Too Soon For Love (34 page)

“No, and I won’t.”

“Because …”

“Because he doesn’t feel the same way. Because I don’t want to look that desperate. Because he’s with someone. Take your pick.” Alan slipped around the desk and sat down.

“I don’t know about that.”

“Which part?”

“Any of it. Well, except the not looking so desperate part.”

Patrick leaned an elbow on the counter. “He’s doing a book signing on Friday in Rehoboth. Nice place, Rehoboth. You ever been?”

“No.”

“It’s very gay friendly too. You should check it out.”

“What are you doing?” Alan asked.

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“Me? Nothing. I’m just saying, you could drive down to Rehoboth on Friday, have a nice crab dinner, maybe go to a book signing. You like to read, don’t you?”

“I’m working this Friday.”

“You do get personal days, you know. I’m not a slave-driver.”

Alan grinned. “What are you, a
yenta
?”

Patrick laughed. “Just trying to help. And the correct Yiddish word is
shadchen
not yenta. A yenta is just a really talkative woman.”

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

“Only on my mother’s side, which in my family is the only side that really matters.”

“Huh, so I almost had myself a nice Jewish doctor. If only I’d known.”

Patrick laughed and slapped a palm on the countertop. “Quit trying to change the subject.”

“What subject?”

But before Patrick could answer, the phone rang and the door to the clinic opened.

Thank goodness. Alan picked up the phone. “Dr. Somers’s office. This is Alan. How can I help you?”

This was such a stupid idea. How the hell had he let Tommy and Patrick talk him into driving to Rehoboth to attend Michael’s signing? Because it was what he’d wanted to do all along, that’s how. So why was he sitting in a cafe across the street drinking seven dollar lattes instead of inside the bookstore?

Good question.

Alan sipped his third mocha latte and watched through the cafe’s front window as a young male couple, walking hand in hand, approached the bookstore, pulled open the door and went inside.

Coward, anyone?

Yep, right here, he was the coward, all right. And he couldn’t say exactly why he was reluctant to cross the street and join the gathering crowd who waited for Michael’s reading to begin. It wasn’t like he’d have to talk to Michael if he didn’t want to. Hell, it wasn’t like Michael would even have to know he was there unless he chose to speak to him. Definitely cowardly.

Making up his mind, Alan stood, pulled on his jacket and left the cafe. Too much caffeine had his nerves jangling as he crossed the street and approached the bookstore’s entrance. He opened the door and was greeted by the quiet tinkle of wind chimes and the mingled scents of coffee, paper and ink.

Alan paused just inside the entrance and absorbed the ambiance of the place. The shop was cozy and welcoming.

Warm and well lit, it gave the impression of a place that tried for neatness and order but couldn’t quite manage it thanks to the well-loved jumble of new and used books covering every surface. An old-fashioned cash register sat on a glass counter that displayed a collection of what looked like antique letter openers, some of them quite fancy and none marked with a price.

“Hello, and welcome.” A tiny, white-haired woman in a
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purple caftan and yellow clogs appeared from around the end of a bookcase and held her hand out to Alan. “I’m Martha Z. and I’m so glad you could make it. We’re just about to have a reading, if you’d care to join us?”

“I’d love to. That’s why I’m here. My name is Alan. It’s nice to meet you.” Alan took the offered hand. Despite the fact that her hand was no bigger than a child’s, Martha’s grip was firm. “Is this your store?”

“It is.” Rather than releasing him, she kept his hand in hers.

“Come with me. There’s just enough time for me to introduce you to the author before we begin the reading.”

“That isn’t necessary.” Alan tried to free himself, but her grip was like iron and he had no choice but to follow docilely along in her patchouli-scented wake.

A little desperately he asked, “By any chance, is there a bathroom I can use?”

Oh, he was the worst kind of chicken shit. But hey, desperate times and all that.

“Of course, but you’ll have to hurry. We’re nearly ready to begin.”

She pointed him through a maze of bookshelves to the back of the shop. He thanked her and made his escape.

After taking care of business, he joined a crowd of around thirty people waiting for the reading to begin. Some chatted in pairs or small groups, some sipped from blue and white mugs emblazoned with the store’s logo, while others paged through books they had either brought with them or taken from the shelves.

In the middle of it all, Michael sat with his dog at his feet and a machine on his lap. Alan remembered seeing him use that same machine at the house. It was a laptop with a Braille display instead of a screen.

Michael’s thick dark hair was pulled back in a short tail. He wore black jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt made of some silky too soon FoR Love
287

gray material that clung to his chest and arms, reminding Alan of the sculpted muscles and smooth olive-toned skin underneath. A pair of his customary dark glasses, these with blue-tinted lenses, concealed his eyes.

God, he looked incredible. Relaxed and happy and just …

Well, incredible.

Martha clapped her hands, breaking into Alan’s reverie. “All right, everyone, please take a seat so we can begin.”

She had the voice of a kindergarten teacher and the manner of a four-star general who was accustomed to having her commands obeyed,
tout de suite
.

It was sort of funny to watch everyone fall right into line.

They settled quickly and those that took too long were hurried along by Martha. She chided and cajoled and even physically shoved a few people into chairs.

Alan figured he better find a seat before he attracted her attention with his noncompliance. His plan had been to sit in the back and blend into the crowd, but the arrangement of the chairs made that impossible. Instead he took the seat directly across from Michael. From there he had a clear line of sight so he could watch the man without appearing to do so.

A hush fell over the audience. Martha introduced Michael, praising his writing and encouraging everyone to pick up a copy of his newest book while they were in the store.

“And you can even get it signed after the reading,” she enthused. “Now, without further delay, let’s welcome famous local romance author Michael Stricker.”

The audience applauded politely.

“Thank you all,” Michael said. “And thanks especially to Martha for inviting me. Though she’s exaggerating with the famous part, and since I’m from Philadelphia, the local thing might be a stretch as well. But I am a romance writer so I’ll cop to that.”

There was general laughter. Alan’s heart turned over in his
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chest. Michael could be so damn charming when he wanted to.

He saw from the expressions around him that Michael already had the audience in the palm of his hand.

“My plan,” Michael continued, “ was to read from my most recent release, but I’d like to do something else, if that’s okay.

After all, if you wanted to read my book you’d be home reading it and not sitting here listening to me, right?”

More laughter rippled through the audience.

“So, instead I’m going to read to you from something new. It’s a short story I was working on this morning on the train, so you guys will be the first to hear it, even before my editor. She won’t like that, but if we don’t tell her then it’s all good, right?”

There were murmurs of assent and the quiet sounds of people shifting in their seats and getting comfortable.

Then Michael began to read.

“When we met, I knew I wasn’t ready for you, too much had happened, too much left unresolved. But that didn’t stop me from wanting you and acting on that wanting.”

Alan sat utterly still and let Michael’s voice wash over and through him.

The story was written in first person about a man who thought his life was over. An old man, silver-haired and long married. As the plot unfolded in line after line of Michael’s elegant prose, Alan found himself holding his breath. He knew this story, had been part of it himself.

The story went on and Michael revealed the narrator’s tragedy.

His wife had died.

His wife. The narrator’s wife had died, not his husband, or partner. So the narrator wasn’t even gay, or blind, and so couldn’t be Michael. What a relief.

Alan’s heart had begun to beat so hard he was certain everyone too soon FoR Love
289

in the store must be able to hear it. Blood rushed in his ears and he had begun to feel slightly dizzy.

It’s a story
, Alan told himself. It’s just a story. Still, he waited and listened, hardly daring to hope, yet, at the same time, unable to keep from hoping.

When the narrator found his wife’s diary, hidden among her things, Alan had to close his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at Michael, and he couldn’t bear not to.

Had Phillip kept a diary? And if he had, who had Michael asked to read it to him?

Not you
, a voice in Alan’s head chided.
He didn’t trust you enough
to ask you to read his dead partner’s diary.

Then the narrator met someone, though whether it was a man or a woman wasn’t clear, only that he found himself mired in guilt over the attraction. It was too soon, too intense, altogether too much.

Alan wanted to leap to his feet and run from the store. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. So instead he sat still and listened, waiting to see how the story would end, what the narrator would do with the diary and what he would do about the attraction.

“I’m afraid I have to stop there,” Michael said. “You see, I don’t know how the story ends yet.”

The audience made sounds of disappointment, but Alan was glad, ecstatic even.

“Read something else,” someone called.

After Martha’s assurance that there was plenty of time, the audience cajoled Michael into reading an excerpt from his latest novel, but Alan hardly heard a word of it.

It’s just a story, he told himself again. It wasn’t a secret message meant just for him. Even if it felt like one, it couldn’t be.

After all, Michael didn’t even know he was here. And writers took experiences from their own lives all the time, didn’t they? And the best fiction was meant to touch you on a deeply personal level, right? Right. Of course.

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But, God, he couldn’t entirely crush the hope that Michael had been speaking to him through his fiction, that there was still a chance for the two of them. But hoping just hurt too damn much.

Somehow he managed to sit through the remainder of the reading, through the Q&A that followed, and through Martha’s closing remarks in which she invited people to stay and shop and have their purchases signed by the author.

When she finished speaking, people began moving around, getting up from their chairs or the floor, getting refills of coffee or tea and talking quietly among themselves. Michael was immediately surrounded by admiring readers. They exclaimed over him and the dog, shoved pens and books into his hands, laughed and talked and flattered him.

Alan found himself standing off to the side, a copy of Michael’s book clutched in his hand. He should leave, right now, get the hell out of there before he did something stupid like ask Michael about the story, like demand to know how it ended.

Yeah, he was getting out of there.

Alan replaced the book on the table where he’d gotten it and, with one last look back at Michael, walked toward the front of the shop.

He’d nearly reached the door when he heard his name. For a moment he considered pretending he hadn’t heard, but that was ridiculous. He paused and let Martha catch up to him.

“Where are you going, dear?” She caught his arm as if she meant to physically stop him from leaving until he’d bought something. “Don’t you want that book you were hanging on to through the entire reading?”

“I, uh …”

She took a copy of Michael’s book from a display at the front of the store and rounded the counter with it in her hand. “I can ring you up in a jiff and then you can get your book signed.”

With little choice aside from outright rudeness, Alan too soon FoR Love
291

completed the transaction and picked up his book.

“Thanks, Martha. You have a great place here.”

But as he turned to go, she stopped him. “Don’t you want to get it signed?”

“I don’t think—”

“Oh, come now, you should meet him. After all, I saw how you were mooning over him while he was reading. He’s a very attractive young man, don’t you think?”

“Yes, he is.” At least he didn’t have to lie about that.

She nodded and leaned in close. “I also happen to know that he’s gay, just so you don’t think you’d be wasting your time.”

“How do you know I am?”

“Oh, honey, I have very finely tuned gaydar and you set it pinging as soon as you walked in.”

Alan laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Trying to fix us up, are you?”

She shrugged. “I think you’d make a cute couple. And besides, you’re already crushing on him.”

Oh, if she only knew.

“I can’t,” Alan said. “Though I appreciate you looking out for my love life.”

“Already attached?”

“Something like that.”

Alan cast one final glance toward the rear of the bookstore and, cursing his cowardice, left the shop.

✧ ✦ ✧

“I so appreciate this, Michael. You have no idea.” Jared, the college kid who worked for Martha, pressed a USB drive into Michael’s hand. “The manuscript is on here. I don’t need it back or anything so--”

“Jared, darling, will you see to the coffee things?” Martha
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