Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (4 page)

“What was that? You two got a thing going?”

Jonathan looks surprised. “What? No! I just try to be nice to her. I think she thinks all guys are dicks and I’m just trying to show her there’s an alternative. Why? Are you jealous?”

Ruby rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. Whatever.”

Jonathan shoots me a defeated glance before downing a third of his pint in one gulp. Then he tries to hide the inevitable deep burp.

“I think it’s nice of you, Jonathan,” I say. “Laura could probably use an ego boost. Just don’t give her the wrong impression, or you will be a dick.”

Jonathan shrugs. “There’s no winning with women is there?”

I shake my head. “Consider yourself lucky if you come out even.” I hold up my glass in a mock toast and swallow some of the cool, amber ale.

The door to Mick’s opens and Ruby perks up, looking around my beacon-ness to see who’s arriving. It’s only a small group of students, though they look sort of familiar. Were they at the reading, too? Yes, I see one of them carrying a book just like the one Ruby foisted on me.

“I bet he’ll get here any minute,” says Ruby, cheering herself up after the door swings shut.

“What makes you so sure he’ll even find the place?” I say. “I was three months into my sophomore year before I found Mick’s.”

“That’s because you did nothing more than draw in your sketchbook. Until you met me. At least I got you out once in a while. It’s still a chore, you know.”

“You make me sound like a recluse instead of just focused.” I take another sip of my beer.

“Focused? You’re practically obsessive.”

“Am not. I read somewhere that you need to log 10,000 hours to get good at anything. I’m just putting in my time.”

“Ugh, sounds like a lifetime. Just remember other parts of your life need time too.”

We order a second round and talk about our dreams of getting out of this small college town and moving to New York, Ruby for writing, me for art. Jonathan has another year of study to get his architecture degree. He’s thinking of finishing that up at a different college but hasn’t decided which. I think he’s waiting to see where Ruby ends up so he can apply to a school wherever that is.

Halfway through my second beer, I’m sure of one thing: Logan O’Shane isn’t going to show up. He has better things to do than hang out with dreamy college students. Plus it must get exhausting giving readings, and weathering the questions, and all the mushy adoration. I can barely imagine the weariness of literary fame. If it were me, I’d be dying to get back to work. Which reminds me of my early morning studio time.

“I think I’m going to get going,” I say.

Ruby flicks a desperate glance at the pub door. “Already?”

“It’s been almost 45 minutes. He’s not coming,” I say. Jonathan’s right about Ruby’s inability to face big parts of reality. I don’t admit that I’m a little disappointed, too. As much as Ruby doesn’t want to face parts of reality, I want some parts of it to jump out and surprise me. Logan O’Shane did that tonight, I realize, but I doubt it can happen again.

“I don’t mind staying for one more beer,” says Jonathan. He lifts his arm and waves in Laura’s direction.

“Forget it,” says Ruby. “Ava’s right. He’s not coming. Stay if you want, Jonathan.”

“Reduced to chopped liver once again,” mutters Jonathan.

Laura sidles up to our table.

“I guess we’ll just take the check,” says Jonathan.

“Sure,” says Laura, reaching into the pocket of her apron that stretches taut across her wide Botticelli hips. I try to catch her eye but she avoids looking in my direction.

Ruby digs into her purse to pull out a few bills. As she does, we hear a voice. Slow, deep and languid, it is unmistakably
his
.

“So, did I miss all the fun?”

Logan O’Shane emerges from behind Laura and tosses his Fedora onto the booth’s headrest. He peruses the semi-circular bench, as if trying to decide which side to add himself too.

Jonathan doesn’t move to make room on his side of the booth, but he gives Ruby a smug smile as he says, “We’ll take three more pints, Laura. Mr O’Shane, what are you drinking?”

“Glenlivet. Straight up.”

Laura nods and moves away. Logan’s eyes have roved from Jonathan on one side, over to Ruby in the middle, and finally to me, in my beacon position across from Jonathan. Apparently, Logan didn’t need a beacon at all; he seems to have a nose for the scent he’s trying to locate. I shift closer to Ruby, so he can sit beside me, and he does.

I feel so strange all of a sudden. The languidness of Logan’s voice, with his first few words, have done something to my insides. I feel deliciously relaxed yet as alert as a pointer hound before the hunting bugle sounds. The combination makes for a dizzy numbness that I want to attribute to the beer. I’m aware of Ruby’s bristling, excited energy on one side of me and Logan’s potent aura of sexual confidence on the other. I feel as if I’m turning to Jello in the middle. I stare dumbly at Jonathan, who stares back, quizzically, as if I’ve just turned a queer shade of green. Ruby’s babbling about the great reading and how she can’t believe that Logan came to meet us tonight and how excited she is that he bothered to travel up from New York, and blah, blah, blah. Her words roll over and past me to Logan, whose nods and thank you’s and I’m looking forward to its swim through me like a cool, moonlit river.

Are you okay?
mouths Jonathan. I blink, unable to rein in my idiot smile, until Laura returns with the drinks and I can lunge forward and drown my lips in my pint. Logan and Ruby finish their pleasantries behind my back as I gulp. Then I feel the inevitable burp and can do nothing but cover my mouth and convulse as mildly as possible until the impulse passes.

Logan reaches his long fingers around his glass, swirls the insides, and then lifts the drink to his lips. Nice ones. Nice lips. Yes. I look away, take another gulp from my glass, and hear Logan sigh with satisfaction just before his glass clicks back to the table. He leans back into the booth. I feel his weight shift, his body opens up a bit, and then his thigh presses lightly against mine as he relaxes. I try to shift over toward Ruby but my leg seems magnetically attached to Logan’s. When I don’t move (not for lack of trying), he settles in a little closer, and the heat of him—or is it all me?—warms up everything under the table, at least where I sit.

“So who didn’t think I’d show up?” says Logan, glancing around the table.

Jonathan’s eyes bounce between me and Logan and then back to Ruby.

“Ruby here was all hope and starry eyes,” he says to Logan.

“Let me guess,” says Logan turning to me with a smirk on his scotch-scented lips. “You didn’t think I’d make it?”

I shrug, playing it cool. “Oh, I didn’t really care either way.”

He raises an eyebrow. Ruby steps in and tries to apologize for me, but Logan just grins at me and says,

“It’s fine. Honestly, your indifference is refreshing.” His leg presses a little closer to mine and I feel anything but indifferent in this moment. I swill back a bit more beer.

He turns to include Jonathan and Ruby. “Usually I evoke the strong emotions. Love. Hate. Gets a bit tiring.”

What I find tiring is his cocky self-assuredness.

“You don’t try very hard do you?” I say.

He turns to me again, his green eyes slightly narrow. “What makes you think that?”

“You have everyone eating out of the palm of your hand and you don’t even care what you’re feeding them.”

I feel a shin kick under the table. I flick a glance at Ruby, who’s pleading at me with her eyes to not be a bitch to her literary hero. Why does he seem to invite bitchiness?

“What she means,” says Ruby. “Is that it was a great reading and
everyone
loved it.”

Logan dons a charming smile. “You’re a gem for trying to cover for your friend here, but she’s already told me you practically forced her to come to the reading.” Before taking another sip of his scotch he glances at me and adds, “Makes me wonder what else a person could force you to do.”

Did he just wink at me? I roll my eyes at Ruby, but she’s practically gaping. When Jonathan throws out a reference to Logan’s latest book, eliciting an explanation about sand dunes and water conservation, Logan leans forward, elbows on the table, to answer him. Ruby pulls me back against the booth and whispers,

“He is totally hitting on you. Why can’t you just be nice?”

I have a strong sense that Logan’s kind of ‘hitting’ might actually leave bruises. “If he can’t be nice, why should I?” I whisper back to Ruby.

“Compare him to those fawning juniors and seniors and tell me who you’d rather tackle under the sheets.”

“Reality check, Rube. We’re only
having a drink
.” Now it’s her turn to roll her eyes at me, but I’m not about to let her know that I’m starting to feel all hot and bothered sitting next to Logan. He isn’t about to find out either.

“You know what drinks can
lead to
,” she says. “I’m just saying if I were in your position…”

“Do you want to change seats?” Though I worry I might not get my leg to detach from Logan’s.

Jonathan cottons on to our whispers and tries to draw us into the conversation.

“Ruby, didn’t you say that passage where the couple fights in the dunes and then has gritty, sandy make up sex was the most unbelievable part of the story?”

Ruby’s attention whips to Jonathan as she turns beet red and tries to explain herself to Logan, whose eyes twinkle with amusement. No doubt Jonathan experiences a shin kick, if not two.

“I just said I would have reacted differently, that’s all. But I don’t have Jezebel’s character history and motivations. It fit the story, of course. It was
brilliant
really.” She directs this last bit at Logan.

“Quote,” says Jonathan, his fingers tickling the air to illustrate the word, “‘No woman in their right mind would take it in the ass after being abandoned in sand dunes for two days.’ End quote.”

Jonathan glugs back his beer and waves for another.

Ruby is fuming, I’m now wondering what in the world that book is about, and Logan is laughing as he says,

“Just to be clear, I never claimed Jezebel was in her ‘right mind’.”

“So all your
books
 are about fucking, too?” I say.

He stops laughing and, clearing his throat, feigns seriousness. “
Life,
my dear, is all about fucking. Either you’re trying to fuck someone, they’re trying to fuck you, or fuck
with you
, or you’re trying to avoid one of the three.”

I shake my head at his dumb philosophy. “That’s inane. And cold. And unbelievably depressing.”

“But true.” He leans toward me to whisper something and I inhale that musky cologne-tinged scent of his. “Let me give you an example. Take these two,” he says, his intense green eyes lifting briefly toward Jonathan and Ruby, who are bickering once again. “He’s trying to fuck her. She’s trying to avoid it. So now he’s trying to fuck
with her
, stupidly involving me, by the way, and she’s doing her best to fuck me. I mean it’s pretty clear to me that she’d like to.”

He leans back—taking his delicious scent with him—and looks all cocky and confident again.

Ruby turns away from Jonathan and smiles broadly at Logan.

“Sorry about that. He knows how much I l
oooo
ve your books. I would seriously do
anything
to be able to write like that. With such harsh power and intensity. I
really
wish you were our writer in residence this year.”

Logan sips his scotch. “You just might get your wish.”

Ruby furrows her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Your Dean just invited me to take the position. It seems Kari Anadonapolous had to back out last minute due to a family emergency.”

“What?? No way! You’d
do
that? You’d take the position?” Ruby is practically bouncing in her seat. No, not practically. She
is
bouncing.

“I’m considering it.” He looks away from Ruby and finds my eyes. “Might be good to get out of New York for a bit. Take in some new scenery, find some new sources of inspiration.”

He holds my gaze and I feel a blush brewing so I look down into my beer glass. My chest feels tight and my knees are shaking slightly, even though I’m sitting down.

“You must have more important things to do than hang out at a small town college,” I say into my beer.

“The most important thing I have to do is write my next novel and so far I’ve been getting nothing done in Soho.”

“No way!” says Ruby again, sounding like she’s twelve. “You’ll write your next novel
here
?” Her eyes are buggy.

“I’ll run the idea by my agent. I don’t think he’ll mind.”

“Your agent… Wow…” Ruby is lost in Logan’s self-importance.

He reaches for something inside in jacket. “I’m going to step outside for a smoke.”

“Are you coming back?” says Ruby a little desperately.

He winks at her. “Order me another drink and I’ll be back.”

As Logan slides out of the booth it feels as if he takes half my body heat with him.

“Wow,” says Jonathan once he’s gone. “He’s taken literary asshole to a whole new level.”

“
Jealous
,” says Ruby in a singsong voice.

“
Delusional
,” says Jonathan mimicking her and adding a twirling finger around his ear to imply her craziness.

Ruby lets out an exasperated sigh and I can tell from her body language that she’s winding up to give him another piece of her mind.

“I’m heading to bed,” I say, interrupting the tirade. I slip along the curve of the booth over Logan’s warm spot.

“No!” says Ruby, grabbing my arm.

“It’s fine, Ruby. He’s noticed you. My work here is done. He said he’d be back if you order him another drink.”

Laura starts to drift over. I glance at Jonathan, whose eyelids look heavy as he sucks the dregs of his third (or is it fourth?) pint.

“I’d cut this one off if I were you, Laura,” I say, which forces her to acknowledge me. She gives Jonathan another wary look. Maybe those are the only looks she’s capable of.

“What if he just wanders away, or follows you home?” says Ruby.