Book Two: FIUWC

Chapter 1

Carli

“Hold on a second. Since when can’t we start with the sex scene? That’s some kind of bullshit.”

Everyone laughed. I was pretty sure they thought I was kidding.

I wasn’t.

One simply didn’t joke about really good sex scenes, especially when the hero drags the heroine up his chest to sit on his face.

“We always start with our overall thoughts of the book,” Tiff said. She wasn’t the leader of our sometimes unruly book club, but if we had a defined leader, she definitely would apply for the job. She waved toward the entrance of The Brewhouse, where another of our members, Mallory, was simultaneously shoving something into her gym bag and waving back.

“True,” I said, not able to disagree with that. “But …” She outlined the reasons it was important not to ‘get lost in the sex.’

Frankly, I’d be happy to get lost in the sex. But that was just me. 

I leaned into the booth having gotten here early to snag the prime seat—I like to see everything happening in the shop and, frankly, a booth seat was always better than a chair—and closed my mouth. My need to contribute lost out to my stronger need not to be considered overbearing.

I liked being heard. I just didn’t like being too much.

More banter. More book club chatter. Coffee steam rising between us, the low hum of voices filling The Brewhouse. 

This meeting was one of my favorite days of the month. And finally they were getting to the good part. I’d never look at Guinness cupcakes with Bailey’s cream cheese icing the same again after reading Waste of Handsome. 

“Be right back,” I said to the group, already halfway out of my chair when I spotted Lou outside the coffee shop.

Unfortunately, the one problem with your social life and your work being in the same building was that sometimes the two competed for attention.
“Hey Lou,” I waved, not knowing oop if he could heard me yet over the ladie’s laughter. 

I had a soft spot for Lou.. After saving for years to realize his dream of owning his own gym, he put everything on hold when his wife was diagnosed with brain cancer. After her surgery and recovery, he suffered another setback when insurance pulled funding on the gym space halfway through the build-out. Two years later, when the doors of Redline Fitness finally opened, there wasn’t a dry eye in town when he was interviewed on the local news.

That said, some days I wanted to strangle him.

“I’m really sorry to pull you out of your book club meeting,” he started as I walked out of the coffee shop. “But I was hoping you could help me with a problem. That girl I hired to do our social media just quit, and she was right in the middle of running a membership contest.”

Boundaries.

One of these days, I was going to figure out how to set them.

No, I can’t finish running the contest until you hire somebody new.

I practiced the sentence in my head.

“Lou,” I started, attempting to ignore more sounds of laughter drifting from inside the The Brew. “I can’t—”

“My daughter’s going to take over until I can find someone to replace her.”  Lou’s eyes were the same light blue as his shirt. His hair was completely white now, making him look older than mid- fifties. “She’s asking me for B-roll, and I don’t even know what that means.”

For Lou, filming B-roll might as well have been open-heart surgery. The guy was a lot of things. A great father. A devoted husband. Buff as hell. Healthier than I would ever be. A former mechanic had looked at my own car more than once. Unfortunately, comfortable with technology was not one of those things.

Since his back was to the entrance of The Brew now, he couldn’t see the girls waving me back inside. I looked from them back to Lou, remembering those same blue eyes shining with unshed tears the day his gym opened.

“Never thought it would actually happen,” he’d said then. “Don’t give up on your dreams, Carlina.”

Very few people called me by my full name, but when Lou learned it, he said it was too pretty not to use.

“I’ll send her some videos,” I sai, pulling myself back to the present.

Lou engulfed me in a hug before I could add any additional limits about this being temporary. About not letting it turn into a repeat of the last time when me explaining Instagram somehow became me running his entire account.

I hadn’t even fully sat down before the ladies were on me.

“You need to start sitting with your back to the door,” Mallory said. “What was the emergency?” she asked.

Before I could answer, the owner of The Brewhouse placed a fresh coffee in front of me.

“On the house.”

I smiled, a little ruefully. “Thank you.”

“Everything okay with Lou?”

“He’s fine. Apparently the girl he hired quit already. I feel bad. The only reason he hired her in the first place is because I got him into social media.”

“You feel bad for bringing him clients?” she said, glancing around the table. “That’s been his best advertising channel. Anyway, no shop talk. I’ll let you get back to it.”

“You really should join us sometime,” Mallory tried to lure her to the ‘dark side’ as she’d put it many times.

“Maybe one of these days,” Vee responded noncommittally, heading back behind the counter.

“You came back just in time,” Tiff teased, her meaning clear.

“Perfect. If I can’t have sex, I might as well talk about it.”

“Can’t? Not sure that’s the right word,” Mallory teased. “Please find me one single in Maplemoor who wouldn’t want to have sex with you. If you can do it, I’ll give you fifty bucks.”

“Sweet,” I teased back, peeking up at the counter, even knowing Chris wasn’t working tonight. “But I’m not sure how practical it would be to conduct such a survey.”

“Practical?” someone said. “Tonight is about the exact opposite. If we wanted practical, we’d be home bathing our kids or pretending not to notice our husbands’ morning wood like it was our part-time job.”

More laughter.

Hot coffee.

Good friends.

Tonight was for book club.

And talking about fictional men who never existed in Maplemoor.

Book one, FIUIR, is coming April 28th. Book two, FIUWC, is coming May 12th!