Four weeks later…
“It’s like we’re on death row,” Karli says. “We’re just sitting here, waiting for it to happen. Soon we’ll even have a date for the demolition.”
I climb down the little stepladder and glance over at where she’s standing by the till. Her shoulders are slumped, eyes downcast, looking the way I feel inside. Bleak and hopeless.
“I still can’t accept it,” I say.
“I appreciate your optimism, Skye, I really do… but the letters have made it pretty clear.”
“Miracles happen.”
She smiles at me, but it’s the fond smile of someone indulging a child. “Maybe.”
I move the stepladder from the H-L section to L-P. This bookstore is my life. It’s where I spent most of my afternoons after school growing up, and it’s where I had my first job. First sorting books, at sixteen, before I graduated to handling payment.
And it’s being torn down so someone can build a hotel?
As if Seattle needs another sky-high development for the rich and mighty. This bookstore has been here for decades.
Karli and I had both cried when we received the first letter. The bookstore was on land rented from the city, and they’d sold the entire lot to Porter Development.
Then I’d gotten angry. In the storage room, I’d printed the logo of Porter Development and pinned it to an old dartboard. When I first handed Karli a handful of darts, she’d looked at me like I was crazy.
“You did this?”
“Yes. It’s what people do in movies, so there must be some truth to it. Go ahead and throw?” She’d shaken her head at me, but we’d both had our turn, and in the end we’d felt a tiny bit better to see the slick logo skewered by darts.
It’s midday, and the bookstore is empty, like it is most days. And most evenings, if I’m being painfully honest with myself.
Karli calls out again. “Did you shelve the delivery of new contemporary romances?”
“Yes!” I call back. “And I saw your choice for ‘recommended by the bookstore’!”
She laughs. “Did you see how the story started? The main characters have a super-steamy one-night stand…”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Liar!”
I roll my eyes and keep shelving the fantasy tomes. Ever since I told Karli about the night at the hotel with Cole, she’s been finding ways to bring it up.
You end early tonight, she’ll quip. Maybe you should go back to the Legacy?
I shouldn’t have told her about him—but then, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, and eventually all the details spilled out of me on their own accord.
His strong hands. The crooked smile. The banter, the back-and-forth, the laughter. He’d been far, far out of my league, but for one night, we’d been equals.
The entire night felt like it belonged to someone else, to a girl in one of those romance books, rather than me, Skye Holland. Aspiring (read: failed) writer. Bookstore clerk (read: soon unemployed). Twenty-five years old, renting a too-small apartment, and without a date in months.
The Skye I’d been with Cole was someone else. She was witty and brave. She said things like you’re hitting on me without batting an eye. And she said yes when attractive, mysterious men invited her to their hotel rooms.
My cheeks flame as I think about it, but I don’t stop the train of thought. Thinking about that night has been all that’s kept me going since we heard about the bookstore’s fate.
We’d talked for an hour on his bed before he even touched me, and when he did, to smooth my hair back behind my ear, I’d shivered from anticipation and excitement.
“You’re unexpected,” he’d said darkly. “I had no idea someone like you would be here tonight.”
I’d smiled. “Are you ever going to kiss me?”
And then he did, and showed me exactly why I shouldn’t have been nervous about this. It was sex, but with a capital S, the kind I’d always wanted but never really had. There was no fumbling or awkwardness. He told me exactly what he wanted from me, and asked me what I liked in return.
And then he gave it to me.
I pick up another stack of fantasy epics and shelve them on autopilot, my mind stuck on the several orgasms he gave me. How? I’d been in a two-year relationship in college and I’d only climaxed twice with the guy. Cole had managed it in one night.
It had been deep, and hard, and animalistic, his body moving over mine like he needed me more than life itself. Three times we did it, his body relentless, before both of us passed out cold in his giant hotel bed.
“You’re fantastic,” he’d murmured after the last time, his arm slung casually over my naked waist. “Am I going to be in one of your books now?”
“Maybe,” I’d said, reaching out to tentatively run a hand through his thick brown hair. “Although I’m not sure I’d do you justice.”
But he was already asleep, and I had followed him soon thereafter.
Perfection—it had been perfection.
And since I’d been unable to keep my excitement to myself and told Karli, she brought it up all the time. Nearly every day for four weeks I’d heard about it. Why would today be any different?
“I just can’t believe you didn’t give him your number,” she says over lunch. We should take them in shifts, but there are no customers, so we eat our sushi by the checkout counter together.
“It would have spoiled it.”
“No, it could have been the start of something.”
“A man like that? No, he wouldn’t have been interested in me long term. I basically just nipped it in the bud.” I snap my chopsticks together to illustrate, defending my decision for the hundred-millionth time. It doesn’t matter that I still wonder, at night, if I’d made the right call.
“You don’t know that.”
“No, but it’s a pretty good wager. What if I gave him my number and he never called?” I can’t explain it to Karli, but I know it would have crushed me. To spend a night like that with someone and then have them reject you, to say thanks, but no thanks.
“Remind me what you wrote on the napkin again?”
“Karli, you don’t need reminding. You know.”
She laughs, in that high-pitched way of hers, and pushes her glasses back into place. “Yes, but I want to hear you say it. I’m living vicariously through you here. Would you deny me that? After eight long years of friendship?”
I roll my eyes at her extra-ness, but I oblige. “I wrote, Thanks for last night, stud. God, even just saying that makes me cringe!”
She chuckles. “It’s such a cliché.”
“Yes, well, that’s me, a walking, talking cliché.”
“And you left while he was still asleep. I wonder what he thought. Having someone wham-bam-and-thank-you-ma’am him.”
“He’s probably used to it. Trust me, with skills like his, he has a lot of sex.”
She hands me her spare wasabi, knowing I love it. “Maybe. Or you could’ve had the hottest friends-with-benefits situation ever known to man. Imagine how much inspiration that would give to your book.”
I grin at her. “It would be more like a distraction.”
“What’s your word count now?”
“Thirty-two thousand. But I think I’ll have to rewrite the entire chapter I just finished. My main character’s actions just don’t make sense to me.”
Karli picks up another piece of sushi, eyes expectant. “Tell me why. Let’s brainstorm it out.”
I love that she’s so invested in my stories, that she always has been, ever since I started working here. Our love of books is one of many things we share in common. With only ten years between us, Karli and I are more like friends than co-workers. She inherited the bookstore after Eleanor died, and employed me full-time after I finished college. For that alone, I owe her everything.
I jump into my description and she listens, interjecting with comments and jokes. It’s in moments like this that it’s easy to forget this bookstore—with its nooks and crannies and dusty attic, with the mismatched bookshelves and little reading lights—won’t be here in two months’ time.
My life changes again after lunch. In one moment I’m sorting through modern American poetry, minding my own business, and in the next I’m a quivering mess of nerves.
Five minutes before it all goes down, I pick up a small book of short poems. “You’re a brilliant little book,” I tell it. “But you’re very difficult to sell.”
It doesn’t say anything back, and I put it down with a sigh. We have over fifty of these. There’s so much inventory to go through before we have to close.
The bell by the door jingles. A customer!
“Skye, I’m in the back!” Karli calls.
“I’m on it!” I call, already putting back the poetry book.
I love customers. I love guessing what book they might like, what they’re here for, judging by their clothes, their accent, their reading preferences. Sometimes I’m spot-on, and sometimes they surprise me—a dignified old lady who wants to buy the latest horror novel. A man in a suit asking for a self-help book on happiness. Those are my favorite customers, the ones who teach me about the perils of jumping to conclusions.
I weave through the fantasy section and cut between the recipe shelves. A man is standing with his back to me, looking at the titles on our Bookstore Recommends shelf. Karli and I curate it monthly, often over a bottle of wine, and we have a lot of fun doing it.
He’s tall. That’s my first impression, swiftly followed by the fact that he’s in a suit. Thick brown hair curls at the nape of his neck, just over his shirt collar. My instinct says that he’s here to buy a book for someone else. A birthday gift, or to celebrate an anniversary.
“Hello,” I say. “Are you looking for anything in particular? I’d be happy to help.”
He turns.
And the ground feels like it’s giving out beneath me.
Four weeks might have passed, and we’re in a well-lit store and not a swanky hotel bar, but he’s no less striking in daylight. The chiseled jaw, the same five-o’clock shadow. Thick hair and piercing eyes that don’t look the least bit surprised.
“Skye,” he says.
I open my mouth but close it again, my mind running empty. The ability to speak has left me altogether. He waits, eyes imploring, probably wondering if I’ve become mute.
“Umm. Hi,” I finally manage.
Brilliant. Four years of studying English Literature, and that’s my winning take.
“Do you work here?”
Can I play it off as if I don’t? I’m supposed to be an award-winning writer in his mind, who sits at expensive hotel bars and writes clichéd goodbyes on napkins.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I say stupidly. I’m in the same jeans as always, wearing a T-shirt with “Between the Pages” blazoned on the front. In comparison, he looks magnificent, the cut of his suit highlighting the width of his shoulders.
His voice is dry. “No, clearly, since you snuck out during the night.”
“Yes. Erm, no hard feelings?”
He shakes his head, but it’s more in resignation than negation. “I knew you were too good to be true.”
Standing there in my shabby outfit and my low ponytail, I know I’m definitely confirming that fact. “Yes. Sorry.”
He starts to walk down the aisle, glancing at shelves as we pass them. I follow him in a daze. The night we spent together was magical, and this is mundane. It’s my place of work. The two don’t mix, and my brain is trying and failing to handle this surprise visit.
“Tell me about this bookstore. Between the Pages, right?”
Of all the things to ask… “Yes. We cover all the major genres and stock newer releases. We stock all the major classics, too. You’ll find them all here, Proust, Austen, Machiavelli.” I wet my lips. “Homer.”
“Hmm.” He plucks a book from a shelf, flipping it over to read the back. I recognize it—it’s a decent thriller, but I could recommend a better one. “So,” he says. “What was your game, that night at the bar?”
“My game?”
He slides the book back into place. “Did you need a night like that for inspiration? To clear up some writer’s block?”
My heart is firing at full speed in my chest. “You’re asking if you were research?”
He smiles, a crooked thing that shows me just how devastatingly handsome he is. “If I was, I certainly don’t mind. But I think I made that pretty clear at the time.”
A flush creeps up my cheeks. Oh, he had. “You were unexpected.”
“Likewise. And I have to say, I’ve never been referred to as a stud before.”
My flush darkens. “Oh, that was… it seemed appropriate at the moment.”
He nods. “But not now?”
“I don’t… You’re impossible.”
His grin is back. “So I’ve been told.”
I glance from him to the bookcase behind him, my suspicions returning. “Why are you here?”
“I came to buy a book.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I am, in fact, literate.”
I lean against the shelf and try to ignore the fact that he’s seen me naked, that I know the groan he makes when he loses himself. “Well, in that case, I’m here to help. What are you looking for?”
He smiles knowingly, aware of the bluff I’m trying to call. “I want something that’ll make my heart race.”
“Horror?”
“No,” he says. “Something else.”
I clear my throat. “A thriller, perhaps? I have one I’m sure you’ll love.”
He sweeps out his arm. “After you, Skye.”
He follows me to the other side of the store, footsteps echoing mine. He might have asked for a book that would set his heart aflame, but mine’s the one that’s racing.
“It should be here…” I murmur, running my finger along the length of spines until I find the one I need.
I hold it up to him.
His gaze flickers from the cover to me, wide and aware. Then he chuckles softly. “Well, well,” he says, reaching out to take it from me.
“It’s a thriller,” I say.
“I can see that.” His eyes scan the back, and I know what he’s finding there. A description of a billionaire hero running rampant. Murders in penthouses, secrets hidden beneath silk and money, all to conceal a drug ring.
“Interesting,” he says, voice thick with amusement. “Recommended to me, you say?”
“Well,” I say, wondering if I took the joke too far, “it is a genuinely good book as well.”
He tucks the book under his arm and looks around, eyes coasting across shelves of book, the little old armchair in the corner. “This is a nice place. Has a lot of old-world charm.”
“I think so too,” I say. “But it’s closing.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. A development firm is planning to build yet another hotel here, and the city agreed. We have two months to close shop.”
“A hotel?”
“Yes, like the one we met in, I guess. The company who’s developing it has that air, you know?”
“What air?”
“A hotel bar kind of air.” My hands are gesturing, trying to paint a picture. It’s hard to describe a feeling. “All swanky hotel music and beige furniture. Probably run by some old rich guy who has no need at all for more money, or more hotels, or more influence. So this place is going, lost forever to posterity.” My tone is light, but the idea makes my throat clench. For years, this store was my solace, and Karli’s grandmother—the original owner—was a light in the dark.
Cole’s eyes are inscrutable. “That sounds complicated.”
“Pretty straightforward actually. Out with the old and in with the new.” I turn away from him before I make a complete fool of myself by tearing up. “Would you like your book gift-wrapped?”
“No.”
“It’s for you?”
He smiles at my surprise. “I wasn’t joking earlier, you know. I am literate.”
“I’m glad our school system didn’t fail you. But you don’t strike me as… ah.”
“The reading type?”
A blush creeps up my neck. “Well… yes, I suppose. I just wouldn’t think you have a lot of free time on your hands.”
“I don’t. But sometimes you have to make time, especially for the things that matter.”
It’s the first serious thing he’s said to me today, and I find myself nodding, unable to think of another witty comeback. What does he do for a living? He never mentioned that night at the hotel, and I never asked. We’d promised each other anonymity. “You’re right,” I say, my eyes dancing over his suit, his tie, the cuff links.
His voice is amused. “Are you trying to use your people-reading skills on me again?”
“It’s a force of habit.”
“Likewise,” he says, “although I think I got you all wrong that first night.”
“Oh?” My heart stutters in my chest at those final words. First night.
He leans against a bookshelf, too big for this store, for me, for this world. “Oh yes. I thought you did that sort of thing all the time.”
“That sort of thing?”
“Hot sex with a complete stranger,” he says. “Don’t pretend to have forgotten that part.”
My cheeks are on fire, but I force myself to keep his gaze. Please, Karli, stay in the storage room.
“I haven’t forgotten,” I say. “It would be difficult to, I admit.”
“You enjoyed yourself?”
Okay, now I have to break eye contact. “You know I did.”
“Good.” His eyes darken. “After I saw that offensive note you left me on the dresser, I wondered if I had underperformed.”
The idea that he could think what he did to me an underperformance feels ridiculous. There’s nothing remotely vulnerable in his voice, nor his face, his jaw set confidently. I narrow my eyes at him.
“You know, fishing for praise is very unbecoming.”
He laughs, and as he does, I catch a hint of a dimple in his left cheek. I hadn’t seen that in the darkness when we first met.
“All right. You might be less confident than you pretended that night in the hotel bar, but you’re just as quick to take me to task.”
“You think it was a pretense?”
He shakes his head at me, still smiling. “I think you wanted to try on a different woman’s clothing for the night. I’m glad I was available for your fantasy.”
My throat feels desert-dry. “Me too,” I say weakly. “And regarding the note…”
This is my chance. My chance to change things, to make amends, to maybe get another shot at seeing him. The things he could do… I haven’t stopped thinking about him for weeks.
There’s a smile on his lips. “Yes?”
“Maybe I was too quick in writing it.”
“Mmm. Maybe you were.” He ambles over to the counter, pushing the book and a twenty lazily over to the other side. “And if you’d had more time, what would you have added?”
Damn it, he’s going to make me say it. “A few digits, perhaps.”
“Ten, I hope.”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Good.” He leans in over the counter, his face so close to mine, a ghost of his hot breath against my skin. My body tenses, remembering his scent, the nearness, how his lips feel on mine. “I want you to remember that.”
I blink my eyes open to see him smiling crookedly, standing straight once more. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll find out.” He steps back, toward the door, his book in hand. “And, Skye?”
“Yes?”
“I would have called you. I want you to remember that, too.”
And then he’s gone, as swiftly as he came, the handsome suit-clad stranger.
