So much for changing the subject.
Jacob frowned. “Why?”
Rasul laughed. “Uh, let’s see. Missing my deadline three times, partying too much, missing my first flight here because I let my ex talk me into something stupid, trending on Twitter and Instagram with my name linked to high school girls—”
“That last one wasn’t your fault at all. I’m happy to speak up for you.”
He waved a hand at Jacob. “Won’t do any good. I’ve blown it too many times.” He pulled his horrible phone out of his pocket and waved it in the air between them. “See this? It’s my new phone.”
Jacob tilted his head to the side. “It looks like a very old phone.”
“Bought it at that cellular place on University. Or rather, my agent did, and she made me mail her my actual phone. No internet, no photos, no nothing except her number, Dean Clare’s, and both my parents’. My punishment, my last chance.” He hunched forward. “Except honestly I don’t know that it’s going to work. I think I’ve lost my edge. I’m not the writer you made into a hero. I’m a mess.”
A heavy silence settled between them, one Rasul sank into like a bog. When Jacob held out his hand, he frowned at it, unsure what he was supposed to do.
“May I see your phone?”
Jacob’s quiet, prim tone was soothing, and Rasul obeyed, curious to find out why. He watched as Jacob flipped it open, fussed with the buttons a bit, then passed it back.
“There,” Jacob said. “The next time you’re convinced you’ve lost your edge, if you forget what kind of a writer you are, call me up and I’ll tell you.”
The phone felt heavy and significant in Rasul’s hand. “What kind of writer am I, to you?”
Jacob rose, brushing off his suit. “We should go back inside. I’m sure someone’s looking for you.”
Rasul stood as well, but he didn’t move to go inside. “Tell me what kind of writer I am.”
Jacob faced the bay. He stared out at it for some time, but Rasul only waited. Eventually Jacob spoke.
“You weave worlds like no one I’ve ever read before, and I’ve read a lot. You write with a rich tapestry of diversity, not only of race and nationality but orientation, occupation, and personality. You put real people in your stories, or people who feel real, and you let them be messy but urge them to arc toward redemption. That’s a good word for your work: redemptive. I’ve lain awake trying to decide if you’re writing to redeem yourself or humanity, and the only conclusion I can make is that it’s both. There are worlds inside your stories, and I’m happy to descend into them every time.”
The sun burned orange-red, casting Jacob in a fiery glow. The wind picked up too, ruffling his tie, his suit, his hair. It pulled Rasul’s hair across his face as well, and it stirred him the same way Jacob’s words had.
Unfortunately, the shadows inside him insisted on tearing those precious castles down. “I can’t write like that anymore.”
“You can. You will.”
“I’m just a playboy spinning out. Everybody’s eating popcorn while they watch me go down.”
“Not me.”
Rasul shut his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.
Screw it.
Grabbing Jacob’s hand, he tugged him toward the door leading inside. “Come on.”
Jacob stumbled after him. “Where are we going now?”
“To party.”
Chapter Three
AS RASUL dragged him by the hand back into the gala, Jacob’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest. Why in the world was this the man’s reaction to him baring his soul like that? He’d never told anyone that was how he saw Rasul Youssef’s work, not even in an online review. It was the truth he kept in a turret inside him, but Rasul had seemed so low, he’d been compelled to tell him.
So why in the world did that inspire him to pull Jacob along like they were a pair of toddlers going out to play?
Gaiman was so right. When Jacob had heard Rasul was coming to Copper Point, he should have sold the store and moved to Yellowknife, Canada, and let his image of his hero keep him warm at night.
He was plenty warm now, though. He was hot from embarrassment and nerves, his hand fully captive in Rasul’s palm. Also he kept getting whiffs of Rasul’s woodsy, spicy aftershave, and it made his knees weak.
“What are we doing?” he asked again once he gathered his wits enough.
Rasul paused at the edge of the room, not letting go of Jacob. After looking around a moment, he grinned. “We’re going dancing.”
Jacob tried to pull away. “Oh, no. I can’t dance.”
“Liar.” Rasul winked at him as he tugged him forward. “You dance alone in your apartment, I know you do.”
He did, but the hell he was going to admit that. Jacob tried for another angle. “I don’t even know what this music is.”
Rasul wrinkled his nose. “You’re right. Come on, let’s go fix that.”
“Wait—” But it was too late. Jacob was once again tugged across the room.
He tried to keep his composure and nod politely to people he knew as they passed, but it was a struggle, just as everything had been a Herculean effort ever since he’d found out his date was Rasul. I’m being dragged across the Copper Point Community Center by Rasul Youssef. Jacob couldn’t decide if he wanted to fly to the stars or curl up and die.
Rasul took them to the stage where the DJ was set up and gestured the man to come out from behind the table. “Hey, you take requests? What system are you using to play music?”
The DJ, a bored-looking man in his early twenties, shrugged. “A Spotify playlist some committee made up. I’m mostly here in case of a technical difficulty.”
Rasul dug in his wallet, then passed over a twenty. “Play ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’ by Dionne Warwick.” Then he pulled out another bill and passed it over too. “Follow it up with some Air Supply.”
“You got it, boss,” the DJ said, suddenly a lot more animated.
“Hold on,” Jacob said, but then they were off again, this time headed for the dance floor.
They’d caught the DJ at the end of another song, so the muted horn opening of Warwick’s song drifted through the community center speakers as Rasul pulled Jacob into dance position, making Jacob the follower. “Think you can do a simplified swing?”
Jacob’s knees threatened to turn to jelly. “No.”
Rasul, already swaying to the beat, winked at him. “Sure you can. Rock step, triple step.”
He led Jacob through the steps patiently, constantly repeating the litany that it was easy, Jacob could do it—look, you’re doing it! Jacob wasn’t convinced he was doing anything but stumbling to the beat, but he’d only stepped on Rasul’s toes twice, so perhaps that was some kind of progress.
Then, without warning, Rasul spun him out. Jacob barely had time for a yelp before he was drawn back into Rasul’s orbit.
Laughing, Rasul resumed the pattern they’d fallen into before. “See? You’re a natural.”
“I absolutely am not.” But it was getting easier. Unfortunately it meant Jacob had more brain cells available to notice everyone looking at them and worry that he was making a spectacle of himself. The bank president glared.
How in the world am I dancing with Rasul Youssef? How?
The second time Rasul spun him out, he handled himself better, but his heart still raced.
“You look terrified,” Rasul said as they slid back into the main dance. “Am I terrifying you?”
“A bit,” Jacob admitted. “I’m not used to this kind of thing.”
“What, dancing?”
“Attention.” He decided to ask the question rattling around in his brain. “Why are you giving me this much attention?”
Rasul didn’t answer right away, some of the light going out of his face. Before Jacob could apologize for being rude, the music switched to Air Supply’s “All Out of Love.”
“Hmm, let’s go with seventh-grade sway for this one.” Rasul shi
fted his grip on Jacob and slowed them into a more traditional dance floor shuffle. The corner of his mouth tipped into a quirky smile. “Man, you gotta love Air Supply.”
So they were switching the topic. Not a problem, Jacob could do that. “Do you prefer music from the seventies and eighties?”
“I’ve got a soft spot for it. My parents were busy a lot when I was young, my grandparents too old, and one of my most regular babysitters was a big ballad fan. I can sing every word of this song and most of Air Supply, honestly. I associate the music with summers in the backyard, floating in the pool while Carla belted out old-school love songs with a heavy accent.”
Jacob smiled, his own memories overtaking him. “My mom liked Whitney Houston.”
“Another good choice.”
They swayed in comfortable silence for a while, Russell Hitchcock’s vocals swirling around them, but as they cleared the bridge, Rasul moved in closer and spoke almost in Jacob’s ear.
“I wrote my first novel because I was in the biggest depressive funk of my life. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, I felt like everything I did turned to ash, and I hated myself. The only time I felt good was when I wrote, so I wrote so much I had to be reminded to eat. I wrote my second novel because I was angry—with my parents, with the media who kept telling me who I was, with myself because I still didn’t understand who I was or what I was supposed to be doing. I really liked that novel, and when it was received with even higher praise than my debut, I thought, well, that’s it, then. This is what I’m good at, what I’m doing. I’ll write books, and that’ll be that. Except it’s as if as soon as I let the idea float through my head, everything broke.”
He sighed, and for a second Jacob thought he would lean against Jacob’s shoulder, but he didn’t, only continued talking. “Now I’m just lost. Everybody has an opinion on what I’m supposed to be doing, who I am, what mistakes I’m making, how I should correct them. Everyone takes one look at my career and puts me in a box.” His grip on Jacob shifted slightly, then tightened. “You didn’t do that, though. You treated me like you would any other customer, you helped me like I was simply a human who needed aid, and you accepted the job of escorting me with grace. Except when I signed your book, you flared to life, and I can’t get it out of my head.”
Jacob tripped.
Rasul righted him, kept talking. “It’s like you’re the kind of calm, rational being I wish I could be. I’m emotional and messy and dysfunctional. I ricochet around like a Ping-Pong ball. You, though, see something in me, you know my work maybe better than I do, and yet I can’t help feeling as if you’d love to bolt away from me if you had the chance. Yeah. I’m interested in you.”
Jacob was dizzy. He didn’t know what to say, how to respond. He had a million questions, though. What did Rasul mean, he was interested? Interested how? Curious? Bemused?
Attracted?
The song ended, and in a somewhat awkward transition, Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” belted through the room. Rasul broke into a grin, his hold on Jacob shifting again. “Damn, I’ve gotta go tip the DJ again. But first….”
He spun Jacob into another dance.
This time there was no swaying, no swing steps, only grinding. Jacob felt more self-conscious with these moves than he had with the others, especially with all of Copper Point looking on, but Rasul wouldn’t let him retreat into himself.
“Let go. Relax and move.” Meanwhile, he had turned into some sort of boneless creature who apparently felt the beat inside his soul.
“I can’t,” Jacob protested, which was the wrong thing to say because then Rasul pulled him against his chest.
“Feel how I’m moving and match it.”
God, he was so close. Jacob had been smelling him all night, but now he could taste him. He tried to mimic Rasul’s movements, but they were so erotic and smooth, he felt foolish.
“Relax. Relax.” Rasul’s hands slid to Jacob’s hip and spine, further guiding him. “Stop thinking you look ridiculous and move with the beat.”
The seventeen-year-old singer’s sultry whispers that she was the bad guy kept creeping into his brain. There certainly was a bad guy, and he was luring Jacob into a wicked dance. This wasn’t the Rasul Youssef that Jacob imagined as he lay in bed with Carnivale clutched to his chest. This wasn’t the Rasul who had just whispered all those stunning things to him, sad confessions about how he’d arrived at this moment.
This was the Rasul from the tabloids. The party boy. The dangerous bachelor. The seducer. The sinner.
The temptation.
Rasul pressed in so close to Jacob his lips brushed Jacob’s ear. “Let me see that flare again, baby.”
Jacob’s eyes fluttered closed as he felt some clasp break free deep inside him. Drawing a breath, he opened his eyes. Rasul was right in front of him, staring back like every kind of erotic dream Jacob had ever had.
Jacob let go.
He wasn’t sure if he danced any better now than he had before, but he released the part of him that was afraid he looked ridiculous, that he shouldn’t do this. He shifted his hips, rolled his shoulders, felt the fast pulse deep in his belly.
He never looked away from Rasul, and Rasul never looked away from him. It was the most intense moment of his life, which felt strange to acknowledge because his life, contrary to what most people thought, hadn’t been all quiet days at the bookstore wearing cardigans. There on the community center dance floor, grinding to the goth whispers of a child, Jacob set free the part of him that would have recoiled to learn his thirty-four-year-old self was this buttoned-up.
Rasul liked it.
Jacob could see it in his gaze, the way his eyes widened, then narrowed, focused even harder on him. He wanted Jacob, that was absolutely clear. With one stroke of his thumb along the man’s throat, Jacob could seal his invitation into his hero’s bed. Which was funny, because Jacob had always disliked the playboy side of Rasul. He’d told himself it was because he could never play that way.
Well, he was playing now.
As the song came to an end, shifting into a slower, heavier bass beat, Jacob and Rasul matched the music with their moves, still staring at one another. As Eilish whispered, it was as if Jacob and Rasul were whispering with her, each of them confessing to the other.
The song stopped, the spell broke, and Jacob regretted everything. Packing that part of him back into the box it had come from, he drew away, smoothed his suit, and put on the politest face he could manage.
“I’m sorry, but I need to get going. Please give my apologies to President Larson and Dean Clare.”
He turned and bolted before Rasul could reach for him, not running exactly but moving as fast as he could go through the crowd. He saw Clark glaring at him, but he ignored him, just as he ignored the clutch of excited women in the foyer. He didn’t have time for anyone right now. He had to get home.
Jacob triple-timed it out the door, down the street, and back to the bookshop. For a moment he thought he heard people calling after him, but when he glanced over his shoulder at the corner, he was alone on the street.
Halfway up the back stairs, he started to tremble, and he had to stop twice and grip the rail to steady himself, whispering that he was all right, that he was fine, that he’d never do anything like that again.
When he opened the door to his apartment, all three of his cats stood in the foyer waiting, regarding him with part curiosity, part annoyance.
Locking the door behind him, he greeted them with a warm, if not slightly watery, smile. “Who would like a wet food treat?”
With three felines weaving gently around his legs, Jacob stumbled to the kitchen and turned on NPR, willing the replay of Marketplace to erase the evening from his memory.
ONE SECOND Rasul’s blood coursed through him, lighting him up and insisting he’d just found north again, his libido firing on all cylinders and whooping because he knew he was going to get laid—and then Jacob ran away into the night.
He was so sta
rtled it took him a second to get organized enough to follow, and by then not only was Jacob halfway to the door but the vultures who had been waiting to pounce on him realized they finally had their chance. People who wanted Rasul to look at them the way he’d been eye-fucking Jacob, who wanted their turn at the dance, who liked the idea of a celebrity in their midst and wanted to punch their ticket. Also in the foyer to the event there was, somehow, a group of overexcited twenty-year-olds who kept trying to take selfies with him.
Rasul dodged them all, but they slowed him enough that by the time he made it outside, Jacob was blocks away. Rasul made one halfhearted call to him, then stopped.
He’d already pushed the man more than he should. It would be borderline cruel to pursue him now.
God, but why did that thought make his chest pinch?
As he headed back into the venue, he dredged out a winsome smile for the cluster of people at the door, but he noticed that mixed in with the bright, interested gazes, the usual sort of glances were already appearing. Suspicious, annoyed, dismissive. Well, that was always going to happen, because it was what always happened. He was a biracial, pansexual man with a huge personality and wild reputation. Some people were intrigued, some wanted in on the game, and some resented him for perceived slights. Hogging the spotlight was a favorite callout. Being narcissistic was right behind it. Plenty of people were simply jealous, usually of something Rasul didn’t even have.
The gazes, though, especially right after whatever that had been with Jacob, made him crave a drink. Several drinks. Also, something about that gaggle of women in the foyer had a foreboding feel to it. He aimed himself for the bar.
The dean of faculty intercepted him with a polite, professional smile. “Everything all right, Mr. Youssef?”
Nope, not on a bet. He beamed and winked. “Absolutely. Having a great time. Do you guys do this every year for new faculty?”
“Yes, but the crowd is decidedly bigger this year.” Clare’s tone indicated this was entirely due to Rasul.
Yeah, he needed that drink right now.
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