The Bookseller's Boyfriend (Copper Point Main Street #1) - Heidi Cullinan Page 0,3

the man scrambled for pen and paper. The people who’d seemed concerned at his surname now looked vaguely interested. Rasul didn’t stick around to let them query him.

As soon as he was out of the building, he called Elizabeth on the new, terrible phone.

“Well done,” she said, not even bothering with a greeting. “You still had fifteen minutes to spare.”

“How much did you pay that guy to do your bidding?”

“Hmm, let’s see. I can’t remember, but it was less than the amount of money I’ve lost trying to prop up a selfish playboy, so it seems an investment well made.”

Touché. “Just don’t take my laptop, all right? Otherwise you’ll never get a novel.”

“Oh, if I don’t get a satisfying update within the next ten days, I’ll have the campus tech guys restrict your search ability so narrowly you’ll be using the card catalog to look things up.”

“I don’t think they actually have those anymore.”

“It’s interesting how you’d rather argue about these conditions instead of work.”

“Look, you know damn well creativity isn’t a tap you turn on and off. I can’t just suffer this kind of humiliation and then cavalierly whip out another chapter.”

“I’ve been an agent for twenty-three years, and my wife is a painter. I understand the whims of creativity painfully well. But you’ve proven partying and destroying your image online isn’t giving you the pump-priming you need. My gift to you is a new source of potential inspiration. Take walks. People-watch. Pick up a new hobby. Make friends who don’t want to use you. Go find something new to read. I hear they have a lovely bookstore there.”

Rasul pinched the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t as simple as a lack of inspiration, not at all, but he wasn’t going to bring that up. In fact, the one thing he’d figured out was all the partying was an effort to keep from thinking about the problem. Giving Elizabeth the corner of his mental carpet meant she’d wrench it up with one yank, leaving him no choice but to examine the mold and writhing insects beneath.

“Ten days,” she said. “I’m going to contact you in ten days, and you’re going to tell me about your progress. I won’t tell you what that has to look like except that you’ll have to convince me you’re moving forward enough for this to continue. It goes without saying that if I see a single social media post from you or about you, it’s over.”

That made him panic. “Look, I can’t help it if other people talk about me.”

“Let me rephrase: if I see a post that makes me think you’ve end-run me, we’ll have a problem.”

He didn’t relax. “Adina has a lot of photos. A lot.” And a few naughty videos, some of which made him sweat at night.

“Oh, trust me, she’s receiving a similar call from her agent, though I think that relationship is beyond saving. If I see any photos from her, I’ll do my own investigations. Don’t worry about her or anyone else. Do whatever you have to in order to finish this book.”

With that, she hung up on him.

Grimacing, Rasul pocketed the phone and stuffed his hands in his pockets, no longer interested in the quaint scenery. Which direction was his apartment? Of course, he didn’t want to go there anyway. He had some welcome gala for new faculty that night, but that wasn’t until eight. It was four in the afternoon now. Way too many hours to kill.

He started wandering.

There were a lot of shops on University Avenue. An Indian restaurant, Italian restaurant, a Wiccan shop, comics store, art gallery… huh. This place had a little more culture than he would have suspected. There were a lot of bars, and they were tempting, but going there was a step backward, not forward. He considered Café Sól, a charming, understatedly elegant coffee shop, but it looked more crowded than he was ready for right now.

University Avenue eventually led to a small highway, and after crossing at the light, Rasul noticed the street name had changed, as had the businesses dotting it. Main Street Copper Point was more what he’d expected to see in this one-horse town. A community center, Lutheran Church, library, tae kwon do club, and Christian book and supply store. He wondered what the people who shopped there thought of the Wiccan store on the other end of the street.

There was also a bookstore, as Elizabeth had suggested, and the name made him laugh. Moore Books.