Love in Real Life Read online

  But still, he looked like someone worth taking chances for. He had wild hair, bright smiling eyes, and a face that looked like it hid a lot more than his mouth revealed. And I couldn’t believe I even talked to him, by the way – let’s just get that out of the way. One year ago I was afraid of even leaving my own bedroom, but here I was, chatting up a hottie. But how much progress had I truly made? Was all of this useless in the end anyway? (I’d never hit on a guy in public before, only on apps where I could hide behind photos and personae, but his shirt blaring the words PRIDE JAX 2017 kind of gave it away. He was either a really strong ally, or just liked penis. Thankfully for me it was the second one.)

  No. I couldn’t think like that. I’d been through way too much bullshit not to jump at a chance like this, whatever it was, and whatever Things were possibly going to be felt.

  And so I said hello as everything in me rioted against myself. Whatever the outcome, this was going to be interesting.

  Teddy Martin

  “So what do you do here, exactly?” he asked as we started. I tried not to notice how good he smelled.

  “Whatever we need. Cash register, café, organizing and stocking the actual books, maybe coordinating the events on the weekends. I love it. You can see anyone at a bookstore. My dad says some people read to escape. Some read to disappear. And some read to run.”

  “What do you read for?”

  I glanced out at the window at the pool, so deep and dark and knowing. “I don’t know. It’s just fun, and I like it? It’s not necessarily that deep. Anyway, come on.”

  We both knew he didn’t believe me.

  I started the tour in an adjoining room we called the Skyroom, as a local artist had painted it bright blue with little fluffy clouds everywhere. (The books on display were all blue, too, of course.) As we walked, a group of tween-ish girls walked by and threw these annoying googly eyes at George, but he didn’t seem to notice. I rolled my eyes anyway. “Let’s continue!”

  I showed him around more of the store, and he oohed and aahed more than anyone I’d ever seen. I even showed him my favorite feature, Bookloft, a little platform upstairs where I’d hung tapestries and lights and strewn around so many blankets, it was like a little reading teepee.

  “Wait. Speaking of colors,” I said when I was showing up the ruby-red pillows inside, “do you want to see the best best thing here? We only use it for special events.”

  “I’d be honored, sir.”

  I led him to the back, brought him up the spiral staircase, and opened the door to the Booknest. The mansion was only two stories, but they were incredibly tall stories, and the roof was mostly flat except for a turret in a corner. This meant we had a huge open platform twenty-five feet above the city to work with, and the views were beyond beautiful. After some battles with the zoning board, my dad was finally making it into the most fantastic garden in the history of the world. The ground was grass, and shrubs and trees lined the edges of the roof. Flowers of every color were starting to bloom, and a brick pathway under strings of twinkling lights led to a gazebo overlooking the ocean and the pier. (Or what was left of it, as Hurricane Matthew had decimated it beyond repair, a local tragedy from which I was still recovering.) I went there almost every night to read, and I’d even sealed old hardbacks in hard glue and hung them from the gazebo’s girders as decorations.

  “How did you afford all this?” he asked soon, still in awe. “Can I ask that? This is crazy.”

  “I know. My grandparents died four years ago. They left us everything. We had no idea they were rich, but apparently they were. We used every last cent to build this place, though, so if it fails, we’re back in the poor house. “I’m impressed,” he said when I finished. “Very impressed. Even your décor is genius. I mean, using fake books drilled into the wall as display shelves for other books? Brilliant. And that chandelier in one of the rooms, with books hanging along with the crystals? Beautiful. As a voracious reader, I’m in love. Were they your ideas?”

  I blushed again. “I had some help from Pinterest, but yeah, mostly. My dad isn’t very focused on the decorative side.” Or any side at all that involved the busy work, actually…

  “Well, this place is like my own personal heaven.” He looked over at me, then glanced down and got a little red. “I’m definitely coming back. And you’re hot, Teddy.”

  He said the last part in a tone that was nervous, but still, he’d said it. The sound that came out of my mouth afterward was something between “oh” and “huh” and was not at all attractive.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just…thank you, but I’m not…used to that. But thank you.”

  “Why?”

  “…Because I’m a bookworm?”

  “Okay? And?”

  “And, if you’re wanting to hit out the clubs or anything, you may need to keep looking.”

  “Hit out the clubs?” he smiled. “I’m pretty sure the expression is hit up, actually.”

  “See? These are not things that bookworms know.”

  He laughed. “Okay, fine, I’ll stop hitting on you. Can we just be book friends instead?”

  I reappraised him. Obviously having a hot book-loving boyfriend would be heaven on Earth, but I wasn’t opposed to having a new reader friend, either. There were no friends like book friends – there was just an innate understanding involved, something you either shared with someone or didn’t, and there was no faking it. To know they found solace in similar words, and worlds, as you: never was there a truer friendship. If you found a book you loved, you’d call them up and demand they read it until your face went red, and if you found a book that ground your gears for some reason, you’d call them and vent about fictional characters and their fictional lives until you were calm again, or until they got bored and hung up. Never was there a closer bond.

  I tried to sound cool and detached about the prospect of this new “friend.” “Hmm. That could work? I don’t know too many other bookish people, actually.”

  “Really?”

  “I mean, isn’t our defining characteristic that we prefer the company of books over humans?”

  “Touché. We are kind of antisocial by nature.”

  “Until now,” I said, then I finally ate him up with my eyes – you were allowed to enjoy leering at sexy men, after all. Looking wasn’t touching. Basically he looked like a plot kicker – someone who got the story going. He wasn’t a background character: he was one of those annoyingly charismatic people who lived at the top of their lungs while people like me sat here, merely existing. People like him lived as if the word were a verb.

  “Well, Teddy,” he said. “Nice to have a new friend, then.”

  I hated how the word friend sounded already, so I did the thing I always did – threw up a warning sign. Tried to ward him off.

  “Wait. I hope you get it, though,” I said, more cautiously. “I’m not a regular reader. I’m gone. I’m, like, a hardback-toting, social hideaway kind of book nerd. Sometimes I don’t even like my actual life because there are too many books to get lost in. If you ever want to hangout, if anyone does, they’re going to have to accept that they’ll probably always be number two.”

  “I get it,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I’m a nerd, too. Readers are just regular people who believe that words can be miracles. I’d choose miracles over real life any day. And besides, two’s a good, strong number, anyway. If any guy tried to knock Harry Potter out of my top spot, I’d probably block his number forever.” He smirked. “But I’m a good fighter. I’m gonna have a good time sliding into the number two position.”

  “Was that supposed to sound inadvertently sexual?”

  “Yikes,” he laughed. “I guess it did, huh?”

  “Yep. You’re, like, one more accidental bedroom joke away from making this feel like a Tinder date gone wrong.” I laughed and leaned back. “And wait. Before I agree to become book friends, I have a few questions. Favorite book?”

  “What? Blasphemy. I
refuse to answer such an insane question. That’s like naming my favorite organ. I need them all to survive.”

  “Good answer. Favorite childhood book?”

  “The Little Engine that Could was my first obsession, when I was four. I carried it everywhere.”

  “Okay, fine, I believe you – you’re a nerd, too,” I said. Just a suspiciously hot one. “But one more question. Hogwarts – what’s your house?”

  He leaned back. “I’ve answered enough. You first.”

  “In my mind I’m a Ravenclaw, but in reality I’m probably a Hufflepuff.”

  “I reject that,” he said. “I’m a Ravenclaw, too, and I’m proud of it. You should be whatever you want to be in this life.”

  My face went a little numb. “Okay. And wow. A boy who didn’t immediately run to Gryffindor. Impressive.”

  “Stop. We Ravenclaws are already smug enough as it is.”

  “True,” I giggled, then I stopped myself and glanced around. Who was this boy who was sitting here giggling? Who was this giggler? I had certainly never been a giggler in the past. Maybe a sigher or a life-avoider, sure. Never a giggler.

  “So when can we hangout?” he asked. I feigned annoyance.

  “I don’t know. I’ve got a hell of a long TBR list, and these murder mysteries won’t read themselves.”

  “Stop talking dirty to me. You know that book talk to a reader is like a vodka soda to an alcoholic.” His phone rang, and I saw that it said Mom. “Hey, I’ve gotta go soon. My latest book is calling. But maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  I shrugged and tried to play it cool. “I mean, it is a place of business, after all. I think if I banned you, that would be somehow discriminatory, and we don’t have money for a lawsuit after that book chandelier thing.”

  “Okay. I’m coming.”

  “Deal. And why are you looking at me like that? You’re, like, leering.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I’m a reader. My job is to care too much.”

  “Because you’re handsome,” he finally said, and my face got all fuzzy. “And…tomorrow? Same time, same place?”

  “I’ll be here. I, um, kind of work here…”

  “Oh, right. And I’ll be coming as a paying customer this time. Promise.”

  He turned and left before I could even think of a response.

  Books in Real Life

  So: send me a romance.

  Yes, I just said that. And yes, I know I’m the king of darkness. The emperor of sarcasm. The ruler of snark…

  Okay, you get it. Anyway, I want to read a romance novel. Today something happened that made me think about love, so I want to read a romance. A true, bodice-ripping, love-me-until-we-die-together ROMANCE novel, R – O – M – A – N – C – E. And I need someone to point me in a good direction.

  I trust you guys to deliver on this one, so please throw me some suggestions. Let me know what I should read in the comments, and as always, I’ll report back to you.

  And no, I didn’t just get a lobotomy. I’ll update you more later.

  Love,

  Teddy

  Teddy Martin

  After meeting George, I worked until closing time and then had to attend a book reading thrown by some chick who’d gone viral on Pinterest. But seeing as how she did come from Pinterest, the décor in Booktalk was immaculate, with a book-shaped cake and even little lanterns in the shapes of letters. I was on catering duty with the ragtag collection of teenagers we brought in for special events, and I had to yell at them when I found them smoking a joint out on the back steps. (Weed was hovering on the edge of legality in Florida, so I left their real punishment up to God.) So when I fell into my bed upstairs past midnight, I did not think of anything but my desperate need for sleep.

  Okay, and maybe a gorgeous head of brown hair…

  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t on the lookout for George’s eyes for every second of the next day. But he didn’t come. Of course he didn’t. I tried to ignore how I disappointed I was, but it was hard. After all that pomp and circumstance, poof – nothing. And plus – he was hot. Who wouldn’t be sad about the loss of an opportunity to stare at a hottie? A bookish hottie, natch?

  He didn’t come the next day, either. At seven on Friday evening I locked the last door and walked upstairs to go home and head to the fridge and film a new scene in my life story, I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing: A Biopic. A local news host was celebrating her cookbook release in the courtyard, and I could hear clinking glasses and laughy conversations – conversations I would never be bold enough to enter – floating up softly through the oaks. But all I kept thinking about was George. Stupid, rude handsome George, never showing up.

  I made my way to my room, that helpless tangle of books and clothing and charger chords I called home. I considered cleaning it, then immediately decided against it – I had food to eat. Above it all was a quote from Instagram: “There is no journey as intoxicating, as brave, as liberating, as admirable – as the journey into the pages of a book.”

  I actually stole my first book, by the way. It was so out of character for me to do anything like that, but then again, most mental breaks usually were out of character, do whatever. My mother was a mess, my father had checked out of his own brain, and there was a hot shiny panic somewhere in my chest that I couldn’t run away from. So when I passed a book signing at a local chain bookstore on the way home from school one day, I stopped and stared into the windows, both envious of all the people in there and fully aware that my parents didn’t even have money to buy me a stick of gum, much less a thirty dollar hardcover. So I walked in, slipped a Harry Potter into my backpack while the employee told a little boy where the water fountain was, and quietly walked back to my neighborhood. That night I read the first page and knew I was home. Books were windows that let in the light. In a stormy household, they literally raised me. (In related news, the acquisition of a library card ended my career as a thief.)

  But in this new book I found a whole new world, a world where I was normal. Harry was quiet and studious and kept to himself, just like me, but in the book this wasn’t presented as being weird or strange – he was just Harry. And that, I think, was the greatest potential of books: they turned the spotlight back on you, showed you a mirror image of who you were, and somehow made you appreciate that image instead of hating it. Books showed us we weren’t alone, one page at a time…but were we really alone all along? Was it all an illusion?

  Lord knows I needed the illusion. I was so damaged I didn’t even know what to do with myself. Damaged goods didn’t even describe it, actually – I was like one of those defected boxes of Twinkies the grocery store didn’t even bother selling, they just threw them in the dumpster out back and called it a day. I didn’t know whether I wanted to stop time, speed it up, or rewind it. The world beyond my own was thrilling and terrifying and bright and confounding, and sometimes I felt like everyone had gotten a text but me: How To Be A Normal, Functioning Human. I wasn’t an adult yet, and I wasn’t even good at pretending to be one. Outside of my books I had no real passions, no real plans, no real skill set outside of consuming carbs and avoiding my problems at full speed.

  And that wasn’t even to mention the biggest rite of passage, finding love and settling down and all that jazz. I’d had a near-miss, but I didn’t want to find just any kind of love. Basically I wanted to find someone I could love like I loved my books. You know – booklove. I wanted someone I could spend all day around, and still not get bored with them. I wanted someone I could hold as lovingly as I held my Kindle at night, just in human form. I wanted someone who was so captivating, I could stay up all night getting lost in them and still find things that shocked and surprised and inspired me. I wanted someone I could love wholly and obsessively, someone I could form a bond with that would last until I died. More than anything I wanted to find someone who would not run away from my love, like everyone from my past, but someone who would let me cherish them and treasure them and o
bsess over them and keep them on my shelf – and in my soul – forever.

  Basically I wanted someone who would not leave me like my mother did when I was barely out of Pull-Ups. And now I was a time bomb, and nobody knew it but me.

  Suddenly my phone vibrated.

  It was an email to my blog.

  From George Charles.

  Teddy Martin

  I’m sorry, first of all, the email said. And hello again.

  I sat up. Suddenly I noticed how beautiful my bedroom was in the dim of night. There was an elegance to the old plasterwork I’d never really thought about before.

  Sorry, I’m too busy to type, I said, and I shocked myself by actually sending it.

  Can we talk on the phone, then?

  Why?

  Because…

  Yes? I asked.

  Because you were…sticky. You’re sticking to my brain and I can’t scrape you out.

  Oh. Well, this was new. New, and enticing…

  Sure, I said, sitting up. Who else would be able to turn the word “sticky” into a compliment? My number is-

  But my home phone was already ringing.

  “Hello?” I answered, half-expecting it to be some marketer.

  “Sorry,” George said, making me dizzy again. “Your number wasn’t that hard to find. You said you lived at the Bookworm, after all…”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I gulped some air.

  “It’s not too stalker-ish of me, is it?”

  “Well, like you said – public record, I guess.”

  Awkward pause.

  “So…what’s up?” I asked. “How have you been for the past few days, since you didn’t come to the Bookworm?”

  “I know, I know, sorry. Mostly, I’ve just been stalking you on Instagram.”

  My insides jumped. “Oh?”

  “Indeed. I have some notes, too.”

  “Okay?”