By the Book_A laugh-out-loud feel good romantic comedy

by Nancy Warren

  “Of course.” She raised her voice. “Okay, Myra and Brian. I need to lock up now. See you Friday.”

  She got a grunt from one and a “See ya” from the other, as they left through the back door. Shari hastened to lock it after them, then dragged Therese in the front door and locked it behind her.

  “What is it?”

  Therese thrust the badly crinkled yellow sheet at her. It was damp where she’d gripped it and Shari assumed her friend’s palms had been sweating. She glanced at the paper, recognizing the announcement of the replacement phys ed teacher. A fellow named Brad Koslowski from a school across town was replacing Mr. Masters. All the teachers had received a copy in their office mail slots this morning. She looked closer at Therese’s sheet, searching for some scribbled message. There was none. She flipped the paper over but the back of the sheet was blank.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” she finally admitted.

  “It’s him!” Therese flapped her hand at the paper.

  “Him who?”

  “The man I was telling you about who made me believe in homely men.”

  Shari gasped as recollection hit her. “You mean, the short, weedy balding guy with the Olympic-medal tongue?”

  Therese groaned and sank her head into her hands. “I never thought I’d see him again. How dare he come to my school after he dumped me for some Minnesota sauna girl?”

  Shari remembered now. Therese had let herself fall for the less-than-perfect looking man because of his inner qualities, and what did his evolved inner self do but dump her for a tall Swedish centerfold type. “Oh, honey, that’s awful. But he’s the one who should be suffering, not you. Right?”

  “Right.” Therese raised her head and a little of her usual sparkle was back. “Right! Give me that.” She snatched the seriously mauled paper out of Shari’s hand, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it in the trash.

  “Have you seen him?” Shari asked.

  Therese shook her head. “But it’s bound to happen. I bet he doesn’t even remember I teach here. Self-centered egomaniac. Cochon. Imbecile!” Therese, whose English was flawless, fell back into her native French in times of stress, and even her English became accented. Shari had never seen her lose her English over a guy before. She had it bad.

  “There are times when a girl has to turn to chocolate,” Shari said, thinking a good sugar and cocoa binge was probably just what her friend needed, along with a chance to rail and rant to a sympathetic listener. Because Therese was going to have to pull herself together and accept that she and Brad the Tongue were going to be working together whether she liked it or not.

  “Oui. C’est vrai.”

  “Um, if we’re going to get very far with this, you’re going to have to speak English.”

  Therese clapped a hand to her mouth. “Sorry.” Then, with a determined nod, she said, “Have you ever had a chocolate martini? I’ve discovered a new place. The Chocolate Bar.”

  Somehow, Shari didn’t think they served her kind of chocolate bar, or that she was going to get a lot of shopping done tonight, but she had a friend in need, who looked as though she’d require someone to make sure she got home okay at the end of the evening.

  They both went home to change clothes and then went to the funky martini bar Therese had recently discovered. Since she hated martinis and, anyway, one of them needed to keep their wits, Shari settled on a single glass of white wine and they spent a good hour trashing men in general and Brad in particular. She’d never seen Therese like this before, and the obvious reason finally dawned.

  “You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”

  A stream of French, too rapid and passionate for Shari to follow, issued forth while Therese’s eyes snapped and her hands gesticulated madly. Shari let the torrent flow, understanding the sentiments underneath the incomprehensible words. At last Therese wound down, her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “Yes. I did.”

  Shari had intended to tell Therese about Luke’s latest exploits, and the surprising way he’d gone from acting like Mr. Shy to moving on her so fast that she was crying out in ecstasy almost before she’d realized where his hands were. A close girlfriend’s take on the whole situation might help her sort out her feelings, but she couldn’t do it. Not while Therese was in crisis.

  She had no idea what chapter they were on in Luke’s how-to book, or even if they were still following the curriculum. The episode on his couch the other night felt like a whole different book.

  From where they were, it wasn’t far to full-fledged sex. Was she ready for that with Luke? She’d thought she was after their hiking trip, but what with the fainting and the mixed messages he seemed to send her, she wasn’t certain. Looking at Therese bravely holding back tears, she had to accept that sex made her vulnerable.

  Shari couldn’t allow a man into her body in a casual way. Maybe she was old-fashioned, but to her intimacy mattered.

  The more she grew to like her downstairs neighbor as a friend, the more dangerous sleeping with him might turn out to be. Sure, she could help him become a wonderful lover, but what would she do when he was ready to graduate from her school?

  As the hours ticked by, their regular Friday night lesson/date was starting to loom like a dentist’s appointment.

  FRIDAY. Luke savored the word as he planned the evening in his mind. Friday had become his favorite day of the week. This one was the day they’d make love.

  “About Friday,” he said when he called to make the arrangements. “Why don’t you come to my place and I’ll cook?”

  He could call it dinner. He could invite her in to play Parcheesi. Didn’t matter. They both knew what he meant. In this case, dinner was the appetizer. He wanted to tease her by telling her he was planning to serve a double batch of oysters, but he didn’t suppose a guy who needed a book like Sex for Total Morons would be so flippant about sex he’d make jokes about aphrodisiacs.

  Besides, Shari sounded strained on the phone. In truth, he didn’t feel as calm and casual as he normally did when planning an evening that was destined to end in bed. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, this time was different.

  “Well, um…” she sputtered.

  Please don’t be trying to think up an excuse to cancel our date. Please, he silently pleaded with her.

  After a long pause she said, “Do you want me to bring dessert?”

  If things went according to plan, she was going to be dessert. This was his night to seduce her into his bed through food and a few other tips outlined in his book.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve got it under control.” Thanks to the Danish bakery he jogged by most days.

  He’d flipped through chapter six earlier and had found himself becoming stirred reading the chapter he’d written. He was planning to ease Shari into the chapter as though the pages were satin sheets—although he didn’t own satin sheets. Good old navy-blue cotton did the job for him. He always felt if he was doing the seducing correctly, a woman shouldn’t notice what kind of sheets were on the bed—or if there were sheets, or whether she was even on a bed.

  Of course, since he’d met Shari, his confidence had been knocked down a mile or two. With his luck of late, he’d probably burst his appendix on the way to the bedroom. With a suggestive see-you-later, he hung up and gave his belly a tentative poke. Everything seemed to be at peace, including his appendix. Only his libido was restless.

  Oh, he had big plans for tonight. And, he realized, he could finally bring out those candles. Shari was definitely a candles-and-moonlight kind of woman. He ached to see her in both lights.

  SHARI HUMMED along to Katy Perry on her phone, and slipped into a silky tank that clung where it touched. Her marathon exercise regime was definitely starting to show. She hadn’t seen her triceps in so long she’d forgotten she owned a pair.

  Her shoulders had a little more definition and her belly was definitely more taut. Her cheeks were a healthy pink and even her eyes glowed a richer brown than usual. Tor
n between hip-hugging pants and a tiny excuse of a skirt, she found the thought flitting through her head that she should pick the one that was easiest to remove in the heat of passion—then stopped.

  Wait a minute. Whoa, girl.

  Eyes narrowed now, she stared at herself in a new light. Seduction was almost certainly on tonight’s menu, she suspected. She simply wasn’t certain what she intended to do about it. Sure, Luke was sexy, and the more she got to know him, the more she liked him, but she wanted the sex on her terms. Based on the other night, they were past chapter four and she’d fulfilled her part of the bargain. She might teach Luke about loving a woman properly and she might not. She hadn’t decided yet.

  With a frustrated oath, she dragged the silky tank off and tossed it onto the bed.

  She stood there in her bra and panties and, in that second, saw Luke’s eyes roll back in his head as he crashed to the floor of her apartment. She shuddered. No way she was putting herself through that again.

  Digging into her closet she flipped right by her fun clothes to the clothing hinterland in the hard-to-reach section where the boring, unflattering and out-of-style garments stuck together like stale slices of sandwich meat. She peeled a red velour jumpsuit away from a designer knockoff that wouldn’t fool anyone and realized she was seriously in need of a closet purge.

  Deeper she went until she caught sight of a large expanse of denim, and nodded. Perfect. Huffing, she maneuvered the long, loose denim skirt out of her closet and paired it with a baggy, white cotton sweater from the bottom of her sweater pile.

  Shoving herself into the billows of fabric, she had the dubious satisfaction of knowing there was no way this outfit could incite lust in Luke or anyone else. Once again she checked herself out in the long mirror and grimaced. After tonight she was going to chuck both the sweater and the skirt, along with the other horror stories in the back of her closet.

  If she and Luke were going to become intimate, and it was a big if, it would be on her terms and according to her timetable.

  Even so, she couldn’t quite suppress the shudder of anticipation as she walked down to his floor and knocked on his door.

  He opened it and she blinked. She’d never seen him in anything but well-worn casual clothes before. Tonight he wore black linen dress pants, shiny black leather loafers and a black shirt of a weave so fine she wanted to touch it. The neck was open and just a hint of chest hair teased her, reminding her of how it had felt to rub her naked chest against his. Tonight he’d dressed. For her.

  She felt a shiver of delight at the implied compliment, then made the mistake of looking right into his eyes. She froze. His green eyes were always a little sleepy, as though nothing in life was worth getting too worked up over, but tonight they were sharp and keen, slicing through all the airy decisions she’d made earlier.

  These weren’t the eyes of a laid-back guy who didn’t know how to please a woman. These were the eyes of a predator, one who would take control of her body, of her will, and bend her to his.

  She sucked in a startled breath and blinked. And the impression was gone as though she’d imagined it. Back was the Luke she knew. He was running his gaze over her outfit and a quick gleam of humor made her suspect he knew exactly why she was wearing the closest thing to a nun’s habit she could find.

  “Come in,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She presented him with a bottle of chilled white wine. “I wasn’t sure. But it seemed kind of warm today for red.”

  “This is perfect,” he said, but something in his tone made her feel the way the fly would after giving the spider a present—as though she were being toyed with before being eaten.

  She entered the apartment and the feeling of strangeness didn’t leave her. He had a small round table set for two outside on his patio. Near the door, there was a tub of herbs, which impressed her, and there were metal lanterns containing candles. Once they were settled with glasses of wine, he flipped off the lights inside his apartment, and she found her sense of displacement growing stronger.

  The sun had already set and there was only a sliver of moon. The air was still warm from the unseasonably hot day, but in the dark, with a hint of fresh herbs scenting the air, she felt as though she were in the south of France or Italy.

  With her companion seemingly so mysterious and this patio so visually disconnected from the rest of the world, a turmoil of sensations stirred inside her—mystery, uncertainty and the hot, enticing spice of desire.

  In an attempt to drown that desire, she gulped wine too quickly and chattered manically about how excited the kids were that Luke was coming to talk to them next week. “I decided to assign them all an article to write after you’ve done your session. We’ll go through them as a class and vote on the best ones. Perhaps the best three. And then, if it’s all right with you, you could pick the winner.”

  “I think I could pick a winner,” he said, his voice seeming surprisingly deep all of a sudden.

  “Thank you.” She picked up her glass to drink more wine and discovered it was empty. Wow. That was fast. She checked to see if he used really small glasses, but they were a generous size. She must be thirsty.

  As she put down her empty glass, he rose to fill it. “Are you hungry?”

  Hungry. She was so hungry every part of her felt empty and screaming for fulfillment. Why did he have to have all the appearance and attributes of a sexually exciting man and always fall apart at the critical moment? Anyway, for all the nuance she heard in his voice, he was obviously talking about food, and if she was smart she’d switch to drinking water.

  “I’m ready for dinner,” she said carefully. “And may I have a glass of water?”

  “Sure. I’ll be just a minute.”

  In less than a minute he’d filled her wineglass and set a glass of water in front of her. He disappeared inside and in no more than ten minutes, reappeared with two plates. Lighting a couple more candles on the table, he illuminated a dinner that could have come from any five-star restaurant.

  “Mmm. Tuna?” she guessed, staring at the steak-like piece of fish, with some kind of vegetable salsa on top, complete with rice and spears of baby asparagus.

  “Energy food,” he answered. “Great when you’re working out a lot.”

  “Is that my personal trainer talking?”

  His eyes glowed, enigmatic and devilish against his black clothing. “Something like that.”

  Was there a technique in his stupid book about talking in nothing but double meanings and obscure statements? She should find that thing and burn it. She felt as though she were being nudged along, page by page to the chapter of no return and she didn’t like it. She was the teacher, damn it. She was supposed to be in charge.

  Still, the fresh tuna was incredible, dense and flavorful, and Luke’s conversation seemed a lot less weird once they tucked into their dinner.

  Once she’d told him a bit more about her day at school and thrown in a cute-kid anecdote or two, she asked him what he’d been up to lately.

  He seemed to squirm a little in his seat, then said, “I was working on an article.”

  “For the local paper?” She’d have to watch for it and take it into class.

  “No, for a magazine.”

  “Really?” She didn’t recall him telling her about magazine work. “That’s exciting. What kind of magazine? Is it a feature?”

  He cleared his throat, reached for the nearly empty wine bottle and topped up their nearly full glasses—which he’d topped about two seconds ago. “It’s a men’s magazine. I do some work for them.”

  He was clearly uncomfortable talking about it so she let the topic drop. It was probably Matchbook Collecting Monthly, or something really lame. She respected his right not to have to tell her everything he wrote for money. “How’s the novel coming?” she asked to guide the conversation onto safer ground.

  “It’s great. Now I’ve got it mapped out and the characters are clear in my head, it’s as if they keep talking to me. I thin
k I’m going insane myself. There are voices in my head. I kid you not.”

  “What do they say?” She was mildly amused, but also fascinated. She’d never known anyone who’d written a novel before. Well, except for her brother, Sam, who used to write the adventures of SuperSam as a kid, complete with hand-drawn cartoons.

  “They don’t talk to me. They talk to each other. It’s kind of spooky, but cool. This morning the psychiatrist told the hero she wouldn’t marry him. Of course, I pretty much knew she’d refuse, but she did it right when the poor guy was hurting. He needed to be strong and her rejection weakened him. Now the killer’s closing in.”

  She shivered at the intense expression on his face. She could tell Luke had disappeared into his story world. It was fascinating. “Will she change her mind?” she asked softly.

  “Hmm? Who?”

  “The woman. The psychiatrist. Will she change her mind and marry him in the end? That’s the kind of book I like. I’m a sucker for a happy ending.”

  He shook his head and in the flickering candlelight she saw his lip curl in derision. “No. She won’t make that mistake.”

  “Mistake? But he needs her.” She leaned forward, feeling, from what Luke had told her about the book, as though she half knew these people. “She helps him stay strong. Without her, he’s too vulnerable.”

  “You’re a romantic, Shari. People have to be strong on their own. It’s the only way to get through life.”

  “Well, I admit to being a romantic,” she said, a little stung at his easy dismissal of marriage. “But it’s better than being a cynic.”

  “Cynics don’t lose their illusions.”

  She thought of her friend Therese. “Most cynics I know are romantics who have lost their illusions. Is that what happened to you, Luke?”

  The sound the metal legs of his chair made when they scratched against the cement-floored balcony was like that of a match being lit. “We’re talking about characters in a book.”