Chapter Four
It always made Evan smile when he tried to explain to people what he did for a living. He wrote historical romance novels, with covers that had women in long flowing gowns and large English manor homes in the background. He’d been doing this since he’d graduated from college, thrilled and grateful to find a niche in an industry known for its constant rejection.
When most people heard he was a published author the first question was always the same: “What’s the name of your book?” This was usually followed by, “What’s your book about?” These questions made Evan smile even more. Most people didn’t read historical romance. They read mainstream fiction, the latest bestselling nonfiction, or whatever else they’d heard or read about in the mainstream media that was trending. Most did not understand there were career writers who focused in genre fiction and catered to a smaller, dedicated group of readers who tended to read up to ten or more novels a week. Evan had learned early in his career it was easier to just say he worked in publishing and leave it at that.
This wasn’t totally off base. He did do freelance jobs whenever his agent found something interesting he thought Evan might like. The last freelance piece Evan had done was for a book of essays that examined a popular textbook on romance novels that would be used to teach on a university level. Although these publications were usually more academic than creative, Evan enjoyed the diversion once in a while. Not being creative had its advantages.
He didn’t feel creative that evening. He still felt shaky, slightly paranoid, and self-conscious about all the weight he’d lost at Havilland. All of his thirty-inch-waist slacks hung on his hips and he needed a belt to keep them from falling down. Even his jackets and sport coats felt loose in the shoulders. But he didn’t want to disappoint his son, so he put on a pair of beige slacks, a white shirt, and a black sport jacket. On his way to the avenue to get a cab, he phoned Cadin and told him not to stop by on his way back to Brooklyn. Cadin offered to drive him uptown to Kenny’s school, but he was stuck in traffic on Seventh Avenue South and Evan was already running late as it was.
When the cab pulled up to the school, Evan climbed out and slipped through side door where a group of kids were hanging out next to a brick wall. He kept his head down; he walked directly to the staircase and headed for room 304.
At the top of the stairs, he turned without looking and bumped into a tall kid carrying a gray backpack. He knocked the backpack out of the kid’s hands and he stopped to help him pick it up. But when he bent down to help the kid and he said, “I’m so sorry. I’m in a hurry,” their eyes met and the kid sent him a seductive glance. He stared at Evan’s lips for a moment and said, “No problem at all, dude. You can bump into me anytime.” Then he helped Evan stand up and looked him up and down with eyes that made Evan feel as if he’d just stepped out of the shower stark naked.
Evan didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been this embarrassed since the time he’d left the men’s room in a busy restaurant with a long piece of toilet paper hanging out of the back of his pants. This kid couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen years old. When Evan had been seventeen he never would have thought about flirting with a thirty-year-old man. Evan smiled and turned fast. “I’m late. Sorry, again.”
“No problem, dude,” the kid said. As Evan headed to room 304 he had a feeling the kid stared at him the entire time. He didn’t dare look back. He’d done things in his life he wasn’t proud of, but he’d never flirted with a minor and he never would.
He slipped into room 304 as quietly as he could and tiptoed to a row of seats at the back of the room. The lights had been lowered and a small group of people sat facing a podium at the front of the room. When he sat down next to a man with dark brown hair and he looked up and saw Kenny reading something he’d written, he pressed his palm to his chest and smiled. For an instant, all his fears and frustrations disappeared and the world was a comfortable place to be again.
Kenny was reading something deep and meaningful, and his expression looked serious in an exaggerated way that came off more delightful and amusing than intense. Oh, it flung Evan right back to his own high school days when he’d been this serious about literary fiction and he’d sworn he could define true literary fiction. Back then, he knew all the answers. In those days he’d considered himself an artist, not a writer. He’d learned a great deal about life and writing and fiction since those days. There truly was nothing more entertaining than an amateur who thought he knew it all.
This reading turned out to be absolutely adorable. Evan smiled even wider when he heard the way Kenny had overwritten his narrative with too many adverbs and adjectives, and how he’d screwed up dialogue tags, making small minor errors all new writers make when they are just starting out. All his characters “grumbled, mumbled, pleaded, and cajoled,” when they should have just “said” or “asked.” If Kenny was serious about being a writer, he would learn these things in time and he would improve with each thing he wrote. Even though Evan and his son were not biologically related, Evan felt proud to see his son follow in his footsteps. Though Evan would never have said it aloud, he took even more pride in the fact that his son didn’t want to be a billionaire Wall Street shark like his other dad. They’d never encouraged Kenny one way or the other. His natural abilities in English were evident from the day he entered school. He started to read full novels before most of the other kids, and it seemed to come naturally to him. And now, ten years later, he was actually writing his own fiction and reading it in front of a roomful of people.
When he finished, Evan applauded with the others and turned to the nice-looking young man sitting beside him. Evan was smiling so wide his face pinched. He said to the man, “That’s my son. He wrote that on his own. Wasn’t he wonderful?”
The handsome man with brown hair smiled and said, “I know. I’m his English teacher. He’d a good kid.”
Evan felt his face grow warm. He’d thought this guy was one of the other parents, not the teacher. He looked to be around twenty-five years old.
The teacher reached out to shake Evan’s hand and introduced himself. “Carson Savione,” he said. Then he gave Evan the same seductive glance the kid in the hallway had just given him.
Evan ignored his look and he shook his hand. “I’m Evan Littlefield, Kenny’s dad.”