by Sarah Title
He started by turning down the disco. She pouted.
“Helen—” he started.
She flipped around and put her feet on his lap. “Henry,” she said.
He patted her shin. “How are you?”
She snorted.
That felt like progress.
Her head tilted onto the arm of the couch and she squinted one eye closed. “You’re sideways.”
OK, he was going to have to make this fast before she passed out.
“Helen—”
She sat up suddenly and painfully—her feet were still on his lap. “You’re not going to shame me for being drunk in my own house, are you?”
“What? No!” This conversation had taken a turn. Some kind of angry turn. He needed to rein it in, bring it back to Helen’s problem.
“Because I can drink in my house whenever I want. It’s my house. You’re not the boss of me. Not you, not Pembroke, not my parents, not society!”
Or he could just sit here and let her bring it back to her problem.
“You think you’re so smart, just because you wear a bow tie and you write boring articles that nobody reads.”
OK, this was getting more painful than Helen’s heels in his crotch.
“Well, I want to write too! I know I’m not a big, fancy professor like you.” She stood, but her angry hand waving knocked her off balance and she almost fell back onto the couch. He reached out for her hip, but she caught herself before he could catch her.
“Just because I want to write something that someone will actually read. Something that people actually like, but they can’t admit they like it or that they write it, because society and my parents will judge them!”
“Helen. Helen, sit down.”
“No! I’m tired of people telling me what to do!” She flopped on the couch next to him. “I can write sex scenes if I want to!”
That was . . . not what he was expecting.
“It’s easy! You just take everybody’s clothes off and everyone smooches and that’s it! What’s the big deal?” She sat up suddenly, and the thin strap of her disco dress slid off her shoulder. He held his hands up. Not that Helen wasn’t a beautiful woman, but this was getting inappropriate.
And now she was crying.
He took a deep breath and a mental step back. She was writing something. Something with sex. And it was making her cry.
Nope, he was no closer to understanding.
“I wrote a novel,” she said, kicking off her disco heels. She rolled off the couch and left the room. Henry thought that was it, he’d been dismissed, but she came back with a roll of toilet paper. She tore a bunch off and blew her nose.
“That’s great,” he said, reminding her that he was still there and she was still opening up about her problems so he could solve them for her.
“It’s a romance novel.”
“OK.”
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“I’m not looking at you like anything!”
She flopped back onto the couch. “I know. You’re Henry. You’re too nice to be judgmental.”
“Helen, what are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter, nobody’s gonna read it anyway.”
“Why not?” She’d written a whole, entire novel? Why the heck wouldn’t anybody read it?
“It’s not sexy enough.”
He was confused. He was also not a fiction writer, so that was probably inevitable.
“I entered it into a contest,” she explained, “and I lost. But this one editor, she really liked it.”
“That’s great!”
“She said she liked everything but the sex scenes.” Helen suddenly reared up and grabbed Henry’s shoulders. “I. Can’t. Write. About. Sex.”
Which explained the clandestine research. It also explained why she was trying to hide it. Henry knew what it was like to feel passionately about something that nobody else took seriously. It was kind of how he made his living.
While he pondered, with relief, that Helen’s problem was, really, an academic one, Helen had slumped back onto the couch again. Her eyes had closed, her mouth had opened, and she began to snore.
Clearly, they weren’t solving any problems tonight. But now he knew what was wrong. He would help her.
He had no idea how, but he would help her.
Chapter 5
Helen took a deep breath and put on her sports bra. It was Sunday morning, which meant she put on her running shoes, met Henry on the corner, and jogged to the Daily Drip where they met up with Grace, and Helen basically cajoled them with her organization and focus skills into keeping up with their ambitious academic publishing schedules. It was a Sunday morning tradition, and sometimes the only exercise Helen got all week. It was important. It was time for her to explore the colleague side of her relationship with her friends, and it led to really good things in all of their professional lives.
She so very badly wanted to skip it this morning.
She’d woken up the morning before with her disco dress tangled around her waist and her pillow covered in sparkles. Also, a giant hangover. For which she had no one to blame but herself. And the entire bottle of wine she drank. By herself. There was no one else to blame.
She also vaguely remembered crying her eyes out to “MacArthur Park.” And Henry was there. Ugh. Henry was there, then she fell asleep on the couch, then she woke up to Henry doing dishes in her kitchen, then that song came on and she bawled. That poor cake! Someone left it out in the rain! She cringed, even after having a whole additional day and night to absorb the fact that she’d been totally wasted and crying, and the only thing she could remember was the badly disguised look of horror on poor Henry’s face.
And what had she said to him? She must have tried to explain the tears in some way, but she couldn’t remember a word she’d said. Maybe she didn’t say words. Maybe she just blubbered.
Or maybe she did say words. Terrible, embarrassing words. That would explain why she hadn’t heard from Henry all day. She’d gotten a call from Grace, but her head hurt too much to talk to her. And her doorbell rang early in the afternoon, but by the time she stumbled down the stairs, there was nobody there. Just a greasy bag of fast food, for which she thanked the gods of good friends. And she thanked Henry, via text, then turned off her phone and binged on fast food and shame and old British ladies solving mysteries on public television.
She felt much better today. At least her head did. Her shame reflex still kicked in whenever she remembered that she didn’t remember anything she’d said to Henry. But today was a new day, and she wasn’t going to let a little secret-baring (or possible secret-baring) slow her down.
She might, however, act like it hadn’t happened.
Shoes tied, door locked, she did a few quick stretches, then started off to meet Henry.
* * *
When Henry saw Helen round the corner in her running clothes, he felt a surge of relief. He didn’t even know he was worried until he wasn’t. He shouldn’t have worried, though. Helen never disappointed. She always showed up where she said she was going to show up, and she always pitched in when she said she would pitch in.
Of course, she had also been keeping a pretty big secret from him.
While she was cracking the whip, making sure he and Grace kept up with their scholarly writing, she’d been secretly writing novels. Romance novels. He didn’t even know she read romance novels.
Not that there was anything wrong with romance novels. He just didn’t think Helen went for that sort of stuff. It was all so cheesy and predictable. Just a bunch of dudes with big muscles seducing women into becoming good little housewives.
He was actually a little disappointed. He’d thought she was more creative than that.
But what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t support her? Besides, he knew for a fact that she thought he dressed like a stuffy old man, but she still let him make his own sartorial mistakes, as she put it. If she wanted to write fluffy no
nsense books, he would support her.
First, he should stop thinking of them as fluffy nonsense books.
She jogged up to him and gave him a weak smile, then pulled out her phone. He’d never actually seen someone’s face drop before, but there it went.
“Something wrong?” he asked, his heart dropping faster than her face.
“Grace isn’t coming.” Her phone pinged again. “She’s . . . never mind.”
“What? Is something wrong?”
Helen blushed. “Uh. She’s hanging out with Jake.”
“Oh.” He couldn’t believe it. Grace would choose hanging out with her fiancé—who she lived with!—over their regular Sunday afternoon date? What did Jake have that they didn’t have?
“Oh!” He really was an idiot. “Well, that’s OK. We can still get coffee, right?”
“Right.” She didn’t sound so sure of that. “Actually . . .”
And here we go again, he thought. Gettin’ the old brush-off. Well, he wasn’t going to stand for it. “I really need coffee,” he said firmly.
“OK, well, I had some before I left . . .”
Not going to stand for it, he reminded himself. “OK, great. Let’s run over to your house. You can brew a fresh pot.”
“Excuse me? Did you just tell me to make you coffee?”
He almost smiled. There she was, pushing back in response to any sort of bossing around. That was his Helen.
Instead of smiling, he just took off running. In the direction of her house. She could follow him, or not. He knew where the spare key was. He’d get to the bottom of her romance novel situation. That’s what friends were for, dammit.
Chapter 6
Helen watched Henry take a sip of his coffee. He was sitting on the couch, flanked by George and Tammy, who loved him. She thought they might love him more than they loved her, which usually made her a little mad. Today, she was hoping their love would be enough of a distraction that she wouldn’t have to spend too much time discussing what she did or did not say to Henry last night.
“So,” Henry said, putting down his mug while George and Tammy’s eyes followed his hands. Henry sat back, and the two dogs put their heads on his lap, where he dutifully began scratching behind happy-dog ears. “Have a good weekend?”
Henry was a lot of wonderful things, but coy was definitely not one of them. They could dance around it until their coffee got cold, or she could just bite the bullet. “Let’s get it over with, Henry.”
He sat up straight, dislodging the pups. “You’re writing a romance novel?”
She sighed. “Technically, I already wrote it.”
“I can’t believe this! Helen, that’s great!”
Well, that wasn’t quite the reaction she had expected.
“When did you do this? How long have you been writing? What’s it about? Besides romance, I mean.”
“Well—”
“And if it’s already written, what were you talking about, that you can’t write sex scenes?”
Damn Henry and his good memory. And her and her drunken confessions.
“More importantly, why didn’t you tell me?”
Was he . . . was he hurt? She dared a look into his eyes. Yup, definitely hurt.
“I share all of my work with you,” he continued. “And this whole time, while I’ve been blathering on about original floor plans and sconces and . . . whatever . . . you’ve had this giant secret project that you didn’t even tell us about?”
She didn’t really have a response to that. And she was kind of surprised that he was mad.
“Does Grace know?”
Helen shook her head. The only thing worse than telling Henry about it would be telling Grace. Grace read romance novels. She’d want to read Helen’s. Helen wasn’t ready for that.
True, Helen’s goal was for the book to be published, and once it was published, she couldn’t stop Grace—or anyone—from reading it. Her reluctance made no sense.
This did not change Helen’s mind.
“I don’t like this,” Henry said.
“Excuse me?” Helen had known this was coming, the You’re too good for romance novels. The Why would you waste your time writing that trash when you could be writing something worthwhile? She just hadn’t thought it would be coming this soon. She’d imagined he would at least need some time to think about it. “You don’t like it? I can write whatever I want to, thank you very much. Just because you have some high-minded—”
“Whoa! Slow down, there. I don’t care what you’re writing. I just don’t like that you kept it from me.”
“I’m sorry. I was just embarrassed. I thought you wouldn’t get it.”
“Helen, this is an amazing accomplishment. Why would I be anything but proud of you?”
Helen tried to come up with a good answer to that. Instead, she blushed. He was proud. She was proud too, dammit. She’d worked hard on that crappy book.
“No more secrets, OK?” he said, and he looked so sincere and earnest, she thought he was asking her to bring him home from the dog pound. She’d fallen for that before, and now she was stuck with two elderly hounds with whom she was madly in love.
Still, what Henry was asking wasn’t such a big deal. They were friends. Friends didn’t keep secrets.
“OK,” she said.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Pinky swear?” He held up his pinky and she rolled her eyes, but twisted her pinky around his and shook.
“Good. I thought something was really wrong, you were acting so strange.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Helen, normally I can’t keep you out of my business no matter how hard I try. Last week I went on a date, and you laughed at the story but you didn’t give me crap for wearing a bow tie.”
“You always wear bow ties on first dates.”
“Yeah, and you always give me crap about it.”
“Well, nobody finds them sexy. That’s why you never get second dates.”
“Hey, I don’t never get second dates.”
She snorted.
“I sometimes get second dates! Anyway, this is what I’m talking about.” He waved his hand between them. “This. You haven’t been doing this. You’ve been quiet. And you’ve been . . . oh my god, that’s why you were looking up sex research in your office the other day!”
Helen dropped her head into her hands. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”
Henry laughed. “Not on your life! Now that I know you’re not dying, I’m going to give you so much crap for this. You’ve had it coming, you know. Sex research is the new bow tie.”
“Stop!” she said, but she couldn’t stop the laugh that spilled out around it. “That’s not nice.”
“Neither is suggesting that my neckwear hinders my love life.”
“So you’re not the one who should be teasing me about sex research, then, should you?”
“Hey, I have plenty of sex!”
“So do I!”
And just like that, the temperature in the room changed. She wasn’t sure if it was because they were yelling, or if it was because suddenly she was aware of Henry as not just a guy who was her friend, but of Henry as a man. A man who wore bow ties on first dates, sure, and a man who was sitting on her couch between her two aged basset hounds wearing a T-shirt from the bicentennial, which she knew he’d bought at a thrift store and was his favorite shirt in the world. But also a Man who had Sex.
She never really thought about Henry that way before.
This was probably going to be inconvenient.
* * *
Henry pushed his cart through the big box store, checking deodorant and paper towels and shoelaces off his shopping list. He hated stores like this with their fluorescent lights and poor labor practices. He was much more of a Main Street kind of shopper, but sometimes one’s errand list forced one to be beholden to the gods of convenience.
He was wandering through the aisles. Now that he was here, he wa
s feeling bewitched by the variety of things available. He threw some running shorts into his cart. A flashlight. Gum. Coffee. Condoms. Beer. Bread. Hand weights.
As he wandered and loaded himself down with stuff he didn’t really need—but he did need the condoms, or hopefully he would soon—he found himself eventually in the toy section. He remembered hearing some kerfuffle about removing the gender identity from the toy aisles, which he thought was interesting, and now here he was. Trains next to stuffed puppies, Barbie next to G.I. Joe.
He looked at the action figures and the dolls. They were of a size.
It gave him an idea.
* * *
“Dang it, pups, we’re almost home.” Helen practically dragged George’s and Tammy’s leashes behind her. They were getting older, which made them resistant to exercise and also made her more determined to exercise them. They, in exchange, started protesting the extra steps a little more strongly each week. “It’s for your own good, you know,” she reminded them. If this week was anything like last week, the walk would end with her having to pick up each of these lazy hounds and carry them up the four front steps.
But not this week. As soon as they got to the gate, George and Tammy started barking like crazy and bolted up the steps to the front door.
Of course.
Henry was there.
They just loooved Henry.
“I was thinking about what you said, about needing to do some research,” he said, ignoring the dogs as well as anyone can ignore two forty-pound sacks of jowl gunning for one’s ankles. “I thought I could help.”
Henry held up a big plastic bag. “I brought props.”
Helen felt her face go from hot to scorching. Was it possible to get sunburned from the inside out? Props? He’d brought props?
“No, uh, not like that.” He started fumbling awkwardly in the bag. Oh god, Helen thought. What are the neighbors going to think when they see a man in a bow tie standing on my front porch demonstrating sex toys?
Except they weren’t sex toys. They were dolls. Just a Barbie and a G.I. Joe, ready to do battle with her prudish imagination.
