Monday morning starts with a bang.
Chloe accidentally slams the front door to the bookshop on her way in, an expensive handbag dangling on her arm. She pushes auburn hair back and gives Karli and me a winning smile.
“Hey! So sorry I’m late!”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. We’ve had a fair bit of traffic coming through, so there’s no rush.” Karli grabs the financial ledgers from behind the counter. “We’ll have to go through the books in the storage room. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” Chloe’s smile goes from professional to warm when she sees me. “Skye! You’re finally here when I’m here!”
I hug her. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Oh, likewise. It’s been far too long.” She leans back, running eyes over me assessingly in a way that reminds me why we’re friendly, but not friends. She’s always been a tad too critical. “You look good.”
“Thanks. So do you.”
“We’ll have to catch up after Karli and I have spoken. I want to know everything that’s new with you.”
She follows Karli into the storage room, chatting about numbers. We’d been lucky to get an accountant on such short notice, and I’d never heard a bad word about Chloe’s professional qualifications.
All the same, we’d need someone brilliant to sort through our expenses and newfound income to find a way to win the bet. I’d understood enough about bookkeeping to realize that looking profitable and being profitable weren’t necessarily the same thing. If we could reschedule some payments, cut down on expenses… well.
I sit by the register while Karli is gone, using the time between customers to work on our Instagram profile.
It’s really grown since Cole mocked it for only having twenty-seven followers. We’re up to nearly four hundred and counting, and we had the hundreds of articles I’d read on how-to-grow-your-Instagram to thank for that. Organic engagement. Outreach. Consistent posting. Hashtags.
Oh well. If Between the Pages fails, perhaps I have a future as the world’s least experienced social media consultant?
Two teenage girls come in around noon, giggling to one another. They straighten when they see me. “Hi there! Can I help you with anything?”
One of them steps forward. “Hi. Yes, please. We’re looking for, like, a book made out of hearts? As a window in a shelf?”
“No,” the other one says, “a heart made out of books.”
Excitement rushes through me. “Yes, we have that! It’s right down here…” I lead the way to the wall in between the reading room and contemporary fiction.
The first girl clears her throat. “Is it okay if we take pictures of it?”
“Of course! And,” I add, because I’ve learned something from all those articles, “don’t forget to tag us if you post it online.”
Both girls give me a smile. “We will.”
It’s a small thing—maybe a silly thing—but it makes me stupidly happy to see the bookheart working as I’d hoped. It’s part of the mystical charm of this place. What booklover could resist?
I return to the register and smile at the excited shrieks from the back, one of the girls instructing the other how to pose. Why hadn’t I made it earlier? It makes me want to text Cole. Take that, Porter. Profitability, here we come.
Or, perhaps more accurately, Thanks for helping me make it. It’s working.
I don’t send him either of them. He’s been gone for two days, which is no time at all, but it feels like an eternity. I’d gone twenty-six years without really good sex, and now that I’ve had it, I’m determined to keep having it.
I look over at the bookshelf of political classics. Machiavelli. Sun Tzu. Clausewitz. All of them dealt with power and enemies, with manipulation and subterfuge. I doubt they’d approve of sleeping with your enemy.
My eyes drift lower, to literary classics that are more daring. Protagonists who did crazy things—lived on the road, fought Greek gods, braved insurmountable odds.
I chose messy, I think. I wanted life experience. This is it. It’s exhilarating and difficult in equal measure.
And dangerous, especially as I sometimes have to remind myself of why we can’t last, of who he is—the person trying to turn Eleanor’s legacy into a shiny new hotel with plush carpeting and chandeliers. This is a mess entirely of my own making.
After work I treat myself to a bit of self-care. I close the fourteen internet tabs on my computer titled everything from How to save a small business to Create tote bags for your company! I pour myself a bath. I light candles. I turn on gravelly jazz, the old-school kind that makes me feel like I’m in a speakeasy wearing a bedazzled dress without a care in the world. For tonight, it’s exactly what I need.
No worrying about the future allowed.
The water is heavenly against my skin, dissolving both my worries and my sense. Cole is my release. My escape. My chance to do something I absolutely shouldn’t. He makes me feel wanted and alive, accepted on my own terms.
My phone is lying next to the bathtub, and before I lose my nerve, I dial his number.
“Skye?” His voice on the other line is surprised, but undeniably pleased, too. It gives me strength.
“Hey.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“No, not at all,” I say, bending a knee in the tub. Some water splashes out. “Does something need to be wrong for me to call you?”
“Of course not. Are you swimming?”
“I’m taking a bath.”
There’s a pause, and then his voice is back, dark and hoarse. “You’re calling me while you’re in the bathtub?”
“Yes. I was feeling a little out of sorts, but then I realized why. I haven’t told you that I hate you yet today.”
“Ah,” he murmurs. “You haven’t had your daily dose.”
“Exactly.”
I hear a door close, and then footsteps quickening. “Where are you?”
“Hotel,” he says. “I was in the lobby, but I’m heading to my room now.”
“Oh.”
There’s a faint electric beep, and then another door closing. “Tell me more about what you’re doing.”
“In the bath?”
“Yes.”
I slide deeper into the hot water, until only my shoulders and head are above the surface. “I’m almost entirely submerged.”
“Submerged, huh. That’s a good word.”
“It is. I’m your thesaurus with curves, remember?”
“Oh yes,” he says. “I remember.”
“Plus I’ve taken creative writing classes.”
“Mhm.” His voice sounds faintly strained. “Put them to good use for me and paint me a picture. Make me wish you were in my hotel bathtub.”
My cheeks are burning, and not just from the heat of the bathwater. Are we doing this? “All right,” I say. “My bathtub isn’t big, but it’s enough for me. My hair is up in a bun, but it’s slowly coming undone. I have a few candles lit.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The water smells like lavender. I added some oil. But no… well, there are no bubbles. None at all.”
Fabric rustles on the other end. I imagine him undoing a tie, lying back on the bed, his phone to his ear as he listens to me.
“Damn it, Skye. All I can think about is you naked in the bath right now.”
“Well, that would be a pretty accurate picture.”
“I want you to pinch your nipple.”
My breath catches in my throat, but I obey, sliding my hand down to do as he says. It rises between my fingers. “I wish it was your hand.”
His voice is heated. “It would be my teeth.”
“You know, nobody has played with my breasts as much as you do.”
“A crime,” he says, “that I very much enjoy correcting.”
My hand drifts lower, empowered by his words. “Are you in your room now?”
“Yes. I’m on my bed.”
I find the spot between my legs and circle. The water is oily and the motion practiced, need already pulsing. A soft moan slips out.
“Fuck. Put the phone on speaker, Skye. Touch yourself for me.”
And his voice… I circle faster, my breath quickening. “If you do the same?”
“It’s always a negotiation with you, isn’t it?”
“Always.”
Through the phone, I hear the distinct sound of a zipper being undone. My hand moves faster, circling, the pressure building. His breathing is heavy on the other end, the phone on speaker next to the tub.
“Talk to me,” I say. “I like your voice.”
It sounds like he’s smiling when he replies. “So you keep saying. All right. Are you touching your clit for me?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl. Slide your fingers further down, slip one inside for me.”
Dear God. I do what he says, a moan escaping me at the sensation. “I wish it was you.”
“My hand?” he asks. “Or my cock?” I sink deeper into the bathwater without responding, and a throaty laugh comes through the phone. “You’re blushing now. I can tell.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m so hard for you here, Skye. I want to fuck you so bad.”
My fingers are circling faster now, my breath coming in gasps and moans. It’s his voice. His words. The picture of him on his hotel bed, stroking himself, hard because of me.
“You are,” I say.
He growls. “Damn it. Tell me you’re close, don’t hold back, I can’t—”
“I’m close. I wish my fingers were your tongue. I wish you were inside me.”
“Oh baby, me too.”
I close my eyes at the endearment and flick my fingers back and forth. Pleasure starts deep inside, spreading to my stomach, my legs, my entire body. It’s too much. I moan, my body arching, my orgasm exploding through my senses like a tidal wave.
Through the phone, Cole groans loudly, cursing.
And then both of us are just breathing.
“Wow,” I murmur. “Are you still there?”
“Barely. Fuck. I should’ve taken off my shirt.”
My laughter is breathless. “That was so hot.”
“Beyond. I wish I was there, though. Fucking you in a bathtub is now high on my list of priorities.”
I glance down at my narrow little tub. Unlikely, although I’m sure he’d find a way to sex me senseless anyway. “So do I. My fingers are good, but they’re not you.”
He groans. “Don’t. If you keep talking, I’ll get hard again, and my dick is already sore from how hard I was stroking.”
“Famine. Disease. Thirty-seven times eight.”
Cole laughs, the sound rich and full in my small bathroom. “Thank you. Crisis averted.”
“Have you conquered the world yet?”
“Only half,” he says. “Some people resist my rule. Curious, that.”
I snort. “Put me in touch with their leader?”
“Rude.”
I sink deeper into the warm water, my body feeling languid and loose. “Two girls came into the bookstore today. They wanted to take a picture of the bookheart.”
There’s a pause, long enough that I wonder if I’ve ruined everything by mentioning the store. It’s the reason we’ll only ever be casual, after all.
But then he laughs. “You’re feeling pretty good about that, I’m sure.”
“Yes. I think the word is ‘vindicated.’”
“That’s a good one,” he says. “You have an eye for that sort of thing, Skye.”
I have no idea what to say to that. “Is the weather nice in LA?”
“It’s always nice. But I’ve been in back-to-back meetings, so no chance of enjoying it, I’m afraid.”
“Poor little developer.”
“The poorest,” he agrees, a smile in his voice. “So tonight I was your booty call, as you so flatteringly put it?”
I want to protest, but when I open my mouth to, they all fall flat. He’s right. “Yes,” I admit. “I’m happy you picked up.”
“I’m happy I was the one you called.”
There is no one else, I want to say. But that would reveal more than I’d want to. “Honored is the right word,” I say.
“All right.” His voice is teasing. “Honored.”
There’s a knock on his end, audible even on the phone. “Damn it, I need to go.”
“Take care,” I say, and regret it immediately. What was I doing? Signing off an email?
“Later, Skye.”
The phone call ends and I sink further into the bath, and then further still, until my head is under the water. It seems like an accurate description of how I’m feeling—in way over my head.
The next morning, there’s a delivery to the bookstore. Skye Holland, the packet says. Fragile.
Karli is on the phone when it arrives, and I quickly carry it out to my car and away from her eyes. My suspicion is confirmed when I tear up the cardboard, too eager to wait.
It’s a box filled to the brim with bath salts, bath bombs, bubbling bath oil. It smells like Bath & Body Works on steroids. And below it, a small bullet vibrator. Water-friendly, it says on the box in pink letters.
I want to sink through the ground. I want to open the box and test it.
And attached, a small handwritten note.
Booty call me all you like.
