Chapter 10 Nate
The next morning, I wake up to find CJ’s legs entangled with mine’s cuddling up to one of her two pillows, hugging it tightly, but her legs, with the loose flannel pants pushed up from the bottom, leaving her calves and shins exposed—and God, they’re so smooth—are all wrapped up in mine.
My dick is extremely hard.
There won’t be any way for me to hide that in basketball shorts, so I quickly extract myself from her, peel myself out of the bed, and immediately head for the bathroom before she can see any of what I’m experiencing this morning. I’m sure the sudden movement is waking her up, and I would love to just lie there and watch her sleeping so peacefully for a few minutes longer, those full lips pursed as if they’re begging to be kissed, but I can’t help it. I’ve got to get out of this bed.
In the bathroom, I decide to just jump right in the shower and handle this business before CJ’s any the wiser. It doesn’t take me long; I had an extremely hot dream about her, and knowing she’s just on the other side of the door makes me feel a little like a deviant, which I’m not entirely against. I’m careful to rinse away the evidence and follow it up with an actual shower for the purpose of hygiene. Then I towel off, brush my teeth, shave, and come out of the bathroom with my towel wrapped around my waist.
“Morning,” she says, still lying in bed.
“Hey. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“No worries. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock,” I lie. It was extremely hard to fall asleep with CJ lightly snoring beside me. Then, when I finally did, I dreamed I was quite successfully seducing her. “You?”
“Really good,” she says, stretching.
I wish she would quit it with all that damn stretching.
“Well, bathroom’s all yours,” I announce, pulling a fresh pair of boxers out of the drawer. “I’ll make the bed.”
“’Kay,” she says, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and setting her feet on the floor. “Thank you.”
I go through the other drawers and pick out the rest of an outfit: jeans, a white T-shirt, a sweater, and warm socks because my feet are freezing. By the time I’m done selecting my clothes, CJ’s closing the door to the bathroom.
I get dressed while she showers. I make the bed and review my notes for my workshop this morning. I don’t love that CJ’s in a workshop with Alice Devereaux beginning today, given how well she did in my workshop last semester. I swear, if Alice upsets her, I’ll kill her. It’s one thing for her not to like me—and I still have no idea what bug crawled up her ass and laid eggs there—but it’ll be quite another if she fucks with my wife.
I’m sitting at the desk getting my stuff in order for the day while CJ gets herself ready—hair and makeup take her awhile—but when she emerges from the bathroom, she looks adorable in a pair of form-fitting jeans, a tight black shirt, and a chunky wrap sweater the same shade of blue as her glasses. We don’t say much as we put on our shoes and she drapes her name tag lanyard over her head. She packs up her backpack, and I casually mention the fact that I’m heading into town at lunchtime if she needs me to pick anything up for her.
“I’m good,” she says. “What did you forget?”
“Oh, um,” I begin. “Just deodorant. I’m almost out.”
“You could always use mine if it became a dire situation.”
“Thanks.” I smile, hoping she can’t tell that I’m lying to her.
We go to breakfast, walking hand in hand like we often do now that we’re here. Her hands are little and soft, and I love the way her fingers wrap around mine with intention. She’s never loose or wobbly; everything she does seems very much on purpose. We eat. We drink coffee. She checks the time, and then she leaves. I plant a kiss on her cheek before she goes, because married people do that. She smells like coconut, lime, and sharpened pencils. I smile when my lips touch her face.
I spend my morning leading my workshop, and then an Uber comes to pick me up at the entrance to the retreat center at 12:15 p.m.. I would ask Maggie to drive me to town, but I don’t need her trying to shove her goodies in my face with her book-inspired Wanna get lit? tank top that leaves nothing to the imagination. Seriously. That’s her getup today—that and an unzipped hoodie sweatshirt. In the dead of winter. Anyway, if she drives me to town, she’ll try to poke her nose in my (proverbial and also probably literal) business, and I don’t need to be the subject of any more gossip than I already am.
Instead, I head to town for the appointment I’ve scheduled at Gold Diggers. I’m quick about it; I know what I’m looking for, and I find it pretty fast. I tell the Uber driver to wait outside so he can drive me back as soon as I’m done. I pay him a good tip for the inconvenience. I’m back at the retreat center just as lunch is finishing up.
While students and faculty are milling around or filing out of the dining hall and into the brisk December air, I see CJ at the buffet, making a sandwich. I come up behind her.
“You didn’t eat with everyone else?” I ask.
“No, I did. I was making this for you. I wasn’t sure if you ate in town.”
I smile. “I didn’t actually. Thank you. What’d you choose?”
“Turkey and cheese?” She lowers her voice. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”
“That’s perfect. Come on. Let’s go back to our room. I want to hear about your workshop.” I take the plate from her.
We head upstairs, her with the massive backpack and me carrying the sandwich and my laptop bag. I let us in and set the sandwich down on the desk. She plops down on the bed.
“So how was Alice Devereaux?” I ask.
“Honestly? She was interesting. She’s definitely scary, but my submission didn’t go first this time around, so it wasn’t as awful as your workshop.” She giggles. “No offense.”
“None taken. What did she do that was scary?”
“Nothing in particular. She’s just so serious, like she is the absolute authority on writing. This is the workshop on publishing, so I think she’s expecting next-level work. Naturally, I’m terrified that when she gets to my submission, she’ll think it’s garbage and humiliate me.”
“Well, first of all, your writing is the furthest thing from garbage, so I wouldn’t worry about that. But also, that would be extremely unprofessional of her. What did you submit anyway?”
“Pages one hundred seventy-seven through one hundred eighty-eight of my manuscript.”
“Is that the part where the sister tells the narrator that she’s marrying her ex?”
She nods. “And the downward spiral immediately following that moment.”
“That’s a good selection. Even though it’s not ‘literary,’ per se, I think it’s a strong part of the piece from an emotional standpoint. I think it will move people.”
“Even if they haven’t read the whole thing up to that point? I feel like that’s a big risk to take in workshop.”
“It is,” I agree. “There’s an assumption that every piece begins at chapter one. But I think if you clarified with an opening note explaining to the reader where they’re at in the story—”
“I did,” she interrupts.
“Then you should be fine,” I say. “How was Devereaux’s critique of the piece that went today?”
“Not bad. No tears. She kept referencing her own work though.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Have you ever read any of it?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, you guys are with the same publisher. Did you know that?”
“PRH?”
“Further than that. You’re both with the same imprint.”
“Seriously? She’s with Boone Books too?”
She nods and begins fishing through her backpack. “I bought one of her books. I had to, for required reading for the workshop.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure.” She pulls the book, a trade paperback titled Second Fiddle, from her backpack and hands it to me.
I immediately flip to the acknowledgments. She thanks her agent; then…there it is. Her editor. “I know this name. Georgia Malin. She works for my editor, Dan Brodsky. Dan’s the editorial director.”
“Small world,” CJ says.
My eyebrows knit together as I consider how small. “Yeah. I think Georgia’s a pretty senior person there too. But Dan runs the show. I wonder if Devereaux knows that we’re published by the same imprint.”
She shrugs.
“Well, so what’s her book about?”
“It’s interesting actually. It’s about two authors who write books with similar themes. One blows up and the other doesn’t. The narrator of the story is the author who didn’t blow up. In fact, her manuscript is rejected by the publisher. The other author becomes huge, like a household name. So it chronicles the narrator’s descent into madness at the missed opportunity.”
“Missed how?”
“It was a timing thing. The narrator submitted her manuscript right after the other author’s manuscript was accepted. Like, they were off by just a couple of weeks. But the narrator had spent over a year working on it, and it was the second book in a two-book contract, so she had no choice but to start from scratch because she was on the hook to the publisher.”
“That seems unlikely though. Wouldn’t the editor have known what the narrator was planning to write about?” I ask.
“Yes, but the narrator changed course after her brother was killed in a plane crash.”
“Hmm. That sounds like a decent read.”
“It is. I always find books about writers fascinating.”
“I’ll have to ask Dan if Devereaux is as rude to his team as she is here.”
“She wasn’t that bad today. I feel like she was more in her element in workshop. She gave pretty good comments to the guy whose stuff we were looking at. And then she did an exercise about pitching your work, which I really appreciated since I’m about to send out my query letters.”
“So it went okay?”
“It did.”
“And when do you go?” I ask her.
“Tomorrow.”
“Okay, so fingers crossed it’ll go well.” I take a hearty bite of the sandwich she made for me.
“Exactly,” she says. “Honestly, Pen, I think maybe she’s just rude to you because she’s jealous.”
I swallow. “Maybe. I mean, she’s not the first person I’ve met who’s behaved that way. There were two other writers at Yaddo, and they wanted nothing to do with me. I’ve just learned to keep my distance.”
CJ nods. “I just don’t want anyone to be mean to my husband,” she says, smiling.
“It’s fine. I can handle it. But fuck with my wife…see what happens.” I take another bite. “This is delicious, by the way. Is that honey mustard I’m tasting?”
“Yup. It’s the only appropriate condiment for a turkey sandwich.” I can’t tell, but it looks like she might be blushing. “Anyway, you never told me. How was your workshop this morning?”
“It was fine,” I reply. “Nothing to write home about. Pretty typical. I’ve got one woman trying to write romance, so that’s sort of entertaining.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, have you ever read a bad love scene?”
“I’m not sure. Actually, no. I don’t think I have.”
“That’s because you typically only read published work. Well, I’m not going to out this person, because that would be wrong, but let’s just say she submitted an opening chapter of a novel that begins with a very poor attempt at seduction.”
“Why is it a poor attempt?”
“None of the dialogue is convincing. There’s not enough interiority, so we have no idea how the main character feels about the love interest. It’s written in omniscient.”
“Is it literary?”
“No, not at all. It’s not supposed to be,” I explain. “It’s one hundred percent genre. But it’s just not doing what it’s supposed to do.”
“Which is?”
“I’m guessing it’s supposed to turn the reader on. But—I mean, correct me if I’m wrong—but starting a book with a physical description of a farmhand’s erection while baling hay seems a little…I don’t know.”
“Maybe poorly timed?” she offers.
I grin. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Did you make her cry?”
“God, I hope not. She didn’t cry in class though. I tried very hard to take the piece seriously.”
“Aw. I’m proud of you. You’re growing.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Have you ever written a scene like that?”
“A sex scene?” I pause to think. “No. Definitely not like that. Why? Have you?”
“Not successfully. I tried to for this manuscript. But I felt weird about it.”
“Yeah, I hear that.”
“I think I could get by with a lot of internal monologue followed by a fade to black. But even that—the internal monologue, I mean—is certainly not something to sneeze at.”
“No. I agree. Sometimes that can actually be a lot more effective than a play-by-play of the mechanics.”
“Would you ever write a sex scene?”
“Sure, if the story called for it. Wouldn’t you?”
She considers the question. “Yeah. I just would never submit it to a workshop.”
“It was bold, to say the least.”
“I wonder if she’ll read it at the open mic night,” CJ laughs.
“God, I hope not,” I say. “Hey, are you going to read at the open mic thing?”
“No way.” She shakes her head vehemently. “I would be terrified.”
“I get that. It’s scary, for sure. But didn’t Dillon tell you to immerse yourself in the literary world or something like that?”
“He did, but there’s no way I’m ready for that amount of immersion yet.”
“You’ll get there. Just make sure you do it before you graduate. They make a big deal about graduates reading. It’s a requirement.”
“I know. But I still have a long way to go before I need to worry about that.”
“True. Plus, you can always practice with me.”
CJ looks at me and smiles. “That’s sweet. Thank you, Pen.”
“I mean, it’s the least I can do. You made me a sandwich.” She’s doing that thing again—that thing from yesterday where she gives me that look. “What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says. “I’m just really glad we’re friends.”
But there’s something more behind those words. I can tell. And my body can feel it too. Dammit. I can’t keep getting hard around this girl. This is no way for a man to live. “Me too,” I respond. I cross my legs to try and tamp down the growing situation I’m dealing with in my lap. Think about the honey mustard. Think about cold cuts.
Cheese.
Lettuce.
Sensing my discomfort or maybe experiencing some of her own, CJ tells me she wants to give her mom a call before the afternoon seminars begin. She’s kind enough to do that downstairs in the main house living room, so I have a moment to breathe once she leaves.
I’m able to calm down physically, but my brain won’t shut the hell up.
I think I’m falling in love with my wife.