James.
Yes, that James.
My palms itched, my heart pounded loudly enough for a librarian to complain about the noise.
He had his backpack on his shoulder and a pile of books in his hand. Not here for kisses. Here to read. Here to do work, like me.
He sat down. “There’s something about being around so many books when you’re literally inside one, you know?”
I nodded. I did know. Sometimes it felt impossible to be around so many words and wonder if mine might make their way to print and be placed on a shelf, too, and sometimes it felt comforting, almost like I was being hugged by all the brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles of the book that came before the one in my hand.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
I held it up so he could see. “It’s for my Contemporary Fiction 201 class.”
“Scandalous.” He smiled. “That’s far more diverse than Professor Dylan’s choices.”
“That was the plan,” I replied.
He leaned back in his chair so I could see him between the study carrels. “I love libraries,” he said, “but these feel like jail. Like those visiting areas in jail.”
“Then why did you sit here?” I asked.
“I guess to see why you are,” he said, his hands on his thighs. “I mean, you didn’t seem the study-carrel type.”
“Really?” I asked, lengthening the word. “What type am I?”
His brown eyes glided over me, considering. “I’d say definitely a lounging in one of the beanbags in the children’s area type.”
“Does the UM library have a children’s area?”
“No, but if it did I think you’d be there.”
Our conversation was making me light-headed—the back and forth, the high-voltage air between us, the want behind each word. “I guess there are a lot of things about me you wouldn’t expect,” I said.
So many more than he even knows.
I couldn’t believe he hadn’t mentioned the kiss yet. I guess we really were pretending nothing had happened between us.
Wait, isn’t that what I want?
“The author we can’t live without probably wouldn’t like to hear you were reading in a study carrel,” James said.
“The author we can’t live without isn’t teaching a class, a discussion section, taking a class of her own, and writing.” And writing as Candy, dealing with all Candy’s promo, and flirting with you.
Even though I shouldn’t be flirting with you.
“Because he’s dead,” he said, laughing. “I doubt he’d be reading at all.”
“Haven’t you ever seen that Borges quote about heaven being a kind of library?” I replied.
James’s face got serious, letting the meaning of the words fill him. “Maybe he is reading.”
“Probably more than I am at the moment,” I said, holding up my closed book.
“Sorry.” He turned from me and opened Lolita. “Let’s read.”
“You’re going to stay here?”
“Sure,” he said. “I want to see how the other half lives.”
I couldn’t help watching him settle in. He pulled a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses out of his bag and slipped them on. As if he could have gotten any hotter.
We spent an hour sitting next to each other reading. Just the sound of our breathing, of our highlighters squeaking and pens scratching, of pages turning as softly as the sound of leaves falling. Mutually floating in a beautiful silence until the library was about to close.
We walked out together and into as hot and sticky a Miami night as I’d ever experienced.
It was hard to even breathe.
“I’m too wound up to sleep,” James said, his tousled brown hair haloed by the campus safety light behind him.
I was, too. I’d been sitting in place for hours. “What’d you have in mind?”
“How about a swim?” he asked, his eyebrows rising deliberately.
“I don’t have a bathing suit with me,” I replied.
“I said a swim.” He smiled. “Not a skinny-dip.”
“Right, like I said.”
I watched his face, the side of his mouth curling up as he considered. “You’re wearing a tank top and underwear, right?”
I thought quickly. What underwear am I wearing? Please don’t be granny panties; please don’t be a thong.
“Yeah,” I answered. Phew, plain black bikini briefs.
“Abracadabra.” His hands came together like cymbals. “I just made you a bathing suit.”
“The pool has to close before the library does,” I reasoned. I didn’t know for sure though, especially at a school that had an outdoor on-campus pool.
“There’s a four-foot fence around it. If we can’t break in, I shouldn’t be allowed to refer to a study carrel like it’s jail.”
“Won’t we get in trouble?” I asked. I had to. Hanging out with him, I was already breaking one rule. Allowing myself to enjoy it, I was breaking an even scarier one.
“Not if we don’t get caught,” he said, starting to jog. “Come on.”
Doing this, we were practically begging to get caught, but the irony wasn’t enough to stop me.
I followed after him, my bag slapping my side as I ran. It felt like when I was on his motorcycle, the same sweet freedom; my feet pounding, my body flying, everything around me alive, the excitement inside me an instrument James knew how to play to perfection.
I was out of breath when we reached the Olympic-sized swimming pool. The water was lit from small lights the size of cruise ship windows and as perfectly blue as a jewel. Chlorine filled the air around us—a smell that says pool. A smell that always felt weirdly reassuring because you knew exactly where you were.
“Tell me that does not look awesome,” he said, holding his hands out like he’d made it himself.
I couldn’t, because it did.
“Now,” he said his face below his nose all smile, “we swim.”
He jumped over the fence easily and held his hand out to help me. I took it and vaulted myself over. When we were both safely inside, we put our bags down on the white concrete.
“Last one in is a rotten plagiarizer,” James joked, taking his shirt off and laying it on one of the chaise lounges.
He ran the length of the pool to the diving board with the exhilaration of a little boy. Though his movements were all boy, his body was all man—all ridiculously arousing man. James bounced, once, twice, three times, into a flawless, splash-free dive. He swam underwater until he reached the middle of the pool and popped up. I watched him swim in place, half his perfect body above the water, the other half below.
My clothes still on, I walked out onto the diving board and sat with my toes dangling over the edge. It was as warm as bathwater, as clear as the cloudless sky above us.
“You did not come all the way here and jump the fence to chicken out now,” he said, cupping water in his hands and slicking his hair back.
“I’m not chickening out, I’m soaking.”
“Your toes,” he said, the water around him moving as smoothly as if a breeze were pushing it as he swam in place.
“So? They’re hot, too.”
“You are not allowed to sit on a diving board and not jump in. It’s just wrong.”
“Like reading in a study carrel wrong?”
He frowned, an adorable I am never not going to call you on your bullshit frown.
I pushed the diving board down with all my weight so it bounced. “I’m not sitting, I’m considering.”
“Candice, I’m saying this in a completely nonsexual way, but you have one minute to take your pants off, or I’m pulling you in.”
“Just like a man, always in a rush to get naked,” I teased.
“I’m starting to count,” he said.
“You wouldn’t.”
He started to swim toward the diving board. “You really want to tempt me?” he asked.
Candy help me, I do.
I stood up, took my pants off, and jumped in. The water surrounded me like a cocoon. And with that metaphor, it became decision time. I was Candice when I went down. Could I let all her fear go and be like one of Candy’s characters when I burst up? Let myself do and enjoy whatever James was about to offer?
I broke the surface, James bobbing in the water next to me.
“Now this is why I left New York,” he said.
“Is it?”
“It is right now,” he said, moving to float on his back. “And at least for right now, right now is all that matters.”
I laughed. “You and your beat poet, Zen mumbo jumbo.” I could feel the water on my eyelashes.
“Lay back and tell me you don’t feel great right now.”
I joined him, floating. The warm water holding me like millions of tiny fingers, the starry sky above watching me like millions of tiny eyes, James floating next to me like someone I could like and who could like me.
It was almost enough to forget we shouldn’t be doing any of this. It was almost enough to forget Candice’s unspoken rule.
“Fine,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s not mumbo jumbo.”
“Maybe?” he asked. “As a writer, I demand you to come up with a better word.”
“Possibly?” I tried.
“Bush league,” he spit.
“Hey, I don’t have my thesaurus handy,” I said, indicating my tank top and underwear.
“How about perchance?” He smiled.
I shook my head. “You’ve been reading too much Ulysses.”
He swam closer to me. “I would ordinarily try to kiss you right now, but we’re on campus,” he said, continuing the fantasy of the two of us just being together without the complications of being the two of us.
Here it was—the kiss conversation. I guess it was impossible to deny there was something happening between us. Whether he finally said it or not, I could feel it. My whole body was begging for him, pleading on its knees.
“What about any of this is ordinary?” I asked. We were floating side by side. Toe-to-toe, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek. I could have ducked underwater. I could have run out of the pool, or away. There was a whole world I could have put between us if I wanted to, but instead I hovered there waiting to see what he would do next. Waiting to see what I would do next.
“The part where we are supposed to stay away from each other,” he said, turning to me. His lips were so close, waiting for mine to connect, to make a choice, to show him I could make a choice.
“I’ve been thinking about revising that rule,” I said, the words out before I could stop them.
“Ooh, revision. We going to take a red pen to this relationship?” he asked his breath as warm as the water on my face.
I shrugged. I couldn’t respond. I’d already said too much. It was easier to write the words, easier to hide behind silence. Confessing my real feelings for James would only do one thing—get me hurt. Sure, he wanted to kiss me now, to be with me now, but that would change. I would never let myself be in a situation like that again.
“I think I’m going to get out.” I swam to the wall, climbed up the stairs, and sat on the edge with my legs dangling in the water.
James swam over to me. “It’s too bad we can’t be together,” he said, his face parallel to my wet knees, “because this gives me some ideas.”
Droplets from his hair pinged against the surface. He exhaled so close to my thighs it felt like each freckle on my skin was the result of a lightning strike.
Maybe I could leave Candice behind and just be like one of Candy’s characters. Why couldn’t James and I have a purely physical relationship? It was clear my Miami life was sorely, or not so “sorely,” lacking in that department, and after drinks with Professor Dylan, it appeared James could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.
“What kind of ideas?” I wanted to know what they were, badly, but could I go through with them?
“Not the kind a student should be thinking about his teacher,” he said.
All I could think was, The hell with us being student and teacher, but we were in public. Campus public. In a public place we weren’t even supposed to be, where being caught as student and teacher would be something everyone would find out about.
I could see the realization hit him, too.
Candy might say lust was the most powerful emotion, but Candice knew it had nothing on fear.
“Maybe another time,” he said, pulling himself up and out of the water. He dried himself off quickly. “You okay getting home?”
“Yeah,” I said, but I didn’t want to go home. I wished James’s breath was still hot on my thighs, wished he had told me to lean back so he could give me something I would definitely remember.
“Thanks for understanding,” I added, dizzy from the unanswered desire between us.
He nodded. “It’s better if I leave, for both of us.”
Logically, sure, but it didn’t feel that way.
I watched him put on his shirt, grab his bag, and jump back over the fence.
Maybe another time.
Chapter Thirteen
It was Mandy who had convinced me to go to Eroticon—America’s largest erotica writers and readers convention. It was in Miami that year.
“If it were any closer, it would be lying next to you in bed, licking you,” she had said.
Last night, that could have been James’s job.
I hoped I might work up the courage to hire him for a permanent position, but that day was all about working up the courage to be Candy.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go—far from it—but I went to school in this city.
Like I said, they didn’t teach Writing Erotic Romance 101 at the University of Miami, or on any college campus, but apparently they did teach it at Eroticon, along with workshops on writing BDSM and “Anal-Play Prose.” Those topics were literally a little deeper than I’d gone yet down the erotic-fiction rabbit hole, but legitimately something if I wanted to stay current in the market, I needed to at least know about.
“Candy can learn and Mandy can yearn,” she had said.
Even though it was doubtful anyone from UM would be there, I insisted that Mandy and I attend in disguise.
“Sexy disguise?” she had implored.
This explained why the two of us were in corsets, tight black skirts, fishnets, spiked high heels, and ass-length white-blond wigs as we entered the Miami Beach Convention Center. On any other day we would have looked like discarded back-up dancers for Robin Thicke—when they were wearing clothes—but today we looked like most of the other women surrounding us who had chosen to dress up. Picture the superhero, sci-fi, and monster costumes from Comic-Con gone Triple X. Light on the fabric and heavy on the cleavage.
In disguise, I was really going to get to be Candy. No more hiding behind an online avatar. Though I guess I was still hiding behind seven inches of bleached horsehair.
“Where did you buy these wigs?” I asked, itching my scalp.
“The store,” Mandy said, laughing. “Hey, I was working under a budget and these corsets were expensive.”
I looked down at my chest, my breasts reined in tight. “At least you didn’t skimp there.”
We headed to the lobby to get our badges and welcome packets, which included a black tote that said: Get your Erotic On, in bloodred ink. It was filled with sexy books, swoony bookmarks, and a few sex toys. Things I recognized and a few things I would have to ask Mandy about later.
I pushed a tiny blue vibrator deep in my bag as a pack of insanely hot guys with their shirts off walked past us.
Cover models in the flesh. In the, I could reach out and squeeze their biceps the size of a tree-trunk flesh.
“Candy,” Mandy said, grabbing my hand, “this is my Xanadu. This is where I belong.”
When I pulled the badge that read Candy Sloane, Author over my neck I felt it, too, but in a completely different way. Sure, the hot guys and free hot books were nice,
but this was where I had always wanted to be, what I had always wanted—to be able to call myself an author, a reallive author.
Mandy turned to me. The look in her eyes illustrating she was almost as proud as I felt. “Let’s get you some much-needed applause,” she said, “and me some much-needed cover-model ass.”
We headed into the convention hall. It was bursting with booths covered with the same things that filled our bags. It looked like Mandy’s Kindle App had exploded—one of Candy’s favorite words, used in a way she unexpectedly liked.
“Candy Sloane coming through, Candy Sloane coming through,” Mandy yelled in the same high-pitched squeal someone might use to announce a pregnant woman entering an emergency room. She was determined to birth me some new fans.
A few people turned to look at me, but then turned back when they realized they had no idea who I was. I didn’t feel bad about being unknown. I was around thousands of Candy Sloanes, and being here with them and being able to admit I was a Candy Sloane felt pretty damn good.
“You don’t have to do that,” I whispered.
“Sure I do. Your fans are looking for you.”
“How do you know?”
“I might have announced you’d be here on a few Goodreads groups.” She smiled slyly.
“Mandy.”
“What?” she asked innocently. “Someone had to. I knew you wouldn’t bother to post it on your blog.”
“I never post to my blog.” It was true. I loved talking with readers online, but talking at them was something I hadn’t quite mastered. My blog felt a lot like an overnight maxi-pad. Something I needed but didn’t want; a necessary evil. Add on that I rarely posted, and it even bothered me in the same needling way on a monthly basis.
“Exactly.” She smiled, putting her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and repeating, “Candy Sloane coming through.”
Before I could ask how many Goodreads groups she’d posted to, someone tapped my shoulder.
“You’re Candy Sloane, the author of Couch Surfer?” The woman looked down at my badge to confirm. She appeared to be in her thirties and was dressed like she was about to spend the day at the mall.
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