleep here in your underwear!”
“Why not? This is how I sleep.”
“No. This is you trying to fuck with me!”
“Fuck with you how?”
I stare at him, crossing my arms just under my chest.
“If it makes you that uncomfortable, I’ll put on shorts.”
I exhale. “Thank you. Please do.”
“But I’m going to have to ask you to put on a bra.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
“Because. I can see all of that.” He waves at my boobs.
I pull the covers up. “Oh.”
“Thank you,” he says, pulling a pair of basketball shorts out of the drawer and placing his feet in them, one at a time.
My heart is pounding. I silently go over to my bag and take out a fresh bra. Then, in a maneuver I haven’t used since seventh grade gym class, I hook it around my belly and slide it up under my tank top without putting my goodies on display.
“Happy now?” I ask.
“Ecstatic,” he says, sliding under the covers. “You?”
“Perfect,” I reply. I rejoin him in the bed, trying to focus on staying as close to the edge as possible so that our legs or feet don’t touch by accident.
Minutes go by in uncomfortable silence. He goes back to reading on his laptop. Part of me loves that he’s reading my manuscript; another part of me hates it for fear of what he might think of me, think of my writing, think of my past.
So Jeff Herman and I busy ourselves finding me the perfect agent. The room settles into a lull and stays that way until the awkwardness disappears and is replaced with coexistence.
“CJ, can I ask you something?” he says.
“Sure.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay?”
“No promises, since it sounds like it’s something bad.”
“I’m just wondering… Are you still in love with Bryce?”
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
“So this is all just fiction that I’m reading here.”
“Yeah.” I roll over to face him in the bed.
“This is a story about a girl whose first love leaves her to go play professional soccer and then ends up with her sister, leaving the girl heartbroken and struggling to move on.”
“So?”
“Well, it just reads a little bit autobiographical is all.”
“How so? The narrator’s not a writer.”
“True, but she’s an artist. She works in a museum as a curator, and the story ends with her finding out that she got a scholarship to an arts program. That doesn’t feel relatable?”
“Of course it’s relatable. But it’s not autobiographical.”
“Here’s the thing, CJ. And just please, hear me out. This manuscript is really good. The writing is strong. Great character development. I like how she finds herself over time and how she discovers in an epiphany during her sister’s wedding that she doesn’t need anyone but herself to find true happiness. Honestly, it’s very touching.”
“But?” I ask, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“But are you sure you’ll feel comfortable with this story being out there in the world where anyone can read it? Even Bryce?”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. Bryce doesn’t read.”
“That’s not the point. Your family might read it.”
“Only if it gets published, which, let’s be honest, is pretty unlikely.”
“CJ. Do you see yourself? You’re over here, at the very start of your second semester of grad school, and you’ve already completed a manuscript that you’re going to start querying agents with. Do you realize there are people in this program who will never finish a whole manuscript? And you finished yours in a semester?”
“So? What difference does that make?”
“It’s not just the speed with which you wrote it—although that is incredibly impressive—it’s the manuscript itself,” he says. “It’s really good.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really. I think that, despite your silly New Year’s email idea, you might actually find an agent to represent this, and if you do, it’s going to be out there in the world for everyone to read. So I’m just looking out for you when I ask you if you’re still in love with Bryce, because if you are, he’s very likely going to find out.”
“And if I’m not?”
“Well, if you’re not, then you might just want to give him and Jamie a heads-up that you wrote a book based on your time with him but that most of it is purely fiction and that neither of them should worry that you still have eyes for him.”
“I don’t have eyes for him,” I insist.
“If you say so.”
“I don’t!”
“Okay!” he says.
“What do you care if I do anyway?” I ask.
“I don’t,” he insists.
“Good.”
“Great.”
I roll away from him again, frustrated, although I’m not sure what exactly just happened. “You read the whole thing in one day?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Like I said, it was good.”
“Well,” I say, letting the word hang in the air between us. “Thanks.” I reach out and turn off the lamp on my nightstand.
“You, CJ Allerton, are going to be a big deal someday.”
I smile into the darkness. “You think so?”
“Yup,” Nate says. “I know so.”
I say nothing. He closes his laptop and sets it on his nightstand, then turns his light off as well. He settles deeper into our bed. I take off my glasses, fold them, and place them carefully on top of my Tbr stack.
I’m not one hundred percent sure if it’s in my head or if it’s Nate’s actual voice speaking, but the last thing I hear before I fall asleep is barely a whisper.
“You already are.”
I smile, breathe, and drift away.