Book Boyfriend (Someday #5)

  Book Boyfriend

  A Someday Series Novella

  by

  Melanie Shawn

  Copyright © 2016 Melanie Shawn

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns

  Copyedit by Mickey Reed Editing

  Book Design by BB eBooks

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing

  Rev. 1

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Other Titles by Melanie Shawn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Michelle

  I edged the corner of the hardcover book a little closer to the window where it sat on the sill. I held my phone up in front of the tableau I was creating, looked at the picture it made on the screen, and scowled. Hmmm. It still wasn’t exactly right. So I inched a few steps to the left, reexamined the scene from a new perspective, and then lifted my eyebrow. Hmmm. Okay. Not bad. Definitely getting closer, at any rate. But it still wasn’t exactly the aesthetic I had in my mind.

  “Shit,” I hissed under my breath. The sun was setting, and I was going to lose the gorgeous golden-hour light streaming through the window within minutes if I didn’t hurry.

  “Hey, Michelle. What’s up?”

  I turned around toward my friend and coworker, Brandy. She and I always ended up together on these dead shifts at the library. We both did work study there, and it seemed like nobody else wanted these awkward night and weekend shifts. Everyone else had friends, clubs, social lives. Significant others. Brandy wanted this schedule because she and her twin sister, Sandy, were putting themselves through school and she needed every penny she could get her hands on.

  Me? I simply had no life.

  “Hey, Bran. Nothing much. I’m on reshelving duty tonight, but I finished half an hour ago. You?”

  “Same lyrics, different song. I processed all the returns and sent out late notices. I guess it was pretty dead today. Not much night work.” She pointed at the artsy arrangement of books I had built in front of the window. “Is this for your Instagram?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. But something’s missing. I love the interplay of the gorgeous sunset light streaming in on the faded, brown leather of the book cover. And the deep green of the pine trees in the background through the window definitely plays beautifully into that color story. But it needs something else. I just can’t figure out what.”

  Brandy tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, and then an idea lit up her face and she hurried off, tossing a, “Be right back!” over her shoulder.

  While I waited for her to return, I turned my gaze to the scene outside the window and breathed a sigh of contentment. I was in my second year at Winship University, a private liberal arts college located just outside Arcata, CA, and I absolutely loved it. The school was in gorgeous, wooded Humboldt County, six hours north of San Francisco on the Northern California coastline. It was far and away the most beautiful place I had ever lived.

  The natural beauty was one of the great factors, of course, but I also loved that Winship offered one of the premier Library Science programs in the country. People could talk all they wanted about how the printed word was dying out, and digital books were taking over the future, and on and on. I didn’t care. I loved books. Heavy, hardcover, printed books. They were my drug of choice, and I was happily addicted, with no plans to rehabilitate. Plus, the library system had saved my life and sanity when I was younger, giving me an outlet and an escape, and I felt honored to have the chance to return that favor by devoting my life to working in it.

  Yep, I loved Winship. I loved Arcata. I loved my major. I loved my life. Would I have liked to have a bit more active social life? Sure. A few more friends? Yeah. Maybe even…a boyfriend? Of course. But, as the old saying went, God didn’t give with both hands. For now, I was quietly content spending long evenings working in the library with Brandy…and, of course, my “true loves”—the books.

  Brandy came rushing in then, carrying a tiny, perfectly-formed bird’s nest in her hands. She held it out to me, a flush of triumph coloring her cheeks. “I saw it on the outside planter retaining wall as I was walking in to work. I think that it fell from the roof or the eaves. I’m not sure. But it’s beautiful, right?”

  I nodded, excitement bubbling up inside my chest as the picture took shape in my mind. I positioned it in front of the book and angled the two of them so that they caught the light beautifully. After snapping a few photos of the scene from various angles until I was satisfied, I chose my favorite and uploaded it to Instagram.

  “Ok, then,” I mumbled aloud as my thumbs flew across the screen. “It’s all set. Just gotta caption it. ‘What’s better than a beautiful sunset? A beautiful sunset with books, of course. Working in the library with my buddy Brandy. This was a joint effort.’ Now how should I tag it? Let’s see…‘#nightlibrarian #librarylife #birdsandbooks #nofilter #bringtheoutdoorsin.’ Oh, and can’t forget the standards! ‘#bookstagram #books #booklove #bookworm.’ There. And…posted.”

  I grinned at Brandy, but I was caught up short when I saw who was standing there instead of her, grinning right back at me.

  Sebastian Winters.

  Gulp.

  He’d obviously been watching me the whole time I’d been typing on my phone and narrating my caption aloud. It was clear from the way he was smiling. What I didn’t know, however, was what that smile meant. Did he think I was cute? Or weird? Or pathetic? Or something entirely different?

  He winked. “Hey, Miche. Is that for your Instagram? I follow you. I’ll have to make a special point of double-tapping it later.”

  Oh, holy hell. I stopped to count the individual instances of butterfly-inducing hotness present in just that simple statement. One, there was his deep, magnolia-drenched Savannah accent that never failed to send heat rushing through my entire body. He drew out the heavy, round vowel sounds so that the words sounded like honey dripping from his lips. It lent weight to everything he said, making it seem like poetry, like even the simplest statements were oratory.

  Two, there was the special nickname that only he called me. Miche. Pronounced like meesh. Everyone else called me Mitch or Shelly. Or didn’t bother with a nickname at all. Not Sebastian. Nope. To him, I was Miche. Three, there was the fact that he knew I
had an Instagram and he followed me. Four, there was the dripping-with-sex, double-entendre way he’d said “double-tapping.”

  That couldn’t have all been in my head. Could it?

  Fuck! He’d gotten me so turned around with one little paragraph that I couldn’t even think straight.

  “Yeah,” I replied stiffly. I wanted to be cool. I wanted to be smooth. But as my eyes traveled up and down the chiseled muscles of his body, the ever-present five-o’clock-shadow-esque scruff on his strong jaw, the buttery softness of his dark blue eyes, the wavy brown hair that I wanted to bury my fingers in so badly my hands actually twitched every time I was near him—well, every vestige of “cool” that I’d ever cultivated left me in an instant.

  “You know, there’s only one thing wrong with that Instagram of yours.” He grinned, and then dialed up his honey-drenched accent to eleven. “It’s all pictures of books and scenery. And don’t get me wrong, darlin’. They’re pretty. You have a great eye. But there’s one beautiful thing in your world that you hardly ever post any pictures of, and it’s a glaring omission.”

  Maybe listening to that slow, sexy Georgia drawl had my brain that discombobulated, but I really didn’t see where he was going. “What?”

  “You, pretty girl. You need to post pictures of your gorgeous self.”

  Fuck. My face was burning, but it wasn’t from the effects of my crush this time. No, now, it was from humiliation. He had to be making fun of me. He had to be. I mean…right? There was no other explanation for why a guy like Sebastian—handsome, popular, baseball star, big-man-on-campus-type Sebastian—would be flirting with me.

  It wasn’t that I had low self-esteem. I was just realistic. I knew I was cute. I could see that. But I wasn’t gorgeous. Not like the girls that Sebastian dated. And that was fine by me. It really was. With my variety of asymmetrical haircuts that usually had a neon streak (or two) running through them, black-rimmed glasses, array of tattoos, quirky fashion sense, and general artistic sensibilities, I tended to appeal to a certain type of guy—and it wasn’t Sebastian’s type. Not by a long shot.

  No, my type of guy was more likely to be making fun of sports than playing them. My wheelhouse was far more “bass player” than “baseball player,” and that had never bothered me.

  Until now, anyway.

  Something about Sebastian threw me way the hell off-balance, and…yeah. I didn’t hate it as much as I wished I did.

  We had met on the first day of the semester. We were in Comm205 together. The Art of Debate. He shouldn’t have noticed me. There were a hundred kids in that class. But he had. He’d come up and talked to me afterward—flirted, really. And he’d been doing it ever since. I just couldn’t figure out why.

  All of my past experience conspired to tell me that he was making fun of me. All of my instincts told me to watch out, not to trust him. There was no way he could like me for me. If he was interested in me, it was only because I was a “project.” The words played in my brain nonstop when it came to him. But…damn. I was still drawn in. I couldn’t help it. Something in his deep-blue eyes seemed sincere, and I couldn’t keep from wanting more—in spite of myself.

  I never knew how to respond when he got me into this state of confusion, however, so I did what I always did. I ran away.

  “I’ve gotta get back to work,” I mumbled, and then I hurried down one of the long, book-lined aisles without giving him so much as a backward glance.

  Coward.

  Brandy caught up to me when I was halfway to the break room. “What are you doing?” she asked, a teasing tone in her voice.

  “Hiding,” I groaned. “And what was up with just abandoning me back there, by the way?”

  She grabbed my arm to slow me down. “Girl, I wasn’t abandoning you! I was giving you room to work your magic. Or let him work his. Either way. I never imagined you wouldn’t want me to! So, what’s the deal? Why do you need to hide from the hottie?”

  “I don’t know. He just makes me feel so…like I don’t even know myself when he’s around.”

  She sighed. “Oh my God, that’s the best feeling!”

  “No, it’s not! It’s very disconcerting.”

  She grinned. “But in the best way, right?”

  I nodded begrudgingly, a small smile sneaking its way onto my lips. “Yeah. I admit it. In the best way.”

  Chapter 2

  Sebastian

  “Dude. You are seriously delusional if you think you have a chance with that honey.”

  I had gone straight from the library to the weight room, and texted my roommate (and baseball teammate) Jackson to meet me there. I figured, why not kill two birds with one stone—get in one of my required outside-practice workouts, and also sweat out some tension. I figured just lifting weights with Jackson, enjoying the camaraderie, shooting the breeze or not talking at all, would help me clear my mind—particularly of anything Miche-related.

  Normally, Jackson was about as deep as a puddle when it came to conversational topics. That had made me think he would be a good partner for some mindless weightlifting. I’d been wrong.

  I scowled at him. “The fuck are you talking about?”

  “Library Girl? That’s who you’re thinking about, right?”

  “And again, I say. The fuck are you talking about?” I was full of shit. I knew what he was talking about. Obviously I did. But I didn’t like him giving me crap about it. So I continued lifting weights as I did my best to ignore his pointed questions.

  He shook his head, his knowing smirk telling me all I needed to know about how damn transparent I was. Of course, after having roomed together for going on two years, not to mention playing on the baseball team together, Jackson could read me like a book. But it didn’t even take that level of familiarity to be able to call this one. I was an open fucking book when it came to Michelle. I couldn’t help it.

  He set down the hand weight he’d been lifting and lightly punched my arm when I was on the downswing. “Don’t even try it. Ever since you spotted that girl across the auditorium in debate, you’ve been walking around in a zombie-ass trance.”

  “Maybe I’m thinking about the season starting. Or worrying about grades. Or obsessing over where my next Cali burrito is coming from.”

  He snorted. “The undisputed frickin’ awesomeness of carne asada, french fries, and guac wrapped in a tortilla aside, I don’t think that obsession would constantly lead your ass to the library. Where you’ve been hanging out a lot lately. And which is where Library Girl works. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  “Whatever. Maybe I’m going to the library to, oh, I don’t know…study? Research things?”

  Jackson hit repeat on the snort. “Bullcrap. That’s why God invented the Internet. You’re there to creep on Library Girl. Trust me. I’ve known you long enough to know there’s not a damn thing of any interest to you in that building except her sweet ass.”

  The protective flame that ignited in my chest was completely foreign to me. Normally, I was as easygoing as they come. Quick to smile, and even quicker to laugh. But when Jackson joked about her ass, I wanted to punch him in his smirky goddamn face.

  “You shut your fuckin’ mouth about her.”

  That fuckin’ smirk grew into a full-fledged self-satisfied grin. “Ah, yeah. But it’s not like you care or anything. Right?”

  I stared straight ahead as I attacked my reps without saying anything. I didn’t want to speak while I was this angry. I didn’t want to lose control. I liked control. Michelle was the only girl I’d ever met who had the power to cause that control to slip. That made me nervous as hell, but at the same time, it thrilled the fuck out of me. Whenever I was with her I felt like I was jumping out of an airplane—sure, if your parachute didn’t open, you were gonna end up going splat in a big way. But, damn. What a way to go.

  The one thing I knew was that she made my head spin—constantly. And, whether I loved that or hated it didn’t really matter. The point was, I
couldn’t get enough of it. I kept going back for more. Again and again. No matter how much of a lost cause it seemed to be.

  The single-minded repetition of the exercise served to cool my blood. I saw the situation with Jackson in a new light. Even though it sucked that he had guessed what I felt for Michelle, maybe I could use it to my advantage. They didn’t call him J-Dog for nothing. He was as big a hit with the ladies as I (usually) was. I could lay out the situation and get his perspective. After all, a month of hitting on her hadn’t gotten me anywhere, and it was starting to drive me a little nuts. I needed a new approach, and maybe Jackson could help me devise one.

  “Look, I’m not saying you’re right,” I begrudgingly admitted.

  “Except for the part where you just did exactly that,” he smart-assed.

  I finished my set and carried my weights back to the rack. On my way back to the bench, I flipped him off, but laughed as I did. I had never met anyone in this world who loved being right as much as Jackson did.

  “Setting that aside, let’s go back to the part where you said I don’t have a chance with her. Why is that, ya think?”

  He shrugged. “Because you’re not the kind of guy that gets emotionally destroyed over song lyrics by some band that wears eyeliner.”

  “The fuck now?”

  “You’re not her type, compadre. She’s a…whatever you call it. Emo. Hipster. Goth. Whateverthefuck. She thinks safety pins are jewelry is my point. Until you start wearing skinny jeans and paint your nails black, you ain’t gonna be getting in her jeans. Accept it and move on. She’s not worth the damn trouble.”

  The tidal wave of protective rage boiled up again, and I wanted to defend her. To tell him to take his dumbass opinion and deposit it where the sun don’t shine. But I shoved that impulse down. Fighting with Jackson would be counterproductive to the goal of picking his brain. I needed to think of this like a game. Eye on the prize.

  “Well, what if I think she is worth it?”