Moonstruck

by Aleksandr Voinov

  Anthony eventually left the bed for the bathroom, while Samir fell back on the bed feeling happy and that awake kind of tiredness that followed sex. Anthony came back with a towel and placed it on the wet spot, then lay down next to Samir and embraced him.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Incoherent.”

  Anthony chuckled. “That’s good. I wouldn’t attempt complicated sentences, either.”

  They lay there together, arms around each other, content, while the buzz slowly died down. Samir almost nodded off, but he found it impossible to sleep in somebody else’s arms—he wasn’t used to it, so he just gently drifted and came back whenever Anthony moved or idly ran his fingers through his hair, and that was perfect too. He loved being touched and held.

  Each time he swam out of the darkness, an uncomfortable thought tried to burrow its way to the forefront of his mind, but he pushed it back. He didn’t want to think about anything besides lying next to Anthony. Whatever his mind was trying to obsess over, it could wait.

  When his eyes fluttered open to the first hints of gray morning light, he and Anthony had separated, but not by much. Samir was on his back, Anthony on his stomach beside him with an arm slung over him—close enough to still be touching, not so close that their body heat made it too hot beneath the sheets.

  Samir ran his fingertips along Anthony’s arm, relishing the soft skin-on-skin contact, and tried to get back to sleep. It wasn’t happening, though.

  Especially not when that semidormant thought finally shoved its way forward:

  Where do we go from here?

  He rubbed his other hand over his face. Well, wasn’t that a cold bucket of water? Both the writer and programmer in him wanted to analyze their situation from every angle, determine all possible outcomes and their probability.

  But the side of him who’d secretly wanted to meet Ulfhedinn all this time, and who’d even more secretly hoped their online flirting was just the tip of the iceberg, didn’t want to think about conflict of interest, age gaps, geographic distance, or how many friendships and relationships he’d watched implode over creative differences during collaborations. And that was without Samir’s romantic ineptitude—reading too much into some signals and not nearly enough into others, struggling to find that elusive sweet spot between spending every waking moment together and never seeing each other at all.

  So what the hell was this? Something he didn’t need to overthink, that was what. Samir wanted it all to boil down to how amazing he felt in bed with Anthony—and not just when they were panting and sweating.

  Beside him, Anthony stirred, murmuring as he turned his head. His unshaven jaw hissed across the pillowcase, and goddamn, he looked good with a dusting of salt-and-pepper stubble. Some guys aged well. Some did not. Anthony definitely fell into the fine-wine end of the spectrum.

  He’s old enough to be your—

  Oh fucking well. He’s hot.

  “What time is it?” Anthony muttered.

  “Little after six.”

  “Six?” Anthony lifted his head, blinking a few times. “In the morning?”

  Samir laughed. “Uh, yeah.”

  Anthony groaned and buried his face in the pillow again, grumbling something about how there shouldn’t be two six o’clocks in a day.

  Samir trailed a finger up Anthony’s back. “After twenty years in the Army, I would think you’re used to getting up that early.”

  “It was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now.” Anthony pulled the covers up almost to his hair. “I’m making up for lost time.”

  Samir grinned and kissed him on the ear, as that was almost the only thing now sticking out. “I’m getting up. I have to write.”

  “Oh, rub it in.” Anthony glanced at him. “Writing? At six o’clock?”

  “I try to get my thousand words in before work, so yeah.”

  “Heresy.”

  Samir left the bed and gathered his clothes on the way to the bathroom. One hot shower later, he felt even more alive and nearly presentable—but he still needed to get his toothbrush, so he dressed and padded out of the bedroom. Anthony didn’t stir, though the toes of one foot were sticking out the other end of the covers. Clearly nocturnal, which was just the cutest thing, but then, Samir found everything Anthony did funny or original or endearing or fascinating. Or all of them.

  He quietly pulled the door closed behind him and turned—only to see Leanne leaving her guest room and looking right at him.

  Uh. In flagrante delicto.

  She raised an eyebrow at him, and there was probably no way to misinterpret this. Coming out of Anthony’s bedroom at six in the morning after a shower. A hot-cold wave of panic rushed through Samir—Will she think Anthony’s just helping me because we’re fucking?—but at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to make excuses or lie about it.

  “Um, morning?”

  “Good morning, Samir. There’s coffee downstairs in the kitchen.”

  “I ... uh. Thank you. I just need to ...”

  “No worries. I’ll be downstairs.” Was that tone an invite? It seemed fairly neutral, though maybe that was her negotiating-table poker face. Samir rushed into his room, dug for a comb and dragged it through his hair before it dried and tangled up, then quickly brushed his teeth. He wouldn’t like that first mint-flavored sip of coffee, but brushing his teeth gave him a couple more minutes to prepare for Leanne’s inevitable questions.

  When he came downstairs, she was sitting in Anthony’s enormous kitchen, cradling a steaming mug in her hands. A thermos sat before her and a second empty mug was on the other side. A carton of milk stood there too, though she was drinking her coffee black.

  “Sleep well?” she asked.

  Samir poured himself coffee and sat down. “Uh, yeah. Up early?”

  “Still on Eastern time. I’d normally start reading my first manuscripts on the treadmill. You?”

  “Six is when I get up to write my first set of words, so even if I have to work late or skip lunch, I have my thousand words or so for the day.”

  “I see.” She sipped her coffee and set the mug down. “Well, before you get started, maybe we could chat for a few minutes.”

  Samir busied himself putting more cream and sugar into his coffee than he usually did, just for something to do. “Uh. Okay.”

  She set her mug down and folded her hands behind it. “I spoke to Anthony’s editor this morning.” She didn’t sound very optimistic.

  Samir took a swallow of way-too-sweet coffee. “Okay ...”

  “Like I said before, he loves the book. Loves it.” Her smile was halfhearted, so Samir kept his guard up. “And even though it’s Saturday, he’s already been on the horn with the marketing director and a few other head honchos who you will never have to deal with directly—you’re welcome—about it.”

  Samir drank some more coffee, trying not to gag on both the hypersweetness and his own nerves as he waited for the inevitable but ...

  Leanne studied him. Then she drummed her long red nails on the stainless steel countertop. “Sweetheart, how much exposure do you have to the publishing industry?”

  “I’ve read about it and heard a few people’s stories. Horror stories, good ones. No direct experience, though.”

  “Okay. Well.” She tapped one nail on the steel. “Let me explain it like this. When J.K. Rowling signed on for the Harry Potter series, she was told to use her initials instead of her first name. Because no one thought young boys would want to buy books by a woman.”

  Samir cocked his head. Where the hell was she going with this?

  “Are you opposed to using a pseudonym?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest. I mean, you said they might want Anthony headlining the book, and I’m okay with that, but they want me to use a pseudonym too?”

  “The marketing director is pushing for it. It’s nothing unusual. A lot of people use them. Romance authors, horror authors.” She shrugged. “The point is, it’s not a hu
ge deal. A lot of authors use pen names. This particular publisher’s marketing department thinks it would be wise for you to use one.”

  Samir picked up his coffee. “Don’t think fans of the series want to read something by durka durka, eh?”

  She froze. Maybe the words had come out with a bit more venom than he’d intended.

  He sighed and set the cup back down without taking a drink. “It’s okay. I’ve heard it all before. People hear ‘Daoud’ and it may as well be ‘Hitler.’” He rolled his eyes. “What if I kept my first name?” He shrugged. “I could pair that with my mom’s maiden name, I guess?”

  She relaxed slightly. “What’s her maiden name?”

  “Ardenghi.”

  Leanne’s lips quirked. “I guess it’ll work.”

  Samir tilted his head. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Long and complicated.” Leanne rolled her eyes. “Short, simple, easy to remember, easy to spell. That’s the name of the name game in this business.”

  Samir raised an eyebrow. “So, Daoud would work better.”

  “Touché. Samir Ardenghi it is. Or are you okay with Sam Ardenghi?”

  “Sure. People call me Sammy anyway. But out of curiosity, what would they have said if I’d refused?”

  “Authors tend to want their books to do well, and if a publisher tells them the book will suffer from being attached to the wrong kind of name, pretty much all authors back down. The problem is that a lot of Anthony’s core readership are young to middle-aged men—he did what Nicholas Sparks did to love stories and made paranormals acceptable to a wide range of people who’d never touch the Anita Blake books or Twilight. Personally, I think more romance would likely boost his sales, but ...” She shrugged. “That’s his call. And another problem is that most of his sales have been in the US, although the rest of the world has been picking up, so the mix is changing. But to his publisher, Anthony is still a straight man’s man, a kind of Hemingway of paranormals, with a huge readership in the military. I think they are just willfully ignoring all the geeks and conventions and goths and liberal arts kids he’s been drawing recently, possibly worried they’ll latch onto something else in a few weeks.”

  “And while the geek kids might be okay for that new readership, the old one is seen as too stupid to accept a change?”

  Leanne sighed. “I think readers are a lot more sophisticated than publishers give them credit for. Truth is, we don’t know who reads Anthony’s books. You can gender products and books all you like, and then you get that grandmother who drinks Coke Zero and the queer liberal celebrity who’s a gun nut; people are just too damn messy to fit into neat little boxes. Anthony too. The publisher thinks that Samir Daoud selling paranormals to men is as unlikely as a black guy running the country with a name that’s way too close to Osama Bin Laden. Oh wait, he does.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Yay for progress.” Samir raised his mug in a sarcastic salute. “Is the name thing a deal breaker?”

  “Hard to say. To be honest, this is going to be a tricky deal to work out in any case because of the branding and all. Having an author besides Anthony Rawson writing a Triple Moon book could be seen as refreshing the series, bringing in a new voice to revitalize it, or it could be a sign that Anthony is burned out and the series just needs to be put to sleep.”

  Samir stared into his pale coffee. “So this is going to get complicated.”

  “Most likely. I’m still optimistic, though.” She reached across the island and touched his arm. “I think you’re exactly what Triple Moon needs. If I know Anthony, you’re exactly what he needs too.”

  Samir’s head snapped up.

  Leanne’s eyes widened. “I mean, as a writer.” Her hand retreated back to the other side of the counter. “You’ve taken the story in a different direction, which is probably exactly what he needs.” She cleared her throat and glanced into her coffee cup. “That’s ... that’s all I meant.”

  “Right. Right.” Samir shifted, tapping his fingers on the counter. “Well, hopefully it helps. It’d be a shame for the series to end now.”

  “I know. I love the books.” She smiled. “Most of what I read these days, I rate based on how commercially viable it is, but I genuinely enjoy the Triple Moon books.” Sighing, she shook her head. “I don’t even know what it is, but I love them.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  She was about to say something else, but footsteps turned both their heads toward the staircase.

  Oh. God.

  Jeans. Nothing else. No shirt. No shoes. No shave.

  So fucking hot.

  Anthony scratched his stubbled jaw and watched them sleepily as he shuffled into the kitchen. “You two conspiring at this ungodly hour?”

  “It’s only ungodly for those of you not programmed to Eastern time. It’s almost ten for me.” She turned to Samir and arched an eyebrow. “You’re the one up at unholy thirty.”

  Samir laughed. “Yeah, because I’m the one who usually has to be at a desk and at someone else’s beck and call from nine o’clock on. After a shitty commute.”

  Anthony grimaced. “That sounds fun.”

  “It’s not. But I don’t have much choice.”

  Leanne beamed. “Not yet, but I suspect your commute is going to be ‘bed to desk chair’ pretty soon.” She playfully smacked Anthony’s arm as he walked past her. “Just like this one’s.”

  “Hey. Hey.” Anthony wagged a finger at her. “My commute is not ‘bed to desk chair.’” He pulled a coffee cup down from the cabinet. “It’s bed, coffeepot, desk chair.”

  “Oh. Right.” She put a hand to her chest and sighed dramatically. “How could I be so ignorant?”

  “Seriously.” Anthony poured himself some coffee and didn’t add anything to it. “So what have the two of you been conspiring about?”

  Samir shrugged. “Mostly about whether or not your editor’s going to make me use a pen name.”

  Anthony’s eyes flicked toward him. “What?”

  “I guess they don’t like Daoud.”

  “Oh, Jesus squat-thrusting Christ.” Anthony set his cup down hard enough to throw a few droplets onto the steel finish. “Leanne, please tell me they’re not going to make him change his name.”

  “I’d have to lie. I mean, to a client.” She winked. “The marketing people apparently don’t like it.”

  “Probably the same people who want to see birth certificates of random people,” Anthony grumbled.

  “Same people who are happily in denial about your straight image too.”

  “I never hid anything. I just didn’t ...” Anthony paused midsip. “That said, Axis Mundi is a bit queerer than the rest of the series. That whole reincarnation angle will fuck with people’s perception of gender too. How are they coping with that?”

  “Well, as long as there isn’t much queer sex on the page, they are good with it. But that’s only the next problem. Right now, we just need them to buy the book without screwing with it. And its authors.”

  “Author. He did all the work.”

  “Okay, fine. That’s not how I’m selling it though.” Leanne shook her head. “The irony is, they would have been completely okay to hire a ghostwriter if the series had been stalling—”

  “Which of course it wasn’t.”

  “—but are being tetchy about putting the ‘ghost’s’ name on the cover because he’s not a Miller or Smith or whatever.” She sighed. “I’ll get them there, but I need some ammunition in case I have to concede ground. I want to see Samir launched, and I want him to get credit for his work. I also want to get you guys a seven-figure deal on the book, aggressive royalties, and a big marketing campaign. And that is getting more difficult.”

  “See what you can do,” Anthony said. “I trust you. You never did lead me down the wrong path.”

  “Apart from that one time I roped you into that anthology with all the A-listers to boost your career and you hated it.”

  Anthony looked a bit sheepish. “My writer e
go had issues with being the only B-lister in the book. And lo and behold, five hundred people on Amazon thought my fifty pages or so were wasted.”

  She glared at him. “What have I told you about Amazon and reviews?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t read them.”

  “And yet you continue to do what?”

  “Read them.” He really was cute with his tail between his legs.

  Samir smothered a laugh. “So I’m assuming I shouldn’t read them when Axis Mundi comes out?”

  “No,” they both said in unison.

  “Duly noted.”

  Leanne came around the island to rinse out her coffee cup. “All right, troublemakers. I need to go make a few more phone calls and see if I can get you both some more concrete answers before I leave.” She turned to Anthony. “Is that sushi place in town still open by chance?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. We’re having lunch there. My treat.”

  Anthony looked at Samir. “Do you do sushi?”

  “What kind of philistine do you take me for?”

  “All right. Lunch is on you, Leanne. Go get to work.”

  “How about you get back to work too?” She glared at him.

  He patted Samir’s shoulder. “But book eight is—”

  “I wasn’t talking about book eight, sweetheart. Book nine is due in two months, remember?”

  Anthony groaned.

  “Exactly. Back to work.”

  After she’d gone upstairs, Anthony turned to Samir and put his arms around him. “I hope she hasn’t scared you away from this whole deal.”

  “Not yet, no.” Samir rested his forearms on Anthony’s bare shoulders. “Do you really only have two months to write book nine?”

  Anthony pursed his lips. “Well, technically eight was due six months ago. So I had plenty of time to write nine. But ... eight.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. Deadlines are a bitch.” Anthony searched Samir’s eyes. “Are you sure you’re still okay with everything? The publisher’s going to start making demands, and it could get a little, I don’t know, overwhelming.”