He shook his head and stared out the window in front of the treadmill, trying not to go too far with that train of thought. There was no point in talking himself out of a relationship that hadn’t even gotten off the ground yet. Then again, most planes crashed harder after takeoff.
Chapter 12
Samir had taken Monday off work to clear his brain. When he went back to the office on Tuesday morning, it felt like he’d been away for months. Not because he was relaxed, but mostly because it felt like he’d fallen out of his reality and landed squarely and gracelessly in Anthony’s, where the sky was light green, rabbits wore funny hats and agents talked of quitting day jobs.
It was really hard to give a shit about the upcoming project, which was about fixing bugs that shouldn’t have crept into the product in the first place. He generally liked his job, which involved solving problems and creating things, and some people on his team were seriously cool. He got paid well and it beat standing in the unemployment line or worrying too much about a mortgage and student debt. But over the last year or so, he’d pushed the writing harder and some friends (Ulfhedinn among them) had told him to “dream big.” Which was just fucking ironic when the “dream big, things can happen when you believe in yourself” guy was actually Anthony M. Rawson who’d broken out and sold zillions of books while anonymously cheering on his troops. Samir’s mind was still spinning from it all.
At home that evening, he pulled up some of their chat logs. Normally, he didn’t keep them, but he’d saved the ones with Ulfhedinn. Some of them were wacky and funny and contained links that he wanted to check out at his own speed. Others were discussions about writing. Ulfhedinn always qualified what he said with, “Not sure, but have you considered” or “I’m not an expert, but maybe,” and he’d been spot on. He was clearly a writer who was trying to downplay his skills. Samir had assumed Ulfhedinn was shy about his own writing and simply wasn’t ready to share it publicly.
They’d gone through quite a bit together. Ulfhedinn had shown up on the forum and spent so much time there that Samir had been a little worried. In hindsight, that might have been between books six and seven. When they’d begun chatting, he’d mentioned a breakup and “getting over somebody,” so they’d actually started their online friendship with an in-depth analysis on love versus booty calls. Just reading those logs made Samir blush, because it seemed so apropos now that he knew who the man was and how he responded to things in the flesh.
And then, when Samir’s uncle Musad had been shot in the line of duty, his younger cousin Nizar had all but moved into Samir’s condo because it was close to the hospital. Samir had been much more rattled by that incident than he should have been, considering he wasn’t that close to his uncle. Maybe it was because Musad had always appeared so solid and so strong—him getting shot shook something in Samir, so those chats had been about life and death and duty, and now, rereading them, he could almost taste Anthony’s Army background in all those comments about how important families were to cops or soldiers. Sometimes the last line of defense between madness and sanity, he’d put it.
Just going back through those chat logs, he could see Anthony between all the lines. The man had claimed he was a freelancer in real life, “a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, master at some,” and he had tended to move the conversation to something else when Samir got too interested.
He’d known Ulfhedinn was roughly in the same region, but the first clue about how close they were had been them bitching about the same kind of weather. Especially in recent months, Samir had learned to gauge the weather in Anthony’s area based on the man’s mood, and more often than not, it lined up with the weather in Seattle. When it was gray and dreary, Anthony was mellower than when it was bright and sunny. And in the fall, when it was crisp and cool, he was offline more often.
He sat back and gazed at the half dozen or so chat logs open on the screen, as if seeing them from a distance could somehow change his perspective on them. Put some pieces into place, like one of those Magic Eye pictures that he still thought were bullshit.
His eyes flicked from one transcript to the next, and a piece fell into place. Everyone insisted that online friends weren’t “real” friends, that because it was too easy to make everything up, nothing could be trusted. But even though Anthony and Samir hadn’t seen each other’s faces until a few days ago, their friendship had been real.
When Anthony had stayed up until three in the morning letting Samir unload about what had happened to his uncle, he hadn’t been just an anonymous bot firing off automated responses any more than Samir had been sending meaningless words to Anthony when his breakup had had him dragging. All the times they’d bantered and laughed, that couldn’t be faked. Not for more than a few conversations, anyway.
Which meant it was real.
Which meant they weren’t strangers.
Which really kind of complicated the whole getting-into-bed-naked thing. They knew each other a little too well to be friends with benefits, and were a little too physically intimate to be just friends, and ... Samir had no idea.
Though, if he was going to fool around with someone, he could do worse than get it on with someone who knew a few things about him. He was kind of glad he’d had a couple of drinks one night and let it slip to Ulfhedinn that his favorite position ever was doggy style.
And then Anthony had logged on today, and they’d chatted like almost normal, and—
He rubbed his face and groaned. He was overthinking all of this.
And he was going to be late to his crit group if he didn’t get up off this chair and leave now. He left the windows open, grabbed his jacket and bag, and hurried out of his condo.
Traffic was a bitch because Seattle sucked like that, but he made it to the library with a few minutes to spare. The rest of the group had probably already arrived, and were likely waiting in their usual conference room for Vicki to finish her work as a librarian.
She still had a few minutes, and she was quite obviously bored off her ass at the reception desk, so he stopped to pester her.
As soon as she saw him, her eyes lit up. “Hey, you! I missed you last week.”
“Sorry.” He smiled sheepishly. “I had, uh ...”
“Work? Again?”
Close enough. “Yeah. You know how it is. Yay, salt mines.”
She laughed. “If it’s any consolation, I had two ‘cleanups on aisle five’ this week.”
He made a gagging sound. “Cleanup on aisle five” had become librarian shorthand in this place for “someone’s kid ate something they shouldn’t have and left it all over the children’s section.” For that reason alone, he’d stay in a cubicle farm. At least until Leanne called him with a dollar figure.
The thought made him reel enough he had to grab the edge of the desk. It was like that reality, where Leanne was negotiating a life-altering deal for him as Anthony Rawson’s coauthor, had physically collided with this one and knocked him off-balance.
Vicki stood. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Um.” He cleared his throat. “Just ... it’s been a long day.”
“Apparently.” She eyed him skeptically. “So, hey, you never told me how things went with that guy from your forum.” She cringed. “Was it a total bust?”
Samir hesitated. Vicki was a Triple Moon fangirl, complete with a tattoo, but she had no connections to the forum. She wanted nothing to do with online fandom—and she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut when necessary. Which was good, considering the amount of slash porn he’d sent her over the last year or so. If there was anyone he could trust with the information that was threatening to burst out of him like some sex-and-money-shaped variation of Alien, it was her.
He rested his forearms on the desk and leaned down, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Can I tell you something in absolute confidence?”
Her eyes got huge, and she leaned in. “You’d better tell me this instant.”
He glanced around. There was no one within
earshot, but just in case, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.
It was awesome. We’re kinda dating now.
She clasped her hands under her chin and grinned, wiggling like she was barely stopping herself from bouncing with excitement. “Oh my God! That’s so adorable.”
“Yeah, but here’s the confidential part ...”
He scribbled the words on the paper and turned it so she could read them.
He’s Anthony Rawson.
She read it.
Read it again.
Looked at him. “Very funny, Sammy.”
“I’m dead serious. I’m dating ...” He tapped the paper.
She held his gaze, and in all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her eyes get that big. “You’re serious.”
He nodded as he crumpled up the paper and shoved it in his pocket.
She shrieked, and immediately clapped both hands over her mouth as everyone in the library turned and stared.
Samir smothered a laugh. “Way to be discreet, hon.”
“Ohmigod.” Her voice was barely more than a squeak. She looked around as if they were spies who’d just exchanged details of a weapons-grade plutonium deal. “What’s he like?”
“Really nice. I mean, he’s a normal guy, not arrogant or anything. At the same time, he is who he is, obviously. And he really is cool about fan fiction.”
“Didn’t you send him your book? Which, by the way, you still need to send to me.”
“Yep. I was mortified about it, but he was really into the story. Even ...” He had to stop himself before he said anything about it being the eighth book in the series. Nothing should leak before contracts were signed. He trusted Vicki, but he also didn’t want to jinx it.
“Even what?”
“He even introduced me to his agent. She wants something original, but might offer representation. It’s all a bit overwhelming.”
“Holy shit. So are you going to sign?”
“First I’ll have to finish something. Axis Mundi kind of swallowed me whole these last few months. I feel like I have a book hangover.”
Vicki nodded wisely. “You’ll have to refresh the well.” She gave him a sly glance. “So, binge watching season one at my house next weekend?”
Normally he’d have jumped at it. Nothing was funnier than their group of offline and online local fans crammed into one living room to watch old or new episodes of the show—joking and catcalling and affectionately mocking or freaking out over the newest plot twist. With BYOB, and half of them on a budget, not to mention a sizeable number of them nondrinkers, the hilarity mostly came from having a pile of whip-smart young adults in the same room watching something they adored and trying to outdo each other with craziness. Afterward, Samir was usually hurting all over because he’d laughed so much.
But this weekend ... “I don’t know yet. Can I let you know short-term?”
She grinned. “I think somebody has other plans.”
“Uh ...” He muffled a cough. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Sweetie, it’s okay. If I had to choose between a room full of us and a bed full of him, I don’t think I’d have to give it much thought.”
“Good point. I just don’t know what his schedule is like yet.”
“Well, if you choose him over us,” Vicki said, “I promise I won’t take it personally. And I swear on the sanctity of the reference desk not to tell.”
“The reference desk has sanctity now?”
She shot him a pointed look. “Ask me that again next time I find some obscure fact for you in two seconds flat.”
“Touché.” He glanced at his watch. “So are you off work?”
“I am. Let me clock out, and I’ll join the rest of you degenerates.”
“Birds of a feather ...”
She glared at him, and then he headed over to the conference room. Everyone else had already settled in. The porcelain wolf-shaped piggy bank was perched in the middle of the table. Darren had his MacBook out and open, so he probably had a new story to read to the group. Amy and Jake were playing on their phones. Caleb and Mason were huddled around Mason’s laptop watching the deleted scenes from the Triple Moon Season 1 Special Edition Expanded Version Director’s Cut DVD. Not that Samir immediately recognized the scene or anything.
Heather was hunched over her weathered spiral notebook, furiously jotting lines in handwriting no one but her could ever decipher. Probably drafting an angry letter to the editor of this or that publication about how her last three letters had never been published. She was a talented writer, but goddamn, the girl could get angry over shit. She seriously needed to switch to decaf or something.
Vicki stepped in behind Samir and shut the door. As one, everyone except for Heather looked up, and immediately, they started taking out earbuds and putting away phones. Heather kept writing.
Samir pulled out a chair, and his ass had not even hit the cushion before Mason said, “So how’d it go meeting that dude from the forum?”
Samir didn’t even dare glance toward Vicki. “Oh, you know. We had coffee. Talked writing and Triple Moon.” He shrugged. “Nice guy.”
“You think he’ll come hang out with us?” Caleb asked.
“Uh, well.” Samir cleared his throat and dug through his bag in search of his notebook and a pen. “He’s, you know, got a lot going on. Works weird hours. Lives a long way from here.” And totally wrote the series we go all OMG OMG over every week. “I’ll keep working at him.” Samir almost choked. “At getting him to come.” Damn it. “To the group.” He set his notebook on the table. “So who’s reading this week?”
All heads turned toward Darren and his MacBook.
Darren grinned. He was the newest member, having joined just a couple of months ago, and reading his own work aloud excited him like it was show-and-tell at school. Samir couldn’t judge—he’d admittedly gotten a little jittery in the good kind of way before reading the first chapters of Axis Mundi in this room.
Everyone listened intently while Darren read his short story involving Raphael and his boss—who was by the book and smoking hot—on a road trip to sort out their differences. He was a pretty solid writer, and Samir loved his insight into the characters.
Except today, his mind was everywhere but here. So when his turn came to say something about the story, it was a somewhat embarrassing mélange of “What Vicki said” and “What Caleb said, just more of that” and he asked for a file so he could make some comments in the document itself later. By which point he’d hopefully be able to concentrate again.
Then everything dissolved into speculation of the next season and how close it would follow the book, or how certain subtleties may or may not make it onto the screen, and damn it, Samir felt like a pariah because he’d watched raw versions of the next few episodes. He knew too much. Whichever way he leaned, he might let something slip. He couldn’t even tell them that the next episodes were amazing, how Lyle Phelan was acting his heart out and really put Dima on the screen in ways that fans had been dreaming of.
Keeping that secret was hard, because he wanted to tell them and he was as excited about it as they were. And maybe the worst thing was, he couldn’t have told Anthony he didn’t want to see it (because damn, he had), and he couldn’t tell the group he’d seen it eight months in advance without blowing Anthony’s cover or making them all envious.
Okay, so this part sucked.
His phone buzzed just then in his pocket, and what if it was Anthony? If he looked, Heather would be able to see his screen from where she sat. And he had put Anthony’s number in under his real name rather than Ulfhedinn.
Better pretend nothing had happened and look at it once he’d excused himself to the restroom.
The phone buzzed again.
Damn. He leaned forward on his elbows, listening intently to a three-way discussion on the significance of certain symbols in Raphael’s background and whether they were intentional—Caleb had spotted a rusty ball and chain in an antiques sh
op in the last aired episode. Considering the biblical Raphael was the angel who had bound Azazel in the Book of Enoch, Caleb was certain the ball and chain was deliberate foreshadowing of one of the major revelations the character would be having in an upcoming episode. Vicki and Darren just thought it was a coincidence.
“Well,” Vicki said. “I just wonder how the show is going to handle that one interrogation scene. Where Dima convinces Raphael he’s innocent?” She pursed her lips. “Think Lyle Phelan can actually pull that off?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Darren said. “The dude’s gotta be an awesome actor if he can make me believe he’s pulling a fast one on Raphael.”
And the problem was that Samir already knew. Yes. Yes, Lyle definitely had the chops for it. He was fucking amazing as—
Buzz. Buzz.
“Somebody’s being persistent.” Amy raised an eyebrow and at the same time fished for her phone to check the screen. “Hiding from somebody?”
Vicki pressed her lips together as if struggling hard not to giggle.
“Oh. Um. No one.” Samir pulled out the phone and quickly silenced it, catching just enough of a glimpse of the screen to confirm it was indeed Anthony before he shoved it back into his pocket. “Probably my boss.”
Now Vicki seemed to be having an even more difficult time not laughing, and Samir almost face-palmed when he realized what she was thinking. Then she glanced at him, and as she burst out giggling, he rolled his eyes.
“What?” Heather glanced back and forth between us. “Is there something you two aren’t telling us?”
Vicki put both hands over her face, and even that didn’t stifle her squeaky laughter.
Samir glared at Vicki. “It’s nothing.”
“Sure it isn’t.” Mason peered at them over his laptop screen. “What exactly is going on, you two?”
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