The Bookseller's Boyfriend

by Heidi Cullinan

  Rasul had never been at an event quite like this. He’d been to exclusive gatherings full of people who bought and sold the equivalents of nation states every day, and celebrity gatherings populated almost entirely by the A-list of entertainment. He’d been to house parties thrown by the known and the unknown, by the movers and shakers and the hipster chic. Never this, though, never some sad backwater trying to echo what some movie in 1990 had told them was high society. Never somewhere he was the A-list celebrity. He didn’t know the moves to this dance. He couldn’t find the cache of edgy and slightly disinterested people he liked to adopt at an event where he didn’t arrive with his own squad. Well, he kind of knew where they were, but they didn’t feel right. He floated from group to group, sipping a seriously terrible martini, trying to make polite conversation but mostly wondering how far away the bookstore was from here. It had to be close. Jacob had walked.

  He should have followed him.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  Eventually he excused himself from the group of doctors and hospital administrators he’d been pretending to chat with and sought out Clare to tell him he was heading back to his apartment.

  “Everything all right?” Clare asked.

  “Just a little tired from traveling. I’ll be at the orientation for new professors tomorrow, don’t worry.”

  “Would you like me to get someone to drive you?”

  Drive him? His apartment was three blocks away, and even he with his terrible sense of direction and no GPS could find it. He could very nearly see it. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  He regretted this dismissal, though, as soon as he was back in the foyer. The selfie crew was still there, and this time they surrounded him so he couldn’t get away.

  “Rasul, Rasul!”

  “We’re going to take selfies with you for Adina! She misses you soooo much.”

  Rasul blinked and shook his head. “What?”

  The delay cost him. Three of the girls surrounded him, and as the camera on one of the phones clicked, two girls kissed him, one on each cheek.

  “Hey.” It took him several second to fight them off, after which many more pictures and probably some video had been taken.

  “Ladies. That’s enough.”

  Rasul turned as a tall, imposing Black man in a very nice suit loomed over them. Beside him, a white man with a menacing snarl took point. “You ladies don’t look like you’re from around here, and I don’t see tickets in your hands.”

  An Asian man appeared on the other side of Rasul. He said nothing, only folded his arms and glared. The girls looked like they wanted to protest, but when two more men appeared with equally inhospitable expressions, the ladies took off.

  Rasul rubbed at the back of his head and tried to quell the queasy feeling making him want to go hide under a blanket. “Thanks, I—” He stopped as he got a better look at the men surrounding him and something clicked. “Oh, hey, you’re the doctors I was talking to earlier.”

  “Three of us are doctors, the other two just sign our checks.” The surly white guy who had appeared initially reached out to take Rasul’s hand. “Owen Gagnon. Anesthesiologist at St. Ann’s Medical Center.” He gestured to the blond man. “This is Jared Kumpel, pediatrician, Jack Wu, super-surgeon. This guy”—he gently elbowed the shorter, slighter white man with curly hair—“is my husband, Erin Andreas, VP of the hospital. And of course we can’t forget our CEO, Nick Beckert.”

  The man who’d initially come to Rasul’s rescue shook his hand. “Pleasure. Sorry they swarmed you like that.”

  Kumpel frowning in the direction the girls had left. “Honestly, I think they were from out of town. It’s not like I know everyone in town and all the students on the campus, but someone said they saw a group of girls with Minnesota license plates casing out the college earlier and carrying on at the McDonald’s on the edge of town. My instinct tells me this was them.”

  “What in the world are twentysomethings from Minnesota doing here?” Andreas asked.

  Rasul didn’t know, but he had a bad, bad feeling.

  This time when he was offered a ride, he accepted. He’d wanted to meander past the bookstore, but clearly that wasn’t a good idea right now.

  Thankfully Wu let him lapse into silence for the most part on the short drive, and after thanking the man for the ride, Rasul let himself into his depressing accommodations. He paced around for a few seconds, then got out his phone. At least he could call Elizabeth first this time.

  She answered immediately, which he knew was a bad sign even before she spoke. “You can’t go five hours without a scandal? Is that it?”

  He sat down on the couch, sending up another cloud of dust. “I swear on my next advance I had nothing to do with that. Or any of this. I went to the gala like you told me, met the escort.”

  Chased him away. His shoulders rounded slightly.

  Elizabeth sighed. “I know. I know the look on your face in those selfies. Plus, I’ve been haunting your ex’s Instagram and YouTube. She got dropped by her agent. She’s desperate, and she’s sending her fans to you. Everybody who tags her with pictures of her precious Rasul who she misses so much gets a shout-out.”

  “What?” Rasul remembered the doctor’s remarks about Minnesota license plates, and the pit in his stomach grew. “She sent people here? Why?”

  “We’ve had this meeting. While you were dating her, she saw a four-thousand-percent rise in social media hits. You broke up with her and she went way down and couldn’t get it back. Then you answered her booty call and got her on the lips of everyone again. You’re the meal ticket. She’s not letting go.”

  “I’m in Wisconsin.”

  “Who cares? She operates online. She’s billing this as a sad separation and she’s the dutiful wife at home holding up the fort. Her agent, damn him, spilled the beans about you not having social media access, and so she’s filling the void. Apparently you called her before the gala. You miss her so much.”

  Now Rasul felt sick. “I didn’t call her. I swear. I swear. Call the mobile carrier and ask for my phone log.”

  “You act as if I don’t have access to that already. I did set up the account. But no, I was pretty sure you didn’t do that. All the same, this is a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud.”

  “You want me to call her and tell her to back off?”

  “Absolutely not. You’ll just give her clear voice samples.”

  He wanted to object that this was too much, Adina wouldn’t do that, but he did know how desperate she was to get a toehold on real fame. He hated to think she’d fallen this far, but Elizabeth was right, he couldn’t get involved. “So what do I do?”

  “Avoid selfies. Exercise restraint. Honestly, I wish you had a legitimate, stable relationship with someone else to end this before it gets started, but I also don’t want you distracted from your work.”

  Jacob’s fussy face appeared in his mind’s eye. “You want me to document a different relationship online?”

  “No, she’ll just see that as a war. But hmm, I wonder if her fans assumed someone was a significant other, that might help. Maybe, but maybe not. Look, like I said, I don’t want you to be distracted. I certainly don’t want you to upset people there. At some point this should die off on its own, but I want you focused on your work, not your unstable ex.”

  Rasul couldn’t get Jacob out of his head. “But if I did legitimately have someone, that would be good?”

  “If you had a stable relationship with someone who truly appreciated you, didn’t use you, and actually supported you? Yes. That would be amazing. But I’m not holding my breath. You certainly don’t know how to pick a winner.”

  “Hey.”

  “Show me the evidence to the contrary.”

  Jacob. He could show her Jacob. He didn’t say anything, though.

  Elizabeth sighed. “I’ll keep monitoring your social media and keep you apprised if there’s anything you need to know. They just started posting things
.” There was a pause. When she came back, her voice was sharp. “Who is this guy you’re dancing with?”

  They had pictures of him and Jacob? Damn, Rasul wanted to see. He cursed his lack of internet. Need to fix that. “That’s my escort for the evening. The guy who owns the bookstore from earlier, actually.”

  “You look like you’re about to eat him for dinner. And he looks like he wants to be on the menu.”

  Rasul went warm. Jacob looked like he was into him too? Really?

  There was another pause on Elizabeth’s end, and then she grumbled. “These comments are going to send Adina into orbit.”

  The bad idea formed in Rasul’s mind. He tried to push it down. But all he could think about was the way Jacob had felt in his arms, the way he’d smelled like the bookstore. “I… might have asked Jacob out.”

  “Wait—you asked who out?”

  “The escort. The bookstore owner. Guy in the photos. His name is Jacob Moore.”

  “If you get distracted by dates instead of work—”

  “Hey, I thought you just said a significant other would be good to deflect Adina.”

  “Yes, potentially. But I want you working.”

  “I understand.”

  Her tone was softer now, though. “It is true that this would be fortuitous. I don’t know that you dating someone would truly put her off, but I worry about what this chick is going to pull. I’ll take what I can get. And if this is the guy the president of the college insisted was a quiet, dependable, upstanding citizen, that could be good for you in general, not simply deflection.” She sighed. “All right. Date your bookstore guy. Just remember. The book is your priority.”

  When Rasul hung up, he stared at the ceiling a moment, digesting the gravity of what he’d done. Then he opened the contacts and read the new contact name nestled between the others.

  Mr. Rogers.

  Smiling sadly, he shut the phone.

  Probably he should call Elizabeth back and tell her he’d lied, that he only wanted to date Jacob.

  A real hero would leave him alone and go work on his manuscript, not force him into a relationship.

  With a sigh, Rasul put his phone in his pocket and shuffled through his boring apartment to his boring bedroom.

  When he couldn’t sleep, he turned on the bedside light and started to read I Capture the Castle. Except just as he thought, it depressed him. When he was young, he’d seen himself as Cassandra. Now? Now he couldn’t deny that he was anything but the self-absorbed, fragile patriarch who couldn’t get organized to publish another book or work in any fashion. He could only hide in his gatehouse refuge, reading.

  This isn’t a gatehouse, and it’s no refuge.

  Jacob’s bookstore was, especially his apartment.

  Rasul forced himself to keep reading, not allowing himself to plot how he could maneuver his way back there.

  Chapter Four

  JACOB DIDN’T sleep at all after the dance, only lay there tossing and turning until four in the morning, when he finally gave up and started his day. The cats glared at him because he’d dislodged them from the bed all night and then didn’t feed them immediately upon rising as they were accustomed to.

  “You’ll get fed at six as always,” he told Susan as she glared at him from the end table beside the chair where he was trying to read his usual round of digital news and failing.

  Susan, unimpressed by this answer, tucked her striped tail around her body and continued to stare daggers at him. Occasionally Mr. Nancy would yowl in an attempt to get his attention, and the whole time this went on, Moriarty batted a felt mouse across the kitchen floor with a carefully calculated degree of aggression.

  Doing his best to ignore them, Jacob switched to another news site and continued his attempt to ground himself in normalcy, but nothing could pull his focus from the continuously echoing truth that he had spent the evening talking, dancing, and flirting with Rasul Youssef, and then had bolted into the night. Even when he surrendered the tablet, gave the cats their morning kibble, and descended into the bookstore to distract himself with inventory, the events of the previous evening continued to play through his mind. The things Rasul had said, the way he kept studying Jacob with an intensity that made him want to purr.

  What would have happened if he’d let the date continue? What if he’d brought the man home, had sex with him? Would he be cuddled against him right now instead of doing mundane shop owner tasks?

  He knew that was exactly what would have happened, and that was the trouble. It was important he do his best not to think about it until his efforts stuck. He had a good life, he honestly loved what he did for a living, and he wasn’t disrupting that for anything.

  Except half an hour before the store was set to open, he learned how impossible a task that was going to be.

  Gina Wilkerson had been with Jacob since he’d first opened the shop, using her connections to get him started. Her husband was an accountant, her sister was a real estate agent, and she’d been one of his mother’s closest friends. Now she was one of his, in addition to being his only other full-time employee. His part-time workers came and went on the regular, but Gina was a constant. She used her salary to boost her retirement and had taken several handsome vacations on the bonus income.

  He knew it was her when he heard the key in the lock and the door’s bell jingled, and he was about to call out a hello, but she’d hustled through the stacks at double time, and when he turned to see what was going on, she had a seriously strange look on her face. “Is it true? Is what I read online true?”

  Jacob put down the books he’d been shuffling on the shelves. “What are you talking about? What did you read online?”

  Eyes alight, she whipped out her smartphone and showed him a photo from Instagram. “Look. They all tagged the bookstore, probably because you don’t have an account of your own.”

  Taking the phone from her, Jacob frowned and tried to make sense of what she was saying. He was looking at the bookstore’s profile, that much he knew, but instead of the usual photo of that month’s staff picks or charming photos of the cats nestled on shelves, he saw a page full of stills of him dancing with Rasul.

  Photos of Rasul looking like he wanted to devour Jacob, and a few of Jacob making it clear he felt the same way.

  His stomach was already twisting into knots when he accidentally opened one of them and saw the captions and comments on the image.

  This dude shows up out of nowhere and swoops up Rasul Youssef like a boss.

  OMG Rasul’s new boyfriend is a snack. What was Adina on about? Rasul is TAKEN.

  IKR? Keep those pics coming.

  How dare Rasul cheat on Adina!

  We have to stop this, guys.

  Eyes wide, Jacob swiped to another photo. Hypnotized, horrified, he read that caption and comments too.

  They danced three dances in a row. I am LIVING.

  Cheating bastard!

  God but Rasul’s fuck-me face is hot AF. Give me a man who looks at me like that.

  Jacob’s face flamed as he moved on to the next one.

  They are so fucking. Somebody figure out where this guy lives and get us some live video!

  Pretty sure that’s the owner of @moorebooks. AUTHOR AND BOOKSTORE OWNER. I ship it.

  Guys WHY are we ignoring Rasul’s traitorous infidelity?!

  BRB gotta go shopping. In Wisconsin.

  With a gasp, Jacob dropped the phone and covered his mouth with his hand.

  Gina picked it up. “I’d heard the two of you danced quite a bit, but I hadn’t thought much of it until I saw the pictures. Is it true? Are you dating him? Because I know he’s your favorite author, and I rushed over to get all the details. How did this happen?”

  That was the question, all right. How had any of this happened? Jacob couldn’t dwell on that, though, too preoccupied with what he’d seen in those photos. “Who are these people who took pictures?”

  “Kids from the college, I think, and a few locals. Usua
lly hardly any of the Bayview kids go to the gala, but it sounds like several of them came exclusively for Youssef.”

  Jacob sank back against the bookshelf behind him, then glanced toward the front of the shop. “Oh God, are they going to come here?”

  Gina’s eyes sparkled. “I think so. I’ll make sure they buy things. We’ll turn this to our financial advantage.” She leaned forward. “But is it true? Are the two of you dating?”

  Jacob ran a hand through his hair. “No. Evan asked me to escort him at the gala, that’s all.”

  “It’s just that there’s also these photos.” Gina swiped at her phone before handing it over again. Now the screen showed a video of Jacob tugging Rasul through the store until they disappeared up the stairs. “I can’t believe he was in the shop and I missed it!”

  Taking the phone back again, Jacob swiped to see more photos and more video from inside the shop. “Why are they taking so many photos of us?”

  Gina’s eyes widened. “So there’s an us? It’s true?”

  Why was this so out of hand? Why were there so many photos? “There’s no us. I told you. I was his escort. And I helped him get out of the store because Jodie apparently called all her friends to come mob Rasul. That’s all that happened.”

  “You’ve never been able to lie to me, Jacob. There’s more to the story, and I see it on your face. Spill it.”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking. At all.” He ducked his head in case she tried to read more into his obfuscation of the truth. “He signed my books as a thank-you. I gave him some books because it was impossible for him to check out with the chaos.”

  “And what about the dirty dancing?”

  “It wasn’t dirty dancing, for heaven’s sake.”

  “There’s video. It absolutely was.” Gina’s expression went soft. “I haven’t seen you light up like that since the accident. He’s good for you, honey.”

  Jacob tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t need someone to tell him that. He’d spent all night alternately trying to deny and obsess over that fact. “He’s a celebrity. I’m a nobody bookstore owner. Plus he’s so important to me as an author. I absolutely can’t afford to destroy that.”