Chapter Six
It’s a nice feeling, and one that sinks in deep.
I remove my shoes and pad into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
The Truth and Dare notes are still pinned on the fridge.
The smiley face is positioned directly under Dare, while the chickadee magnet is parked off to the side.
I don’t know if the placement of either magnet is deliberate, but I take a chance, grabbing the small notebook I left on the counter and scribbling I dare you to text me one of your most embarrassing novel covers.
I add my number, tear out the page, and pin it to the fridge with the smiley face magnet.
It feels weird that we’ve been emailing for six years and living together for a week but we haven’t exchanged numbers yet, even just in case of an emergency.
Knowing Dylan even on a cursory level, it also seems like a big ask, and I give myself fifty-fifty odds of him keeping his number to himself.
Although I try to move around the house quietly, floorboards creak and door hinges protest as I tiptoe through the halls and into my grandmother’s second-floor, ocean-view office.
It’s a beautiful room, timeless in its way, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, big rolltop desk, and elegant anthemion chair.
I can picture Grams sitting in it now, scribbling away in notebooks with her ink-stained fingers while her laptop idled nearby.
I never wanted to disturb her work, so I didn’t spend much time in this room, saving me from drowning in memories while I scan the shelves.
She kept copies of all of her books, as well as reprints, special editions, translations, and large-print versions.
It’s quite the collection, and it’s well organized, so I find what I’m looking for right away.
The first book in the Zane Scarlett series. A Pirate’s Perfect Plunder.
I’m nitpicking, and I know it, but I don’t understand the draw.
It all seems so extreme, this fantasy of gorgeous people lusting and looting.
I appreciate that it provides an escape and the glamour, passion, and excitement people might be missing in their own lives, but I can’t imagine reading this stuff and seeing myself in it.
These are the stories that kept me out, not the ones that drew me in.
They made me feel like only the beautiful and the brave ever found love and adventure.
Also, the real history is super interesting.
Problematic, sure. Slavery was an accepted practice.
Indigenous populations were being massacred and exploited.
Titled white dudes with inherited wealth and power were manspreading all over the globe.
Women had very few rights and were often treated as property.
But the eighteenth century also included the invention of the piano, the hot-air balloon, the thermometer, and the fire extinguisher.
Science moved out of private intellectual clubs and into public interest with the dissemination of books filled with experiments to try at home.
Philosophers debated reason versus emotion, making major advances in understanding how we think and feel.
Sure, a lot of that won’t have a place in an escapist adventure/romance, but it isn’t worth reflexively discounting for the sake of simplicity.
My hope—if I dare to allow it—is that I’ll read these books and feel like I have something to contribute. A reason to pick up where my grandmother left off.
I wake the next morning with A Pirate’s Perfect Plunder etched into my cheek, having fallen asleep while reading and rolled on top of the book. Thankfully, only the title is three-dimensional, so the heroine’s heaving bosom didn’t embed itself in my face.
I check my phone. It’s almost 9:00 a.m., later than I usually sleep, but I forgot to set an alarm, my brain buzzing with the possibilities as I dipped a toe into my grandmother’s fictional world. But the time isn’t the biggest surprise on my screen. I also have a text, or rather, a photo.
The image is from an unknown number, but it’s a romance novel cover, and I only know one person who would’ve had reason to send it.
A man sits on a bench in a locker room, facing the camera.
The shot is from midthigh to the base of his nose, revealing only his darkly stubbled chin and his seductively parted lips, with the rest of his face cut off.
He’s shirtless in jeans with the fly and belt undone, and a trail of black hair descends low enough to suggest this is not a PG-rated read.
In just the right position, he presses a football onto the bench between his parted legs, with his free hand gripping the back of his neck, displaying an impressive bicep and forcing his chiseled torso to twist. The color is desaturated into a blue-tinted monochrome, and a scribbled white title reads Twisted Seductions, Book Three: The Baller’s Final Score.
“Oh my god.” The words slip out of me through a breath of laughter.
I mean . . . he looks good. Really good.
His body is incredible, but also, that is not a man about to play football.
In fact, he doesn’t even look like a man who knows how to play football.
He looks like a man who got caught jacking off in the locker room, so he grabbed the nearest piece of sporting gear to hide his erection, then acted nonchalant about it by scratching the back of his neck.
The cover doesn’t seem that embarrassing, but it is funny, and I’m now desperate to call Dylan “the Baller.”
I get up, stretch, and peek into the hall.
The house is quiet, suggesting he’s out for his morning run rather than pacing in the bedroom where he insists on spending all his time, so I head downstairs in my sleep shorts and oversize Yale tee, with my hair still in a tangled topknot and sleep crust in my eyes.
I pour myself a bowl of Raisin Bran and settle in at the kitchen table to check my eBay listings while I eat.
The swords are all doing really well, as are the skull-and-crossbones flags.
The fake doubloons are also escalating fast. Maybe I’ll get the whole roof repaired, though I should probably save up in case I’m here for a while.
In case I’m here for a while. A phrase that unleashes a lot of mixed emotions.
Before I can even begin to process those emotions, the front door opens and shuts with a creak and a grind, followed by footsteps echoing across malcontent floorboards.
The house is its own symphony orchestra, with an unusually large percussion section and a songbook that’s mostly emo.
Hide-and-seek would be impossible. Every tiny shift would be announced.
“Hey,” Dylan says/grunts as he steps into the kitchen and crosses the room to get a glass of water. He’s in his running gear—another laundered-to-the-point-of-illegibility band tee with baggy drawstring shorts, both of which are soaked through with sweat.
“Good morning,” I say back, pleased we’re at the stage of our cohabitation where a congenial greeting might be expected, or at least not treated as a personal assault.
He gulps down his water and refills the glass as his labored breathing gradually slows.
“You get it?” he asks.
“The cover image? Yeah. Thanks.” I pull it up on my phone and turn the screen his way. “I looked up the book, too. Fifteen weeks on the Times bestseller list. Impressive.”
His neck flushes, a frequent reaction I’m beginning to enjoy.
“They tried the shot with a helmet, too,” he says.
“Let me guess. Too much coverage?”
The flush travels from his neck to his cheeks. “Something like that.”
A smile stretches across my face as I imagine the photo shoot, with a deeply invested stylist rotating out props and assessing the view.
Dylan’s eyes drop to my smile, and he spins away to drink his second glass of water with his back facing me.
His shyness only makes me smile harder. I’m charmed by how he posed as these hyperconfident alpha men while he’s the complete opposite.
I’ve never been able to be anyone but myself, which has had its drawbacks.
When Dylan doesn’t bolt the instant his glass is emptied, I press my luck.
“Did you only do book covers?” I ask.
“Mostly.” He turns to face me, grabbing an ankle to stretch out his quads.
The seconds tick away, leaving me to assume his response is complete.
One word and done. How very Dylan Sterling, but he surprises me by continuing.
“I had a friend in publishing.” He swallows, frowns, inhales, all of which make me suspect I’m getting a carefully redacted version of this story.
“Her design team wanted a last-minute cover change, and I suited the look they were going for. They could shoot in Portland, where I was living at the time. I was available, and the money was good for a few hours of work.” He swaps legs, balancing easily on one foot in a way I can’t help but envy.
“That job got me an agent, who still calls when something’s the right fit. ”
“Something like ‘the Baller’ or a shirt-averse pirate?”
“These days? More like middle-aged lifeguard or guy buying lettuce at Whole Foods.” He spins away from me again, possibly to hide from the look of utter bewilderment on my face.
Maybe he doesn’t have a billion rippling abs anymore or biceps that can lift a frigate, but he’s in really good shape.
Also, I did the math. A Pirate’s Perfect Plunder came out nineteen years ago.
Assuming he was around twenty when he modeled for the first one and around my age for the last one, if he’s over forty, it’s not by much.
“So, advertising work?” I ask.
He nods without looking my way. “It’s a good gig. Pays the bills when other things . . . don’t.” Other things like writing, I assume, which I still want to ask him about.
“Your turn,” he says, and tips his chin toward the fridge.
Fair enough, I think. And kind of great that he still wants to play.