Not your average tome

The Vancouver skyline spreads beneath the window, its sparkling towers just bearable past squinted eyes and throbbing temples. Flashes of last night pound through my head, vivid and disjointed: pulsing music, strobing lights, and gyrating bodies. Paul wishing me luck. A woman – one hell of a woman – pressing me against the wall of an elevator.

This must be her apartment.

My stomach is growling, but I can’t quite bring myself to touch the marble and stainless-steel kitchen for fear of leaving behind greasy fingerprints. Thinking to un-grease myself, I find my way to the bathroom, but the shower is arcane. It’s a patchwork of knobs, screens, and nozzles – none of which react to my probing experiments. Surrendering the idea of being clean or fed, I slink back to the living room with one last long look at the toilet – another mess of high-tech settings I dare not touch.

The living room makes a familiar haven, at least. Not counting the sound system or media suite, everything is normal. Normal designer leather couch. Normal artsy abstract coffee table. Normal bookshelf with carefully spot lit, age-worn tomes on it. Perfectly comfortable.

I pace, unwilling to risk my average-joe-ness rubbing off on anything I can’t afford to replace. Heaped by the door, my shoes beckon, reminding me that beyond the threshold, the real world waits for me. The real world, and maybe a souvlaki.

But I can’t just leave. A beautiful, rich, sexy-as-hell stranger chose me from a club full of cocky idiots as her one-night stand. You do not pass up an opportunity like that. With a pinch of luck and a whole lot of sweet talk I might just be able to claim the spot of her cocky idiot by the end of the week. I’ll admit – I wouldn’t mind seeing those legs again, either.

Five minutes pass, then fifteen, with no movement from the bedroom. I could creep back in – try to slip under the covers and get cozy. Maybe start with some spooning and see if anything fun evolves… but no. That’s only cute if you know each other’s names and don’t feel like something scraped from the end of a toilet brush.

I check my phone for the hundredth time, and for the hundredth time I’m greeted by a dead black screen with a shiny new crack running from corner to corner. Not sure how that happened. If things go well, maybe sweet-legs will pay for a new phone. I’ve always wanted a sugar mama.

Twenty-five minutes into my luxurious purgatory, I spot it on the bookshelf: Haloed by halogen and flanked by ironbound, filigreed museum pieces sits a little black book. The incongruity of it sends my head spinning. Gilded, leather-bound Bible, moth-eaten tome, turn-of-the-century ledger… modern Moleskine notebook?

Afforded the same reverence as its esteemed company, the simple notebook gives off the same aura of menace as a dog that growls when you pet it. Cute and friendly on the outside, uncertain harm within.

My mind races with the possible contents. Insider trading tips, mob contacts, or winning horses would make sense with the opulent apartment. A list of murder victims or ex-lovers would suit the smoldering eyes and high high-heels of the night before. Hell. Maybe she just keeps her grocery lists in style.

I pluck it from the shelf, half-expecting an alarm to sound. None does. Turning the notebook over in my hands, there’s nothing out of the ordinary. The little ribbon marks a place about halfway through the pages, tongue-red against teeth-white paper, its black cotton cover held closed by elastic.

“That’s private,” a voice calls from the bedroom door as my finger slides under the elastic.

I spin, hiding the notebook behind my back in a childish effort to conceal it. She’s leaning on the doorframe, lovely arms crossed, one hand massaging a perfect temple. Realizing how guilty I look, I cough once, then laugh.

“Sorry. I was just curious. Didn’t mean to pry,” I say, and for a moment I mean it. I know the next thing to do is to put the notebook back and ask her how she slept. Maybe charm her into telling me her name. Offer to make her my world-famous pancakes if she’ll show me around the kitchen. That would be best.

But the book…

Just a notebook, the sort up you see up-and-coming writers hunched over in trendy no-name coffee shops, or on the desks of executives and entrepreneurs. Just paper and cotton and ink. Yet it had sung to me. It dug its claws in deep and refused to let go; I need to know what lives within its pages. I’ve always been a curious person.

“What’s inside, anyway?” I ask, holding the book as casually as I can, hiding my growing urge to simply tear it open and drink in the contents.

“Nothing you’d want anything to do with. Put it back. Please.” Her steely voice forges the ‘please’ into a bared knife. Her hair falls in loose curls to frame her face, doing nothing to soften the glare of her whisky-brown eyes. Lipstick from the night before smears across her mouth, the bloody crimson adding to the danger rolling off her.

The caveman part of my brain is shouting at me to put the notebook back on its stand, a primal understanding of predators and danger blaring like a siren. The modern part of me is louder, reminding me that it’s illegal to hurt people, which means I’m safe. It’s the same part that makes me keep glancing at the notebook. My thumb is still under the elastic. One little flick…

“You do not want to open that.” She takes a cautious step towards me, voice twinging with an edge of fear. “Seriously, buddy, give it to me.”

I mirror her, backing up into the bookshelf, wood digging into my spine. “Just tell me what’s in it,” I say, my jovial tone cracking on my bone deep need to know.

She licks her lips, eyes flicking from me to the book and back. One hand tangles in the loose t-shirt she’s thrown on, wrapping the fabric in a nervous fist. When she sighs, her shoulders drop, transforming her from a powerful maybe-mobster into a blushing girl.

“It’s my writing, okay?” she keeps her voice small, but I catch it.

“Your writing?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re embarrassed about it, why display it like that?” I ask. She didn’t look like a writer.

“It’s…” she glanced around, searching for escape but finding none. “I write fanfiction, okay? It’s a Spongebob, Star Wars crossover – it makes no sense, but it’s mine and it helps me unwind.”

“Spongebob…” I don’t finish before the laughter takes hold. It bubbles out of me like water and flows too fast for me to control. I flex my finger, pinging the elastic off the book and gripping the cover with both hands. I have to see this.

“I will pay you twenty thousand dollars to not open that!” she blurts, words tumbling out of her as fast as she can make them. One arm extended towards me, brow creased and hard, she doesn’t flinch as she makes the offer.

“You can’t be serious,” I say, hesitating despite my skepticism. Whatever secret waited between those covers held allure, but cold hard cash… now that’s seduction. Anyone with an apartment like this could afford a bribe like that without batting an eyelash.

“Deathly,” she growled through gritted teeth. “Put the notebook down and I’ll grab my cheques. We part ways, and this never happened.”

I stare at the notebook. I can almost hear it begging to be opened. I imagine the red placeholding ribbon moving like a tongue, licking its cloth-bound lips in anticipation of a reader.

But cash… you can do a lot with cash.

“Deal.” I hold out the notebook and she storms over, snatching it out of my hands and tucking into the waistband of the hastily thrown on pajama shorts she’s wearing. Any doubts I have about the validity of her offer are dismissed when she grabs a leather bound chequebook from on top of the fridge and begins scribbling in it, signing the last line with a rueful flourish. Marching back to the living room, she tears the cheque from its place and shoves it at me.

“There. Now, get out,” she growls, herding me to the door with hard eyes. No sugar mama for me then. Still, I think, drinking in the five digits in front of me, a little sweetness for the road.

---

The apartment rings empty as I slam the door behind that fool. Running a hand through my sleep-mussed mane, I huff out a breath and take in my living space, cataloguing what I'll need to bring with me. It'll be at least twenty-four hours before he'll be able to convince someone to let him into the building once the cheque bounces. Then it’s only a matter of time before the apartment’s owner gets wind.

I pull the book from my waistband, glaring at it. Spell books always cause trouble, but the modern ones are particularly rebellious. I disable the protective ward before opening the offending pages, riffling through them with precise, annoyed flips for that one cleaning spell…

The fanfiction thing usually scares them off. That wannabe sleuth better not cause any more trouble for me. Maybe I should have let the idiot get eaten.