What would have happened if he’d let the date continue? What if he’d brought the man home, had sex with him? Would he be cuddled against him right now instead of doing mundane shop owner tasks?
He knew that was exactly what would have happened, and that was the trouble. It was important he do his best not to think about it until his efforts stuck. He had a good life, he honestly loved what he did for a living, and he wasn’t disrupting that for anything.
Except half an hour before the store was set to open, he learned how impossible a task that was going to be.
Gina Wilkerson had been with Jacob since he’d first opened the shop, using her connections to get him started. Her husband was an accountant, her sister was a real estate agent, and she’d been one of his mother’s closest friends. Now she was one of his, in addition to being his only other full-time employee. His part-time workers came and went on the regular, but Gina was a constant. She used her salary to boost her retirement and had taken several handsome vacations on the bonus income.
He knew it was her when he heard the key in the lock and the door’s bell jingled, and he was about to call out a hello, but she’d hustled through the stacks at double time, and when he turned to see what was going on, she had a seriously strange look on her face. “Is it true? Is what I read online true?”
Jacob put down the books he’d been shuffling on the shelves. “What are you talking about? What did you read online?”
Eyes alight, she whipped out her smartphone and showed him a photo from Instagram. “Look. They all tagged the bookstore, probably because you don’t have an account of your own.”
Taking the phone from her, Jacob frowned and tried to make sense of what she was saying. He was looking at the bookstore’s profile, that much he knew, but instead of the usual photo of that month’s staff picks or charming photos of the cats nestled on shelves, he saw a page full of stills of him dancing with Rasul.
Photos of Rasul looking like he wanted to devour Jacob, and a few of Jacob making it clear he felt the same way.
His stomach was already twisting into knots when he accidentally opened one of them and saw the captions and comments on the image.
This dude shows up out of nowhere and swoops up Rasul Youssef like a boss.
OMG Rasul’s new boyfriend is a snack. What was Adina on about? Rasul is TAKEN.
IKR? Keep those pics coming.
How dare Rasul cheat on Adina!
We have to stop this, guys.
Eyes wide, Jacob swiped to another photo. Hypnotized, horrified, he read that caption and comments too.
They danced three dances in a row. I am LIVING.
Cheating bastard!
God but Rasul’s fuck-me face is hot AF. Give me a man who looks at me like that.
Jacob’s face flamed as he moved on to the next one.
They are so fucking. Somebody figure out where this guy lives and get us some live video!
Pretty sure that’s the owner of @moorebooks. AUTHOR AND BOOKSTORE OWNER. I ship it.
Guys WHY are we ignoring Rasul’s traitorous infidelity?!
BRB gotta go shopping. In Wisconsin.
With a gasp, Jacob dropped the phone and covered his mouth with his hand.
Gina picked it up. “I’d heard the two of you danced quite a bit, but I hadn’t thought much of it until I saw the pictures. Is it true? Are you dating him? Because I know he’s your favorite author, and I rushed over to get all the details. How did this happen?”
That was the question, all right. How had any of this happened? Jacob couldn’t dwell on that, though, too preoccupied with what he’d seen in those photos. “Who are these people who took pictures?”
“Kids from the college, I think, and a few locals. Usually hardly any of the Bayview kids go to the gala, but it sounds like several of them came exclusively for Youssef.”
Jacob sank back against the bookshelf behind him, then glanced toward the front of the shop. “Oh God, are they going to come here?”
Gina’s eyes sparkled. “I think so. I’ll make sure they buy things. We’ll turn this to our financial advantage.” She leaned forward. “But is it true? Are the two of you dating?”
Jacob ran a hand through his hair. “No. Evan asked me to escort him at the gala, that’s all.”
“It’s just that there’s also these photos.” Gina swiped at her phone before handing it over again. Now the screen showed a video of Jacob tugging Rasul through the store until they disappeared up the stairs. “I can’t believe he was in the shop and I missed it!”
Taking the phone back again, Jacob swiped to see more photos and more video from inside the shop. “Why are they taking so many photos of us?”
Gina’s eyes widened. “So there’s an us? It’s true?”
Why was this so out of hand? Why were there so many photos? “There’s no us. I told you. I was his escort. And I helped him get out of the store because Jodie apparently called all her friends to come mob Rasul. That’s all that happened.”
“You’ve never been able to lie to me, Jacob. There’s more to the story, and I see it on your face. Spill it.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking. At all.” He ducked his head in case she tried to read more into his obfuscation of the truth. “He signed my books as a thank-you. I gave him some books because it was impossible for him to check out with the chaos.”
“And what about the dirty dancing?”
“It wasn’t dirty dancing, for heaven’s sake.”
“There’s video. It absolutely was.” Gina’s expression went soft. “I haven’t seen you light up like that since the accident. He’s good for you, honey.”
Jacob tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t need someone to tell him that. He’d spent all night alternately trying to deny and obsess over that fact. “He’s a celebrity. I’m a nobody bookstore owner. Plus he’s so important to me as an author. I absolutely can’t afford to destroy that.”
“What’s to say it’ll get destroyed?”
“Logic and reason.” Jacob sat up and looked Gina levelly in the eye. “Yes, I think he wanted to take me to bed last night, and that alone has rattled the foundations of all my fortresses. But that doesn’t mean he wanted to date me, and even if he did, I’d be a lark while he taught here, at best. Meanwhile, it would be a struggle for me to maintain a friendship with him without dragging in all the stars I have in my eyes over him. I’m sure I’ll run into him in town from time to time while he’s here, and that’ll be thrilling enough. Anything more wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
Gina huffed. “If you ask me, you’re far too logical and reasonable for your own good. You should take a chance with him.”
“I don’t take chances, which you know very well.”
“You used to.”
That was true, he acknowledged as he finished up his inventory and made himself a cup of coffee in the small office behind the cash register. People who had known him since he was young, especially adults who had been contemporaries of his parents, liked to tease him about how nobody would have ever expected the wild child who had been Jacob Moore to not only come home to Copper Point but become such an upstanding citizen. If he’d told his teenage or even college self he’d be sitting on the hospital board and would be considering taking up leadership in the Copper Point Chamber of Commerce, he’d have laughed in his own face. Back then he’d been determined to go anywhere but here. He’d gotten out too, and had put his foot firmly on the business ladder in Chicago.