Booked Up

by Harper Logan

  “It’s not ridiculous. It’s pointlessly harmful, for the both of us. This is a very accepting community, and you’re not doing yourself any favors by trying to hide our relationship.”

  “I get that. But Rosebridge is not the world at large. And if it got out that I was seeing you…”

  “People would think less of you. I’m aware of the fear. It’s not news. It is all you have talked about for as long as I’ve known you. But can I be honest? I don’t think people will think of you at all for much longer. If you don’t deliver that book, you are going to fall off the map.”

  Serge sighed. “My friend Tish said the same thing.”

  Cam hadn’t met Tish yet, but it was obvious Serge admired her. “She’s very wise,” he said.

  “I’ll get something together. As long as nobody tells anybody,” Serge said, looking pointedly at Cam, “it’ll be fine.”

  “Okay,” said Cam, smiling as honestly as he could. “I trust you.”

  20

  Serge

  The problem with being obsessed with your book is that you notice everything that might be wrong with it…except the real problem, which is staring you right in the face. Serge knew that he had no pages. He knew that if his editor put her foot down, that would be it, because he couldn’t send her even one finished chapter. But the mind has a way of compartmentalizing, and he had set this particular failure aside, leaving him free to notice other things that were wrong.

  “Have you been touching my desk?” he asked Cam, who was lounging on the big sofa. Things were peaceful between them again. The tiff they’d had the other day outside the restaurant had passed. This seemed to be their pattern. Cam would approach him, Serge would freak out, they’d squabble a little, and then things would return to this.

  Cam said it was because Serge was still learning how to relationship. Which sounded awful. But he had a point.

  Part of him wanted to join his boyfriend on the couch; Cam was looking long and lean, wearing only his little blue boxers, all buttoned up. Serge wanted to nibble on his flanks, to distract him from whatever Madeleine-business had him tapping madly away on his laptop.

  Finally Cam turned his head. “Your desk?”

  Serge pointed. “There’s stuff…moved around. Did you need a pen or something?”

  Cam laughed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about writers, it’s never to touch their stuff.” He turned back to the laptop, clearly unconcerned with what was happening here.

  Was he just being paranoid? That was possible. Jumping from tension to love and back again was leaving him not knowing where he stood. But no way would Cam interfere with his book.

  He touched his computer’s mouse, and the screen brightened to life. There was the window where his novel lived. He hadn’t touched it in days.

  Why did it feel so much like it had been touched by someone else? Glancing back one more time at Cam, assuring himself that Cam wasn’t looking this way, Serge double-clicked the file.

  SERGIO FALETTI: MY RISE AND FALL was still the first line of the text. He scrolled through. There were all his worries, as his supposed novel had become his diary. Paragraphs about being blocked. Terse lines wondering how the world would react if it ever found out he was attracted to men. He sped through, and there on the last page was the last line he had written a few days ago: “Still nothing to say. But at least I’ve found someone who loves me. He can’t give me words, but he makes my silences more companionable.”

  He closed the file and shut off his computer. It hurt so badly to read that last part. They’d been together such a short time. How had things gotten so tense? And did Cam even realize how tense they were?

  “I’m going for a run,” Serge said.

  Cam looked up from his work, blinking. “Oh! Need company?”

  For a split second, he thought about asking Cam to leave, so he couldn’t be alone with Serge’s work, but that was full-scale paranoia…and would give away all his suspicions. “Nah, you stay there. Just need to clear my head. For writing.”

  Cam nodded. “Better than smoking like some writers I could mention.” Then, just like that, he was lost in his work again.

  How did he do that? How did he drop into a task with such effortlessness? Serge didn’t know whether to admire that or to be horrified by it.

  “He’s not getting into your computer,” said Tish. She slid her knife through a zucchini and used the tip to flip a piece upward, catching it in her mouth. Crunching, she said, “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Someone moved things on my desk.”

  “You, probably.”

  “Can you not be so glib? I’m saying someone has been messing with my things, and I think they’ve been into my computer.”

  She looked up from her chopping. “Why would they do that?”

  He couldn’t make eye contact with her. It was too embarrassing. “I think maybe someone is spying on my progress with the book. Or lack of it.”

  “And since you suspect Cam, naturally you think Madeleine Stevens is behind it.”

  “She hates me, Tish. And she hates that I’m with Cam. I don’t think she has necessarily turned him against me yet, but I know she would like to.”

  “Turned him against you? You think that could happen? Think about what you’re saying, Serge. Not just what you’re saying about Madeleine, but about Cam. You’re basically accusing him of having very shallow feelings for you.”

  He shrugged. “They feel deep, but how I can I know? I’m a novice at all this. Maybe guys just turn on you.”

  “And what did he say, when you sat down and rationally talked to him about your fears the way a normal healthy person would?”

  “I’m not going to accuse him of spying on me without any proof. But how can I get proof? I’m not a computer person. You studied this stuff in your business classes, right? Some computer stuff? Tell me how to see if someone looked at a file? Surely there’s a way.”

  She sighed and slid the vegetables into a pan. “If you wanted to get crazy, I could get some software for you. It’d track every key pressed on your computer, every move the mouse made. You could tell then whether someone had been in there. But right now? No. If they’re just looking at your files without changing them, even if they’re copying them, I don’t have a way to tell that for sure.”

  He gripped the edge of the counter. “There are things on the computer. Things in that one file, the one that looks like my novel.”

  “Looks like?”

  “I’ve been having some trouble writing lately. I’ve been using it as a journal, instead of really writing my book. And I’ve written about the way I’ve felt toward Cam. How…oh, god, can I even say this?”

  “He finally proved to you that you were living a lie about your orientation?”

  “Yes, okay, fine. There is a lot of that. But in the wrong hands—”

  “Someone might find out the truth about you.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “You’re worried someone will find out you like guys, and poof, there will go your well-curated public persona.”

  “Discrimination actually exists, Tish.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re not worried about discrimination. I know you. You’re worried that people will think you’re not the big strong bull of a man you set yourself up to be with that first book.”

  “I know you’re having fun with this. But right now I need you to be my friend, Tish, not my biggest critic. I’m really scared that Cam is plotting against me, as melodramatic as that sounds. I’m scared that I’m going to wake up one day and find out it has all been a lie, that he never actually loved me at all, that I opened myself up and was made a fool of.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Serge. If you’re not willing to talk to him about this, then I don’t have much hope for your relationship. And it’s not going to be his fault if it doesn’t work out.”

  “But why doesn’t he quit his job? Why would he work for someone l
ike her?”

  “Seriously? In this economy, you want him to be unemployed just so you don’t have to worry about a writer who probably could not care less about you at this point? Serge. Write your damned book, talk to your damned boyfriend, and stop worrying about everything else.”

  He wanted to argue with her, that she was giving him bad advice, except of course the advice was perfect. Why couldn’t he follow it? Why did everything make sense when he was alone with Cam, behind closed doors…and then become so confusing once the door was opened?

  “That was a long run,” said Cam. “Get your head clear?”

  Serge dumped his shoes by the door. He pulled off his shirt, soaked with sweat, and left it by his shoes. Hands on his hips, he looked at Cam and said, “I want you to quit working for Madeleine.”

  21

  Cam

  “Serge, I have tried to be endlessly understanding with you. But quit my job? I have to tell you, really plainly and clearly: you’re pushing it.”

  It was so hard to talk to him like this. The way the sweat beaded on Serge’s chest, all Cam wanted to do was agree with him. Have the fight Serge so clearly wanted to have, get it out of their systems, so their bodies could be together again.

  But Cam had been accommodating all of Serge’s worries and tantrums since before the relationship even began.

  He was starting to feel like a drone again. A robot. During the day, serving Madeleine’s pointless commands, and during the night, turning his switch from Hard Worker to Sensitive Soother, to take care of Serge’s fragile ego.

  This wasn’t how he’d pictured having a boyfriend like Serge. It wasn’t how he wanted things.

  “She’s going to turn you against me,” said Serge, sadness in his voice.

  “She is not. You being crazy, now that might turn me against you. What is it you think she’s trying to do to you?”

  Things had gotten so uncomfortable at work. Madeleine was still issuing orders, but with Angela back in town, Cam was left out in the cold. They weren’t even talking to him about Serge anymore. Maybe all that was over with.

  But in Serge’s eyes, clearly the feud was not over with. During this whole long period since the panel, he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. He ran his fingers through his hair and stared at Cam. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she’s trying to do. I thought…god, this is going to sound so stupid and paranoid. I thought maybe she made you get into my computer.”

  Cam scowled. “What for?”

  “To sabotage my book.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “To get proof that I don’t even have a book. To publicly expose me. I don’t know, Cam, that’s what makes it so scary.”

  Cam’s arms were crossed, his fingers tucked between his arms and his sides, protecting himself from this irrational onslaught. “I don’t know what to say, Serge. How could you think I’d do anything like that? What, this whole relationship has been a sham, so that I could get close to you?”

  He blushed when he said it, though, because hadn’t that been his initial thought? They’d come so far since then.

  “If you really think that about me,” he said to Serge, “then why don’t you leave me? Because I don’t think I can be with you if I have to worry you’re thinking that kind of thing about me.”

  “No, no. No. Stay.”

  “Then you promise me, right now. Promise me that this is over. That you believe I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  Serge bit his lip, but finally nodded. Cam opened his arms, and Serge came into them. He squeezed Serge close.

  But why did it feel like there was still distance between them?

  “Just promise me,” said Serge.

  “I will promise whatever you say, just please, no more worrying about Madeleine.”

  “Promise you weren’t into my computer.”

  Cam stiffened. It wasn’t trust at all. It wasn’t anything like trust. It was the same old need for Serge to be reassured, over and over. Serge was still in his arms. Cam’s face was pressed into his shoulder. Serge couldn’t see the look on Cam’s face, the distress. “I promise you,” whispered Cam. “I will promise you a thousand times. But someday, you really have to believe me.”

  22

  Cam

  Cam had only one goal tonight, and it was simple: Make the party for Madeleine go as smoothly as possible. Even at the best of times, he didn’t expect her parties to be stress-free. Any other time, he would expect to feel something like stage fright. His nerves would give him a little adrenaline rush to help him focus. But not tonight. Tonight his body was so revved up by stress he felt like ditching the party and going back home.

  It was one thing for Serge and Madeleine to be in a room together by themselves; the claws could come out, and the bloodshed would be limited. But knowing Serge would be here at the celebration for Madeleine had Cam so worried.

  These past few days had been rough. Time and again, he’d sensed that he and Serge were on the edge of parting forever, but that would be followed quickly by a feeling that they might stay together, and things would grow even deeper! It was giving him whiplash. He wished he could blame Serge for that, but he knew it was his fault too. Why couldn’t they trust one another?

  He checked the buffet table, and asked the waiter to take the soft cheeses back to the kitchen until the guests arrived. The space for the ice sculpture was clear and ready; it should be here shortly. Speaking of, the room felt so hot already. Maybe that was him. Maybe it was the track lights, which seemed to be bathing him with heat. There were hardly any people here yet. He ran to adjust the thermostat.

  Madeleine met him in the hall. “How do I look?” she said, swirling. Her dress was the same seafoam green that Dona Quintana had worn for her engagement party. The sleeves were a thin weave that reminded him of fisherman’s nets, the skirt much more trim and under control than Dona Quintana’s had been when she stood at the edge of the sea and considered throwing herself in if Juan was not going to propose marriage.

  Cam wondered if she had chosen it because it was the most beautiful of all the dresses she had lovingly described in the book, or because of its associations with that terrifying moment in that chapter where the reader really believed she might throw herself into the sea before Juan could get to shore and find her.

  “You look wonderful,” he said.

  She nodded at his assessment. “Yes. I agree.”

  Unlike him and his bundle of nerves, Madeleine was eerily calm.

  “You’re not nervous at all?” he asked.

  “Why should I be? These people are my admirers and supporters, Cam. They are here to fete me and my many talents…what could be better?”

  “Not all of them will have your best interests at heart.”

  “Oh, your darling boyfriend?” She gave him a wink. “Don’t you worry about him, dear.”

  That was troubling. No command to keep Serge under control? He realized, with a sudden rush of horror, that Madeleine had a plan here, one that she had not told him about at all.

  He tried to focus on the party. As people began to arrive, there were so many last-minute things to arrange. The ice sculpture arrived. It was supposed to represent the dolphin that leapt over Juan’s boat, startling him and reminding him to go find Dona Quintana. The sculptor had unfortunately given them a giant koi, scaly and twisty. Madeleine gave it a raised eyebrow but fortunately did not raise a fuss. In the heat of the room, the ice had already begun to fog over, and the first few drops began to soften the lines of the sculpture’s scales, but soon the air conditioning would burst to life and keep things more reasonable.

  He ushered her around, shaking hands, making introductions where warranted, stepping back and allowing her to take the lead in conversations where she wanted. He kept looking toward the door, wondering when Serge would show up. Of course, he might decide not to come. Maybe the stress of the past few days would keep him at home?

  But no. Serge would point out that he
was an invited guest. He’d come. If nothing else, he’d want to study Madeleine in her element, worshiped by her disciples, pondering her inevitable fall.

  Cam remembered a conversation. She can’t maintain this illusion forever, Cam. Someone is going to read that book and realize it’s nothing, it’s tissue paper, thin and false and useless.

  When Serge walked in, it felt like Cam had been holding his breath for hours, and now it all came out in a rush. He sped over to the door, prepared to give his boyfriend a hug. But there was something wrong. It was like some element of body language getting lost in translation. Serge’s arms were not open for him. His arms were by his side, and instead of looking at Cam, he was looking over Cam’s shoulder, at the people.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” said Cam, half truthfully. “Can I introduce you around?”

  “I think I already know everybody I need to know here,” Serge said. “How is Madeleine?”

  “She’s…basking.” Cam glanced her way, watching her display her long throat to an editor from Baranco as she uttered her hoarse, throaty laugh. She’d had her cigarettes for the evening dyed to match her gown, and a cloud of smoke followed her.

  “Is she going to cause me trouble, do you think?” Serge asked.

  “Are you worried?”

  “No, I’m prepared.” He rolled his shoulders, like he was getting loosened up to punch the heavy bag. “Just wish I knew how she was going to come at me.”

  “Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll be so wrapped up in adulation she’ll forget about you.”

  “All right. Maybe. Look, I’m going to grab a drink and mingle.”

  Something in his tone… “Am I being dismissed?”

  “Oh, come on, don’t start that. Not tonight.”

  “Nobody here cares if we’re together.” Cam’s voice had dropped to a sharp whisper. He finished off his champagne and gave the flute to a passing waiter.