Just Between Us

Just Between Us

J. J. Scotts

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Copyright © 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Copyright © 2013

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Warning: This work contains scenes of graphic sexual nature and it is written for adults only(18+). All characters depicted in this story are over 18 years of age.

{ 1 }

Celia read the text from Michelle quickly before tucking her cell away in her bag.

Mr McC can give me extra credit NE time. Such a QT!

Michelle was watching Celia, blonde eyebrows raised, from the next aisle. Celia nodded broadly, mouthed ‘hottie’ and rolled her eyes.

“Join us, ladies?” Ryan McConnell couldn’t help grinning as both girls jumped in their seats and flushed when he spoke from behind them. He knew Michelle had a little crush. She often hung around after class, twirling her hair and trying out her budding feminine wiles on him. And she wasn’t the only one. Apparently, to the 11th and 12th grade girls of Thomas Emery High, he was considered quite the catch.

It was flattering, he supposed. He just wished they were more genuinely interested in what he was teaching and not flirting with an older man who had no interest whatsoever in what they had to offer.

“S-sure, Mr. McConnell. What were we talking about?” Celia spoke up, saving her friend, who’s face had gone a deep red.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans and strolled to the front of the classroom. “What a great question, Miss Waters! Can someone tell Celia what we’re talking about?”

A few tentative hands were raised. Ryan scanned the room, taking in the faces of his students. He leaned back against the edge of his desk, crossing his arms over his wide chest. “Mike?” He chose a boy from the middle of the room, one who didn’t participate often.

Mike glanced up, eyes widening in surprise to hear his name called. “Uh. Writing?”

Ryan laughed, the deep sound causing several of the girls in the room to sigh. There was more than one of them who daydreamed of his grey-blue eyes and dimpled smile.

“Good call, Mike. I knew you had it in you.”

Several of the other students chuckled at that. Mike shrugged, but he was grinning. Ryan pushed off the desk and circled around to the whiteboard, pointing at the quote he had written there before they’d arrived.

“‘If you’re going to be a writer,’” Ryan intoned, tapping the words, “‘the first essential is to write.’” He turned back to the class, brows raised. “Sometimes we forget that writing isn’t just a calling to tell stories. It’s work. These authors whose names we talk about in here... Fitzgerald, Du Maurier, Hemingway. They put in the time to craft their work. That’s why we’re still talking about them now.”

“So that’s why you make us do all those rewrites?” Jackson, one of the starring point guards from the school basketball team, tipped his chair back, the mocha skin of his shaved head gleaming in the overhead light. “So we’ll all be famous authors?”

Ryan shrugged with good humor, despite Jackson’s flippant tone. “Why not?”

Jackson snorted. Michelle sighed, cupping her pointed chin in her hands and gazing at Ryan adoringly.

“I think that’d be great,” she breathed.

“Well, let’s talk about that!” Ryan slid into his chair, pushing the sleeves of his black, button-down shirt up to his elbows.

One of the few female students who didn’t cast him calf eyes, cocked her head. Her dyed blue hair cascaded over her shoulder as she furrowed her brow. “About what, Mr. McC? How great it’s going to be for Michelle to be a famous author?” The skeptical girl wrinkled her nose, the metal ring piercing her nostril reflecting an errant beam of sunlight across the room.

“Yeah,” Ryan replied, making several of his students gape. “Only not just her. All of you. What do you think it would be like?” He rested his elbows on the desk, thumping his fingers rhythmically against the wood. “Figuring out what you’re going to do after you graduate is one of the most important parts of high school. And aside from teaching you about grammar and symbolism and how to write a decent sentence, it’s my job to help you prepare for the real world. So!”

Ryan clapped his hands once, loudly. He was gratified to see them all paying attention. Ryan cracked his knuckles. “Of the twenty-three kids in this room, I’d bet at least one of you is going to end up in a career that involves writing in some way, shape, or form... grant writing, journalism, technical writing, academia. Maybe we’ve even got a famous author among us?”

He looked around the classroom excitedly.

“So, just for today, let’s speculate. What’s being an author all about? What’s it like?”

“Uh, probably way easy.”

Ryan raised his brows at Mike’s quick response. “Alright, Mike. Elaborate. How is it way easy?”

“Cause writers make tons of money and can pay people to do pretty much everything for them.”

“How much money is ‘tons’ these days?”

Mike shrugged. “Like, at least millions. Probably billions. Isn’t the Harry Potter lady richer than the Queen?”

“So you’d write books that are Harry Potter popular, Mike?” Ryan rubbed his chin in thought.

“If you’re going to be a writer, why not write the best seller fiction type stuff?” Mike leaned back in his chair fairly confident in his deduction.

Ryan shook his head. “Okay, so you’ve written a few best sellers and now you’ve got... what, billions of dollars? Is that it? Just like that?”

“I’d get me one of those custom made sports cars. Only, like, a lot of them.” Jackson added, nodding in approval. “Plus, there’d be all that fat cash from the movie deal.” He made sure to pretend like he was throwing out dollar bills in the air.

The rest of the class approved of his antics by erupting in laughter.

Ryan waited for the laughter to die down. “Do any of you know how many books are published every year?” He scanned their faces. The discussion of the glamorous life of a famous author seemed to have energized them, but now they looked unsure. Ryan knew authors, and he knew it wasn’t all glamour with celebrities and throwing money everywhere. In fact, a degree of introversion was popular among writers.

“Like... five hundred?” a student offered.

Most of the class groaned at the ridiculously low guess. Ryan struggled to keep the grin from his face. He didn’t want to make the kid feel bad just when he started to join the conversation.

“Good guess, but not quite. There’s anywhere from 250,000 to half a million or more books published every year. In the United States alone. Worldwide, the number is easily in the millions. Now, how many living, publishing authors can you name?”

The punk girl blinked, chewing her lip. “Uh…like, maybe ten. More, if you gave me time to think about it.”

“Ten’s a pretty decent number. Let’s say, for arguments sake, we can each name ten different authors. That’s 250 working authors... out of a quarter million.” He leaned back in his chair, letting the numbers sink in.

Jackson raised his hand in the air, but didn’t wait for Ryan to call on him. “Come on, Mr. McC. If being a bestselling author was that hard, hacks like Sam Cavell and that 50 Shades chick wouldn’t be at the top of the charts.”

The mention of Sam Cavell made Ryan tense. He clenched his jaw around the immediate defense that sprang to his lips. Sam is no hack!

“Oh my god,” Celia, thankfully, jumped in with a squeal. “Have you even read Firebrand? It is seriously, the greatest book ever.”

“Those books can’t be that hard to write,” the incredulous student intoned sagely. “Chicks dig that kinky sex stuff.”

“You’d have to have had sex with a girl before, though, so that leaves you out.” Jackson threw a pen at his buddy. “I bet Cavell gets tons of tail,” he added, rubbing his shoulder from the impact.

“Seriously,” Celia added with a snort. “Have you seen him? Total. Hottie.” She enunciated the words to stress her point.

Ryan frowned at the kids, his voice harsh. “That’s enough.” Aside from getting off topic, he wasn’t comfortable talking about Sam. Only a few people at the school knew Ryan was friends with the best-selling author, and he preferred to keep it that way. “Let’s get back to the –”

“Have you read
Firebrand
, Mr. McConnell?” Celia asked. He wondered if the girl knew something, or was just enjoying keeping the class topic on the steamy book.

Of course he’d read it. He read everything Sam wrote, and it wasn’t just because they were friends. Sam’s books, though they were most often shelved in the romance section, had a wide appeal. The central romance was often developed during some thrilling subplot full of intrigue and danger.

“I have, actually.” There was no point in denying it. The book had burned up the charts recently.

“You read romance novels, Mr. McC?” Mike looked as if Ryan had just admitted to not liking football – something that was unheard of in their small, upstate town. But he, in fact, not only liked watching the sport, he played in a pick-up league on the weekends.

“My reading tastes are pretty eclectic, Mike. And there’s a lot to enjoy in Cavell’s books.”

“Like the sex?” Jackson snickered. Ryan shot him a look from beneath his brows and the boy subsided.

“There’s a lot of action and intrigue. And the character development is excellent, which I appreciate.”

“Like, the way Thea is so guarded because of her childhood, but eventually she begins to trust Max and then, BAM, she finds out he’s a spy and she’s heartbroken?” Celia’s eyes glittered with the fire of a true fan. Ryan chuckled.

“Yes, Celia. Something like that.”

He glanced at the clock. The bell was going to ring soon. Ryan leaned back in his chair, grinning. “This is what being a writer is really about. It’s not about the movie rights, or whatever. That’s bonus. What an author really wants is for people to connect with their story. Trust me, Sam Cavell would much rather you talk about
Firebrand
than speculate about his personal life.”

The bell rang, and the students began quickly gathering up their books. “Don’t forget your journals for tomorrow’s class! And read pages 23 to 30 in your textbooks!”

{ 2 }

Ryan was getting out of the shower when he heard his phone buzz on the nightstand. He didn’t bother rushing to answer. He knew who it would be.

He’d been friends with Sam Cavell since high school, and the quiet man was nothing if not punctual. It was something of a joke between them, since Ryan was hardly ever on time…well, except for class. For some people, such opposing natures probably would have made a friendship difficult, but Sam and Ryan were always thick as thieves. Ryan was the wild card. Sam was his straight man. He chuckled to himself at the terminology, scrubbing the towel over his hair.

He had come to terms with his unrequited love for his best friend years ago. Ryan had realized shortly after going through puberty that the feelings he had for his friend were more than just friendly. There had been a few times he’d almost said something. Thirteen years was a long time to keep a secret like that from someone who he told everything.

But in the end, he was just too chicken to take the risk. He’d never even admitted to being attracted to men. Not because he thought Sam would judge him. He knew him better than that. But if Sam knew, he might ask questions and then he’d have to admit his feelings. He couldn’t lie to his friend. Not outright, and he didn’t want to lose the friendship.

No, it was better to maintain the illusion. Not that he dated many women either. Well, only frequently enough to throw off any suspicion by Sam.

Sam was the only person he spent time with on a regular basis. They rarely went more than a couple of days without talking on the phone, even when the popular author was on tour. They attended baseball games together during the season. Sam was a Mets fan and Ryan was a Yankees fan—yet another difference between them that just seemed to add dimensions to their relationship instead of causing problems.

They had dinner together every week or so when Sam was in the city. Like tonight.

Ryan had no doubt the buzzing of his phone was either a call or text from Sam inviting him out. He’d just finished a big tour for Firebrand and had a few months before he went out again. Ryan knew Sam was probably about to start another book and that Sam would be around to spend more time with him.

Ryan felt a flush of heat at the thought, his skin becoming hypersensitive. When Sam was in town, whatever time he didn’t spending writing, they spent together relaxing and shooting the shit.