He takes me to what appears to be a bedroom converted into a library, and, for the first time in my adult life, I’m weak in the knees—a term I’d always thought was an expression until now.
“I’ve never met a man with a library before,” I say, dragging my fingertips along a shelf sectioned off by poetry and bookends shaped from black quartz. “Favorite poet?”
“I don’t know that I could pick just one, but Pablo Neruda is definitely top five.” He slides a small book from his collection, flicks it open to a page in the middle, and clears his throat. “I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz or the arrow of carnations … I love you as certain dark things are to be loved … in secret … between the shadow and the soul.”
A body-tightening shiver runs through me, followed by a spray of knee-weakening goose bumps.
“Anyway.” He inserts the book back to its rightful position. “What’s your drink?”
“What do you have?”
“Everything.”
“Vodka cranberry. I’m a simple girl.” I give him a wink.
His mouth pulls up. “Something tells me you’re anything but.”
Disappearing down the hall, he leaves me to my own devices in the comfort of his suede-and-walnut scented library with its floor-to-ceiling shelves chock full of poetry, philosopher’s tomes, and all the classics.
Cainan is a renaissance man.
Grant was never into books. He told me once that he’d paid underclassmen to write his World Lit papers in college and he’d maybe finished one book in his entire life—a biography on Michael Jordan. He said he could never sit still long enough to focus.
Cainan’s inherent tranquility is all the more fitting now that I’ve seen this side of him.
“Here you are.” He returns a minute later with my vodka cranberry and two fingers of an amber-hued liquor for himself, and then he makes himself comfortable in a cognac club chair. “Help yourself. You can borrow anything you’d like.”
I select an antique copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and carefully flip through its fragile pages, making my way through the initial chapter while working on my cocktail.
When I glance up several minutes later, Cainan is staring at my wrists again. Just like he did that day at Atlantis.
“Why do you keep looking at my wrists?” I half-laugh.
His brows meet. He hesitates. “No reason.”
Maybe it’s a nervous tic? Though he doesn’t come across as a nervous man in the slightest …
I check the time and remember I still have a show to catch.
“I should probably get going.” I fold the book, set it down, and take one last sip of my drink. As much as I want to borrow it, it’s clearly a first edition, signed by the author, and probably worth thousands. “Thank you for inviting me up. Next time don’t wait two weeks …”
“Don’t forget your book.” He hands it to me. “It’s due back three weeks from today. If you need to renew, let me know.”
Our hands brush in the exchange. My heart trills.
If this is all it takes to get me going, I can only imagine the way my body would react if things were … different … for us.
He’s a good man.
I wish I wanted him less …
“You ever going to read The Alchemist?” I ask as he shows me out, book pressed against my breathless chest as if it could possibly disguise my current state.
“What makes you think I haven’t already?” He winks before closing the door.
I swoon all the way to Chicago.
And when it’s over, I swoon all the way home.
Walking the sidewalks of New York in a daydream haze, I’m flattered that Cainan took time out of his busy schedule to read a book I recommended—but now I can’t stop wondering: as he flicked through the soft manila pages, did he ever think about me?
28
Cainan
I’m losing my mind.
I take a seat in the living room as soon as Brie is gone, and I slide my copy of The Alchemist off the coffee table. I didn’t want to read the book when she recommended it to me two weeks back. In fact, a handful of times over the years, I’d tried … desperate to know what all the hype was about but never making it past the first few pages, because it read like a poorly-translated Aesop’s fable, choppy and simplistic in places.
This time I pushed through.
I finished the first chapter.
Then the next.
And the one after.
By the time it was over, I’d read it in one sitting, my neck kinked and my hands stiff from holding the same position for hours.
Perhaps in the past, the message of the book didn’t resonate. I couldn’t relate. I didn’t want to take the time to wade through the jerky paragraphs to find the heart of the message.
If timing is everything, this book couldn’t have smacked me in the soul at a more perfect chapter of my life. In fact, there are many ways Santiago’s journey mirrors mine. The dream that haunts him. His relentless quest. His obsession with destiny.