Cover to Covers (18 page)

“I threw them out when he left. I never thought I’d want to be with a man again.”

He sat up in the bed next to her. “Why would you think that?”

“When Mat ended everything, I figured there was something wrong with me. I had decided that my life was going to be writing my books
, and any sex I did have was going to happen on my computer screen, and not in my bed.” She flopped back on the bed and let out a long sigh. “So I lived vicariously through my novels.”

He scooted down in the bed and curled against her. “I’m sorry I let you get away the first time. I should have come after you and then, perhaps, you might never have ended up with Mat.”

“But you’re here now.”

Tyler
enveloped her in his arms. “Yes, I am, and I want to stay, if you’ll have me.”

“What about your company, your life in Dallas?’

“It will keep for a little while. Right now, I want to concentrate all of my efforts on you.”

Monique
took a moment, and then slowly nodded. “All right, Ty. You can stay, for now.”

“That’s all I am asking for. All I want is a chance
, Moe.”

“And what if we fail again?”

He held her close and closed his eyes. “I would rather fail a thousand times with you than never take the chance.”

“That’s some line, Mr. Moore,”
she whispered beside him. “I might have to steal it and put it in one of my books.”

“It’s no line, Ms. Delome
. It’s the truth, even if it does sound like fiction.”

Chapter 1
3

Tyler was dreaming of being breathed on by a fiery dragon when he awoke with a start to find Bart sitting in the bed next to him. The dog’s long tongue was hanging out of his mouth and dripping saliva on Tyler’s bare chest.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tyler cried out.

Looking about the room, he set the dog on the floor. There was no sign of Monique, and the bright morning sun was still streaming in through his wide bedroom window. He climbed from the trundle bed, retrieved his wrinkled long-sleeved shirt from the floor, and shrugged it on.

Bart casually trotted out the open bedroom door and Tyler followed him, entertained at the way the dog waddled down the hall. When Bart
disappeared into Monique’s open bedroom door, Tyler went back to his closet and grabbed for a pair of casual blue pants.

Z
ipping up his fly, he stepped inside Monique’s room. He was surprised to see how feminine the room appeared, with pastel floral wallpaper and a matching floral bedspread of pale yellow and blue on the king-sized pine bed. The furniture was rustic and some of the pieces were unfinished. A round, pale blue rug covered most of the hardwood floor, while colorful paintings of countryside meadows decorated the walls.

As he
crept further into the room, he heard the sound of someone avidly typing away on a keyboard. A small sitting area to the left of the bedroom had walls covered with bookshelves that were crammed with an assortment of books and papers. In the corner, beside a picture window, was a small desk with a laptop computer, printer, and piles of blue sticky notes scattered about. Wearing only the T-shirt he had stripped from her earlier, Monique was riveted to the computer screen before her.

Impressed by the speed of her typing, Tyler moved closer to the desk. He waited for her to turn to him
, but she was so engrossed in her book that she did not even hear the floorboards moan as he walked into the cozy sitting room. However, when Bart stomped up to her desk and gave an insistent whine, she stopped typing.

Turning from her keyboard
, she petted the dog, and then beheld Tyler. “You fell asleep so I decided to get some work done.”

“You could have woken me.” He kissed her lips.

She gazed up into his face. “You looked so peaceful, I didn’t have the heart.”

“But you had the heart to leave Bart with me?
I woke up and found him in the bed next to me.”

“He usually sleeps in that bed during the day when I’m w
riting. I guess he figured he would share it with you.”

“What are you working on?”
He tried to read some of the page on the computer screen.

“
Something my publisher has been waiting for, but I haven’t quite finished it. After our morning together, I got some ideas for things to add to the book.”

Tyler
chuckled and leaned in closer to her computer screen. “I can only imagine what you are putting in there.” He pivoted his eyes to her. “About this morning…I meant what I said, about wanting a chance with you.”

“I know.” She
rested her hands on the keyboard. “If I didn’t believe you, I would have packed you up and shipped you off to a hotel.” She began typing again.

“I’m going to take a shower and make some calls while you work.”

“Just give me another hour, all right?”

He kissed her cheek. “Whatever you want, my Moe.”

Leaving her to her book, he went back down the hallway to his bedroom. Peeling the clothes from his body, he disappeared into his bathroom and turned on the hot water in the shower. While he was waiting for the water to warm, he reflected on their morning of lovemaking. Never would he have guessed that Monique would have been so receptive to his interests. Stepping into the shower, he thought ahead to the nights to come, and all the things he would do to her.

***

After a dozen phone calls, Tyler felt confident that all possible problems had been handled at Propel. Having fulfilled his duties with the company, he was free for a few hours to relax with Monique. When he walked into her bedroom, he found her still at her desk. Her eyes were scanning the computer screen in front of her.

“Hey, you about ready for some lunch?” he asked,
resting his hands on her shoulders.

She tilted her head back
, gazing up at him. “Yes, I’m starved, especially since I didn’t get to eat my breakfast.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You’ve been writing the whole time.”

“Just about. It’s almost done.” She stood from the chair and stretched.

Tyler d
elighted in the way her T-shirt rode up her thighs as she lifted her arms.“What’s this one called?”

She waved at the computer screen. “
I’m thinking of calling it
A Chance with You
.”

“I like it,” he a
dmitted with a nod of his head. “What’s it about?”

“A
couple that tried once to make a go at a relationship and failed. They meet up years later and fall for each other again.”

“Do they make it?”

She tossed her head to the side, avoiding his eyes. “I haven’t decided. Might be a more poignant love story if they fail, but it could have a happily ever after if they succeed.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms about her body. “I think all love might grow stale with time; perhaps the best love is the one that never gets realized. Maybe our minds can create a better ending for us than reality eventually gives us.”

“Do you feel that way about us? That things would have been better if we had spent the rest of our lives wondering ‘what if’ instead of where we are?”

“No, I prefer where we are but…I have to confess I’m nervous. We have over twenty years of expectations to either fulfill or not live up to. It’s a bit daunting.”

He put his arms about her waist.
“Moe, I don’t have any expectations, and neither should you. Let’s just enjoy what we have without bringing the past into it. Who we were is not who we are now.”

“But who we were has made us who we are. So how do you separate the two?”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Are you sure you’re not a psychologist instead of a writer?”

“Sometimes I think they are one in the same. All writers, no matter romance, horror, or comedy, analyze human nature in some form or another. After all, writers are observers. We just put what we see on paper, and leave it for others to interpret.” 

“You were always way too philosophical for me.” He shook his head, smiling. “I remember it used to take me at least two bourbons before I could even begin to keep up with you.”

“I seem to remember that after two bourbons you tended to be a lot less philosophical rather than more.
” Her eyes rolled with annoyance. “You also tended to get a lot more obnoxious.”

He inwardly cringed at the notion of how he used to be when he drank. Tyler had heard enough stories through the years from friends and his mother about how bad his drinking had been, but somehow when Mo
nique described it, she made him sound so much more pathetic.

“Allow me to begin to make amends by taking you to an extremely fancy restaurant for lunch and spending an exorbitant amount of money on you.”

She pulled away and walked back into her bedroom. “How ‘bout you buy me a root beer and a po-boy at this great little sandwich place I know, and we go to The Butterfly and eat them on the levee?”

“What’s The Butterfly?”

***

Standing on a
large embankment where Audubon Park met the bend of the Mississippi River, Tyler surveyed the park-like setting of “The Butterfly.” A levee located along the border rose fifty feet in the air, blocking the view of the Mississippi River beyond. After climbing to the top of the levee with their brown paper bags filled with shrimp stuffed po-boys, french fries, and two cans of Barq’s Root Beer, Tyler and Monique had a seat on the grass as a mammoth oil tanker maneuvered the tight curves of the muddy river.

“
This sure beats the hell out of sitting in a restaurant.” Tyler unfurled his well-wrapped sandwich and then popped the top on his can of root beer.

“I used
to love hanging out here when I was a teenager,” Monique confessed. “I’d skip out of class and come here with friends. We’d smoke and drink beer, thinking we were pretty cool for sixteen.”

He turned his dark eyes to her. “You
, a juvenile delinquent? I don’t see it.”

She shrugged
and freed her shrimp po-boy from its white paper wrapping. “I was bored throughout high school, except for my English classes. I always went to those.”

As
Tyler hoisted his jumbo sandwich to his lips, the aroma of freshly fried shrimp, ketchup, and mayonnaise hit his nose, making his mouth water. He attempted to open his mouth wide enough to take in a whole bite of the french bread and fried shrimp.

After several minutes of chewing, Tyler
put his sandwich on the white paper spread out before of him. “This should be illegal. It’s really good.”

Monique eyed her sandwich. “This is the real New Orleans. Not the fancy restaurants you read about in magazines, or the tourist-driven sights of the French Quarter. Po-boy lunches on the levee, snowballs on a street corner after school, beignets after a night of drinking, Camellia Grill breakfasts at
2 A.M., and pancakes at Rick’s on Canal Street when you are waiting for the sun to come up. That’s what I remember best about growing up here; places and, of course, the people.”

“I read in one of your books about a character
who attended a local college in the city. She was working on her degree in English but got sidelined by a doctor.” He stole a french fry from the paper carton next to him. “Is that what happened when you came back?”

She put her po-boy down and reached for her can of Barq’s Root Beer. “I was starting on my master
’s degree in English at Tulane when I met Mat. I was also teaching at a local high school.”

“I don’t remember you ever talking about teaching.”

She rolled the can between her hands. “I think I must have switched majors about three times at SMU. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. The only thing I liked was writing.” She took a gulp of her soda.

“
You never told me about the writing.” He gripped his can of root beer. “Why is that?”

“You were never interested in hearing about what I did, Ty. All
our conversations tended to migrate to you. When you were sober you wanted to know about me, but near the end you were drunk more than sober.”

After taking a sip
, he put his soda down. “Why on earth did you stay with me?”

She wrapped her hands around her sandwich.
“I liked you. You were more fun sober than drunk, and I hoped I would get to see you when you were sober, but even when you were drunk you were okay. You weren’t all hung up on image like most other guys I knew. I guess you were the most honest man I had met up until that point in my life.”

“And who was the next honest man you met?”

She took another bite from her po-boy. “Mat,” she mumbled, chewing on her food, and then swigged some root beer. “I thought he was charming and funny and…all the things you secretly hope for in a man.”

H
is eyes outlined her exquisite profile. “When did everything go bad?”