11. Faith
CHAPTER 11
Faith
I sat in my favorite study spot on the fourteenth floor of the library in the business reference section. I liked to hide out on this floor for two reasons. First, it was never crowded, so I could always count on securing one of the private study carrels with a door. Second, there was no thirteenth floor, so technically, the fourteenth floor was really the thirteenth.
It gave me some perverse pleasure to know I was sitting on the superstitious thirteenth floor. My lucky number had always been thirteen, and I liked to work on both my novels and my prep work here.
I wasn’t leery of the number, but I was superstitious enough that once I found a system that worked for me, I stuck with it. So far, this corner study carrel had been the location where I’d done the majority of the writing on my most recent book.
Chewing on the tip of my pen, I pondered the current assignment for the intro to poetry class I was teaching. The students were supposed to write a love poem. I appreciated the greats: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, and even Edgar Allan Poe. But somehow the leagues of contemporary poetry I was supposed to teach were getting lost in my class. I’d much rather spend months dissecting Tolstoy or even my nemesis, Nietzsche, than try to help them pull apart a few lines of verse.
While I contemplated where to begin, my cell phone rang. Happy to have a distraction, I pulled it out of my bag and smiled as my agent’s name and number lit up the screen.
“Hey Steph, what’s up?”
“Great news, Faith. I know I should probably wait to call you, but I had to share as soon as I heard.”
“What’s going on?” I hadn’t heard from Steph at all, except for a quick email saying she’d received my last manuscript and was looking forward to reading it.
“Your manuscript sold.”
“Sold? What do you mean? You just got it a few weeks ago. Don’t you want to see some edits or anything?”
“I’m sure it will need a little work, but I sent it out to a few editors last week and one of them made an offer. If you can commit to three more books in the next year, she’ll make it worth your while with a nice advance.”
“Nice? What does ‘nice’ look like?”
Steph clucked her tongue. “Nice is looking like mid-five figures. Hopefully, you don’t have big plans over the next month or two?”
“Oh, my gosh.” My mind rushed through a mental inventory of my to-do list. “Whatever you need, Steph.”
“I knew I could count on you. I’m working out the details and will give you a call as soon as I hear something.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Buckle up, Faith. I have a feeling this is going to be huge. You really nailed it. Carnal Knowledge will be out in a couple of weeks and they’re talking about a late spring release for this one. We’ll need to know what else you’re working on so we can submit your book proposals for the next three. Can you throw something together and email it to me?”
Stunned, I forced myself to reply. “Sure. I’ll send you something over the weekend.”
“Fantastic. Talk to you soon.”
Steph disconnected, and I sat momentarily paralyzed. When I’d sent in the manuscript for Carnal Knowledge , I had to wait a year before a publishing house acted on it and another eighteen months for it to go to print. How could they move so quickly on this one?
A four-book deal with a major publisher? With Carnal Knowledge scheduled to release in just a few weeks and four more on the way, I’d be set for quite a while.
As the realization of what had just happened hit me, the cold fingers of panic wrapped around my heart. What if I couldn’t come up with anything to write about? What if someone figured out who I really was?
I closed my eyes and shook my head from side to side. Not going to go there. By the time I fulfilled my contract, I’d probably be close to getting tenured and would be putting an end to my erotic romance writing days.
Vowing to just enjoy the moment, I let out a high-pitched squeal, and cranked up the music playing through my headphones.
Dante
I sat across from the group I was mentoring at a long table on the fourteenth floor of the library. They were supposed to be working on their project, although I seemed to be the only one who’d bothered to get anything done. Me and three female students.
The Entrepreneurial Leadership prof had assigned each small group a struggling local business. The students were supposed to apply what they’d been learning in the program and come up with a business plan to help the merchant gain some traction and turn things around. The group I was mentoring was tasked with figuring out how to salvage the Sashay Salon.
Oh sure, we’d had our pick of businesses to work with. I’d tried steering them toward the sports bar, the laundromat, and when it looked like all three of them were going to veto anything that didn’t have to do with women, even the women’s consignment boutique. They ended up voting me down, saddling me with a freaking beauty shop.
Brittany smacked her gum and pointed the end of her pen at the new logo she’d designed. Swirls of pink ribbon on a white background with the words “Sashay Salon” in metallic purple in the middle. Made me want to hurl.
I didn’t know much about salons or women, but I’d been arguing with her for fifteen minutes that there was such a thing as being too feminine. Bethany called for a truce so she could go get a power bar at the vending machine.
I got up to stretch my legs and visit the restroom. Working with these women got me frustrated as hell, and I needed to take a break before I said something I’d regret. As I walked down the hall toward the bathroom, music drifted into the hallway from one of the study carrels. I slowed down and glanced through the small window as I passed.
Well, I’ll be damned. Maybe she actually was capable of having fun.
Faith’s hands waved in the air and her hips gyrated as she danced to the music coming from her phone. A smug smile played across her lips and her eyes were closed.
I let out a loud laugh and quickly covered my mouth. She stopped moving abruptly, and her eyes flew open. I dropped down under the window to stagger past the doorway in a crouch.
As soon as I cleared the door, I stood up and ran down the hall. The door of the study carrel crashed open as I ducked into the bathroom. Maybe the ice princess was capable of having a good time. I’d have to figure out a way to see that side of her again. Seemed like I only ever got to see the pissed-off version of her. The fun version seemed a lot more, well, fun.
I took the long way back to the table. The team was still arguing over the damn pink and purple logo. I thunked a fist down on the table. “Black and silver, come on. The client said she’s trying to attract both men and women. You really think guys are going to want to walk into a place decked out in pink and purple bows?”
That sure shut them up. Bailey proposed a vote, and two to one, they voted on a black and silver color scheme. If every decision was going to take this long, we’d better start meeting five times a week instead of just two.
“What’s next?” I looked around the table at the three of them.
“We need to allocate her advertising budget,” Brittany said.
At that moment, a wad of paper sailed across the table and landed on the notebook in front of me. Four pairs of eyes looked up in search of the source of the paper wad. Faith stood about ten feet away. She had her bag slung over her shoulder and appeared to be on her way out.
Pissed off sure looked good on her. I leaned back in my chair and pushed my glasses up on my nose. “Hi, Faith. Fancy seeing you here.”
“Are you following me?” she asked, the accusation hanging in the air between us.
“What do you mean? We’re just meeting for their group project. Brittany, Bethany, Bailey, this is Faith.”
For once, the women were speechless. They looked back and forth between me and Faith.
“No one’s ever up here,” Faith said. “The fourteenth floor is usually...”
As she struggled for the right words, I spoke up. “Your private dance studio?”
She glared at me, then whipped around and pushed through the door into the stairwell.
Brittany jabbed a hot pink fingernail into my chest. “You’re in trouble, buddy. I don’t know what that gal’s problem is, but she sure is into you.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked, removing her finger from my chest and nudging her hand back toward her lap.
“Did you see the way she looked at you?” Bailey asked. “Like she wanted to eat you for dinner.”
“Yeah,” Bethany agreed.
“Let’s just get this done.” I rested my elbows on the table and shuffled my papers around. Eat me, huh? I could think of a few parts of my anatomy she could wrap her mouth around.
Hmm, maybe these women weren’t as bad as I thought.