“GOOD MORNING, LIYA.” His low voice made my ears perk up as I searched for a book at the back of the store. “Cool earrings.”
“Good morning,” Liya chirped back. Her earrings were two tiny copies of her favorite books—The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Indigo by Beverly Jenkins. She’d had a bunch made on Etsy and mixed and matched sometimes. She gasped in delight. “For us?”
“For you,” Wyatt confirmed.
I poked my head around the corner. He held a tray of coffees and a white box with a familiar stamp on it. Beside him, the front desk was piled high with books.
I was struggling to narrow my favorites down to twenty. Last I counted, we were at nearly fifty.
My mouth fell open at the sight of the box. “Is that from the bakery?”
He winked at me, and my stomach flipped.
I took the box from him, set it on the counter, and opened it. Two perfect cinnamon buns were inside. I inhaled deeply before groaning with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes, he was watching me with a little smile.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” His gaze skimmed over my face and my stomach flipped again.
Liya stuck her face in the bag and inhaled. “Oh my god. I haven’t had one since April. The tourists snap them up so fast.”
“Thank you,” I told Wyatt.
He shrugged but his mouth slid into a satisfied grin. “No problem. You’re going to need snacks. We’re going on an adventure.”
I hesitated. “What do you mean?”
Instead of elaborating, he pointed at the piles on the desk. “Bookworm, are these the books you’ve picked out?”
I nodded, wincing. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t narrow it down.”
He waved me off. “No problem. Liya, do you have yours?”
“Yep, got them.” She pulled a small stack from a nearby shelf.
Now I was intrigued. What was he up to?
He handed me the coffee and cinnamon buns and picked up a stack of books. “Let’s go.” He proceeded to walk out the front door.
“What? Wyatt? Where are you going?” I called after him, staring as Liya gave an excited squeal and followed.
Outside on the street, the weekly farmer’s market was in full swing. On Saturdays, the main street of Queen’s Cove was open to foot traffic only, and local vendors lined the road with tables. The pizza place, Mateo’s, was setting up for the lunch rush, the produce vendors had been open since I arrived at work, even the hairstylist had set up a chair for people who wanted a quick trim.
Wyatt led us to an empty booth and set down a stack of books. He gestured at me. “Hand me your phone.”
“Why?” My stomach dropped. “Oh god. Am I going on Tinder? I’ve heard it’s only for hookups now, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
He snorted. “No, we’re not setting you up on Tinder.” He pulled a tiny white square out of his pocket. “You’re going to sell books.” He plugged in the square and installed an app before handing it back to me to input the store’s banking info.
My thumb hovered over the screen and I hesitated. My dad wouldn’t like this. A phone with a credit card reader didn’t have that small-town charm, he’d insist. This was different. This was new. A twinge of guilt hit me in the stomach.
I glanced at Wyatt, watching me carefully, waiting.
My dad wasn’t here, though, was he? I was the one running the store every day. I was the one trying to keep the bookstore afloat. There were tons of people out today on the street, shopping and wandering around the town. We might even make a few sales.
I had to keep the store afloat, and what my dad didn’t know for today wouldn’t hurt him. I tapped in the store’s banking info, and bang. We were set up for credit card payments.
Wyatt and Liya retrieved the rest of the books while customers milled around the table. Liya had brought out a small shelf that sat on top to display our favorites. We even brought the little Staff Picks! sign.
A woman with a straw hat picked up a copy of So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo and read the back cover while her friend browsed the titles on the table.
“I loved that book,” I told her. “She blends data with personal stories about race in America, and it’s eye-opening. Her writing is beautiful.”
She nodded and pulled her wallet out of her tote bag. “I’ll take it.”
Wyatt watched with a little smile on his face as I figured out how to use the square on my phone with her credit card.
The woman pulled out her phone. “Do you have social media?”
“We do.” I rattled off our social media handles. “We’re over there.” I pointed over my shoulder at the bookstore.
“Found you,” she said, lighting up. “Gorgeous photos. I’m so glad I found you.”
“Oh.” My face warmed but I grinned at her. “Me too.”
“Do you have anything like The Vampire Diaries?” Straw Hat Woman’s friend asked.
“Here,” Wyatt said, taking the phone from me. “I’ll do that. You do the books, bookworm.”
I found the title I was searching for and handed it to the woman. “Hot vampires, a Southern waitress, a dangerous vampire king, and an unsolved murder. It’s a long series so you can keep reading if you enjoy.” I shrugged. “The books are better than the TV show.”
While Liya was in an animated conversation with someone about a sci-fi romance series about blue aliens, I snapped a picture and posted it. I had caught Liya as she angled the book cover to the camera.
Pemberley Books is at the Queen’s Cove farmer’s market today. Come talk about books with us!
For the next hour, Liya and I helped customers find what they were searching for and Wyatt processed the sales.
“Do you have anything like Bridgerton?” a woman in her early twenties asked.
My eyes lit up. “Yes.” I grabbed a historical romance off the table and thrust it into her hands.
A dad in cargo shorts and a baseball hat led his teenager up to the stand. “My kid is non-binary. Do you have any YA books with non-binary main characters?”
“Or trans,” his teenager added.
I was already reaching for a couple books. “Do you read a specific genre, like fantasy or rom-com?”
They considered this. “I like fantasy stuff.”
“You’re in luck.” I picked out two titles and handed them over. “I have more in the bookstore over there in case these aren’t what you’re looking for.”
They smiled big at me and the dad pulled out his wallet.
“I’ll help you over here, bud,” Wyatt said, beckoning them over.
From half a block away, I spotted Don hustling toward the table. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Liya glanced where I was looking. “Oh, no.”
“Hannah.” He crossed his arms and surveyed the book stand.
“Hi, Don.” My voice was tentative. I shot Wyatt a glance. He was helping the dad pay but a little smile pulled at his mouth.
Don nodded and leaned in, lowering his voice. “I’m happy to see you outside. Glad my rejection didn’t send you into a depression.”
My mouth flattened into a line. “Can I help you with something today?” Anything to move this conversation along.
He perked up. “I wanted to see if you had the second in that orc series.”
“Oh. Um. Yeah, it’s back at the shop. I’ll go grab it.”
When I returned to the stand with the second book in the series, Don had his camera up, snapping more pictures of Liya chatting with a customer.
He put his camera down when he spotted me and reached for the book. “Perfect, thank you. I lent the first one to Miri and she is loving it.”
Miri Yang was Don’s best friend. She also ran a popular social media account with town events. She had reposted one of my pictures the other day, an image of Liya in the window of the store as she placed a book up on the shelf.
And now she was reading orc erotica.
Okay.
After Wyatt put Don’s book through, I was plugging my phone into a battery pack Liya brought when Wyatt’s mom strolled past.
I gave her a quick wave. “Hi, Elizabeth.”
She was in her sixties, always wore a bold necklace, and stopped into the bookstore to buy a book or say hello or ask how my dad was doing. She wore a curious smile as she glanced between Wyatt and me.
“Hannah, honey, it’s so nice to see you out here.” She nodded to her son. “Wyatt.”
“Hi, Mom.”
They stared at each other while I bounced on the balls of my feet, and Elizabeth’s eyes shimmered with excitement. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
“He’s teaching me how to surf,” I explained. “And I’m running his social media.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You are? That’s wonderful.”
I nodded and when she pulled out her phone, I showed her how to follow Wyatt’s account. She scrolled through the page, shaking her head to herself with a smile. “Look at all these videos of you, Wy. So handsome.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Okay. Time for you to leave.”
I laughed. “Wyatt.”
Elizabeth gave him a kiss on the cheek and winked at me. “See you two later.”
The rest of the afternoon, Wyatt rang through the customers while Liya and I talked their ears off about books. Within two hours, the pile on the table was down to only a few books, so Liya watched the booth while Wyatt and I headed back to the store to gather more.
“This is the most books we’ve sold in one day and it’s not even lunch,” I told him as we carried the stacks back to the table.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
We had made Liya’s salary for the day and probably mine as well, not that I was paying myself these days. I’d save that money for utilities.
“A really good thing.” I glanced up at him as we paused to let a family pass. “Thanks for doing this.”
He shrugged. “I just gave you the idea, bookworm. You’re the one matching people up with their books.”
I couldn’t help the smile that crossed my face. “It’s my favorite part of my job.”
“I can tell.” His gaze was warm and constant, and my stomach did a delicious roll forward.
When we returned to the booth, Beck was there, chatting with Liya.
“There she is.” He gave me that sunny smile. “Hey, Hannah.” To Wyatt, he nodded. “Wyatt.”
“Beck.” His tone was casual but clipped. It had a weird edge I hadn’t heard from Wyatt before.
“I was dropping by to tell you how much I’m loving Pride and Prejudice.” Beck grinned down at me and gestured at the table. “I like what you’ve got going on here.”
My face heated. Despite Beck being so friendly, it was hard for me to meet his gaze. “It was all Wyatt’s idea.” I nudged Wyatt and shot him a quick smile.
Beck’s eyebrows lifted. “Nice job, Wyatt.”
“Thanks.” His voice was still clipped. “Is the clinic closed today or something?”
“Nope. Just dropping by to chat with Hannah about our date.” Beck held eye contact with Wyatt and Wyatt stood up straighter.
I frowned. Something was off. A weird tension hung in the air.
Wyatt tilted his head, thinking. “Did you order a book about making friends? I saw it on the receiving shelf. How to Make Friends With a Low Libido, something like that.”
I blinked at Wyatt. Neither Liya nor I had ordered that book in. Liya shot me a bemused look before turning to help another customer.
Beck gave him a strange look before shaking his head. “Nope. I didn’t order that.”
Wyatt rubbed his chin. “Huh. Okay.” He shrugged. “I swear it was for you.”
Beck rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at me. “I have lots of friends and I don’t have a low libido. It’s normal. Everything is normal in that department.” He shook himself. “This is a weird conversation. Anyway, I was thinking we could take the boat out on the water and I could pack a picnic. How’s Wednesday night? I don’t work early on Thursdays at the clinic so we can stay out as late as we want.”
“I can open on Thursday at the store,” Liya added from behind Beck before she turned back to the customer.
Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest. “She has surf lessons in the morning.”
One of Beck’s eyebrows rose and my stomach lurched. He was just being nice and Wyatt was making it awkward. My stomach did a weird flip. Underneath it, though, there was an excited little flutter.
Was Wyatt jealous?
No. No way. Wyatt didn’t get jealous. He only cared about surfing.
“Wednesday sounds good,” I told Beck with a nod.
He glanced between Wyatt and me before giving me a quick wink. “See you then. I’ll pick you up?”
“I’ll be coming straight from the bookstore. Meet you at the marina at seven?”
“Perfect.” He smiled again. His teeth were so white against his tan, and his eyes were such a nice chocolate brown. He touched my elbow as he passed. “Have a good day, Hannah. Bye, Liya. Bye, Wyatt.”
“Bye, Beck!” Liya called after him.
I waved as he left before spinning to face Wyatt. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.” He shifted, still crossing his arms.
“I thought Beck was your friend.”
“He is.” He cleared his throat.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why are you being so weird?”
He reached for his pocket and pulled out his phone, buzzing in his hand. “Sorry, it’s Holden. One second. Hello?” he answered before he glanced at me. “Yeah, she’s here.” He handed it to me. “It’s for you.”
“Holden?”
“Hannah.” There were noises in the background. A beeping noise as a truck backed up, people calling to each other. Water rushing? An alarm going off. “A contractor hit a water line at one of my sites.” He had to shout over the noise. “I’m stuck here until it’s finished.”
“Oh.” I glanced up at Wyatt, watching with a curious expression. “So I guess we’re off for today.”
“Looks like it. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “It’s fine. I understand.”
Relief settled in my stomach. Not that I didn’t like Holden. I did. He was fine. I didn’t really know him. But the market was going so well and we were selling so many books that I didn’t want to leave Liya to deal with it herself.
“I’d ask for a rain check but today is the last day of the exhibit.”
“I didn’t know that.” My mouth twisted. “It’s okay. It’ll come back, I’m sure.”
“Ah, no, not there!” he called to someone on the other end. “I gotta go. Sorry again.”
“It’s okay. Bye.”
I ended the call and handed the phone back to Wyatt.
His gaze skimmed over my face with concern. “All good?”
I shrugged. “All good.” A woman with a little girl who looked about five wandered up to the booth. “Hi.”
The woman smiled down at the little girl. “We were hoping you had some books with either princesses or penguins in them.” The girl smiled at me before tucking her face into her mom’s shirt and peeking out.
My heart flopped. The little girl and her mom were so cute. “We have books on both those things.” I pulled a few options and showed them.
The next couple hours passed in a blur. At one point, we sold so many books that I was sending Wyatt back to the store to grab whatever he could find.
“Doesn’t the surf shop need you?” I asked as he returned with another load from the romance section. “It’s okay if you need to leave. You’ve helped us so much.”
He shook his head. “They’re fully staffed today. They got it handled.”
When afternoon rolled around, the booths around us began to close up.
I turned to Liya and Wyatt. “Shall we pack it in? The market is over and we’ve sold a week’s worth of books.” I couldn’t help the smile that grew on my face. We were so doing this again next weekend.
Compared to the bright sunlight outside, the shop was so dark. It took my eyes a moment to adjust before I re-shelved the few books we didn’t sell. Wyatt leaned on the counter and I shot him a grateful smile. “Thanks for your help today. You’re free to go.”
He pointed at Liya. “Are you okay here on your own until closing?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. That was already the plan because Hannah was going to the gallery.”
“Great.” He straightened and gestured at me. “She still is. Come on, bookworm.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to the gallery. You shouldn’t miss out because my brother’s a workaholic.”
Happiness flooded my chest and I grinned at him. “Okay. Let’s go.”
WYATT TILTED his head at the painting of a French countryside. “I thought her paintings were of forests around here.”
“She spent most of her life in Vancouver and Victoria and that’s what she’s most known for, but she also studied art in San Francisco, London, and Paris.” We studied the painting for a moment longer, all bright oranges and yellows, before moving on to the next. “People have the image of her being a reclusive artist in the woods with her pet monkey but she spent fifteen years not really painting after she finished school. Then she met a bunch of painters who inspired her, The Group of Seven, and it became her most prolific period.”
I pointed at the painting in front of us, all lush greens, towering trees and swirling skies in the saturated, psychedelic style Emily Carr was most known for.
“That’s when she began creating work like this.” I stared at the painting, tracing the lines with my gaze. “It’s amazing how you can meet people who bring something out in you.” I caught Wyatt’s gaze, embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Why sorry?” A little smile played on his features.
“I’m talking too much. I’m a bad date. I mean, not that this is a date or anything.”
Hannah, shut up, I told myself. Stop talking and making this worse.
“I like it when you tell me about this stuff.” He nudged me. “Talking about things you’re passionate about on a date is a good thing.”
My face warmed but my stomach fluttered again. “Which is your favorite?”
He pointed at the next one. “My aunts had a print of this one in their house.”
“Married or sisters?”
“Married.”
“Did they live nearby?”
He nodded his head. “I bought their house when my Aunt Beatrice moved away a couple years ago.”
He shifted, crossing his arms, gaze locked on the painting. There was a story there but he’d tell me if he wanted to.
He glanced down at me with one of those quick smiles that people put on to make the situation lighter. A this is not a big deal kind of smile. The one I used all the time. “Her wife, my Aunt Rebecca, passed away when I was a teenager. I stayed with them the summer before she passed to help out with stuff. Rebecca had Alzheimer’s.” He cleared his throat and glanced at the painting. “She moved into a care facility at the end of the summer and went downhill pretty quickly from there.”
My heart sank and my hand came to his arm. His skin was so warm. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head and shrugged. His gaze lingered on the painting. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.”
We wandered through the rest of the exhibit until we came to a self-portrait of the artist.
“You like this one,” Wyatt murmured in my ear, and I shivered but nodded up at him. “Why?”
“It’s just…” I sighed, organizing my thoughts, sifting through why I was so drawn to this painting. “I love artist self-portraits. So many of them are really harsh.” I swallowed. “Like they’re all their own worst critics. The rest of the world thinks they’re incredible but they see themselves so differently. Like Van Gogh. His portraits show how depressed he was or how he had just cut off his own ear.” I shook my head at the painting of Emily Carr, glaring out of the canvas with a haughty, challenging expression. Her clothes were plain, a cap hid her hair, and she had used muted colors, but her gaze was electrifying.
“Hers isn’t like that, though.” I chewed my lip. “It’s like she’s saying, this is who I am, and if you don’t like it, go fuck yourself.”
Wyatt’s gaze flared and he shot me a roguish grin. “Language, bookworm.”
“I wish I could be that bold. Did you know that she was an art teacher at a women’s college but everyone hated her because she smoked and swore too much?” I laughed. “She didn’t care what anyone thought.”
Kind of like my mom, I realized. My mom didn’t care what others thought, as long as she was having fun and doing what she loved. I glanced back up at Wyatt. His gaze was soft and his eyes were bright under the gallery lighting.
He lifted his eyebrows at me. “You’re on your way. Look at you today, talking about books and getting people all excited.”
I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. “They probably won’t even read them.”
“Yes, they will.” We had come to the end of the exhibit so we headed outside. “The way you talk about the stories you love, it makes people want to read them.”
I thought about Beck reading Pride and Prejudice. “Maybe you’re right.” And then I remembered something and gave him a little frown as we wandered down the main street. The day was still warm but not uncomfortable and a light breeze drifted off the ocean a block away. “Why were you so weird with Beck today?”
He didn’t speak for a second but a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Was I?”
I scoffed. “You insinuated that he had no friends and couldn’t get a boner.”
A laugh burst out of Wyatt, and I slapped his arm.
“You’re terrible,” I told him, still laughing. “Why’d you do that? I thought you guys were friends.”
He raked his hand through his hair and sighed. “I was jealous, okay? I’m jealous because he looks at you like he wants to fuck you.” His jaw ticked.
Oh. My initial instinct had been right. I blinked a few times, mind racing with my interactions with Beck. He was nice, but he wasn’t flirty. Was he? Oh my god. Had Beck been flirting with me and I didn’t realize it?
“I’ve never been jealous in my life. And then one of my good friends made plans with you and it pissed me off.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and he pressed his mouth into a line. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t cool.”
My thoughts whirred. A hit of pleasure and warm feelings drifted into my bloodstream from knowing someone as inaccessible as Wyatt was jealous over me.
For a brief moment, I was more than the shy, invisible girl in the bookstore.
Things with Wyatt weren’t going anywhere, though. He was going to place at Pacific Rim and then he’d be off, flying around the world and competing. I’d still be here, shelving books at my little store.
It was best forgotten. I gave him a tight smile. “It’s fine. I’m sure it’ll pass, anyway.”
He watched me with uncertainty in his eyes before he nodded. “Yeah.”
When we said goodbye, he hesitated and his arm twitched, like he wanted to hug me or something. His gaze raked over my face and my heart tripped. His gaze was so intense and focused.
“Bye,” I blurted out.
“Bye, bookworm.”
I whirled around and headed home, the back of my neck prickling until I turned the corner. When I got home, I caught my reflection in the front hall mirror as I kicked my sneakers off. I had been spending so much time outside on the water that a light tan washed over my nose, cheekbones, and forehead. Freckles dotted my skin. I hadn’t had freckles since I was a kid. The apples of my cheeks were pink. Even my hair seemed brighter.
I was changing. I knew that. I didn’t know if I liked it, though. My mom would have told me to find someone who liked me for me, whether it was the shy version of myself who didn’t talk to guys or the girl who hid in the bookstore all day. But my mom wasn’t like me, so it was easy for her to say that.
Who was this new version, with tanned skin, the one who got up on a surfboard and asked hot doctors out on dates?
My mom’s laugh rang out in my memory, the loud, high sound stinging me with nostalgia in the middle of my chest.
I bet she’d like Wyatt. They both had that easy disposition, quick to smile and not take life too seriously. I swallowed.
My phone rang and my dad’s picture lit up the screen.
“Hi, Dad.”
“There’s my Hannah Banana.” His voice came through on the other end. “How was your day, honey?”
“Good.” I wandered into the kitchen and leaned on the counter, staring out the window. “How’s Salt Spring?”
“Busy but beautiful. These goats eat a lot.”
I grinned. We visited my uncle a few times when I was a kid and I had fond memories of feeding the goats.
“Sell some books today?”
Another stab of guilt. This would be the time to tell him about the farmer’s market, about all the books we sold, and how the store hadn’t been breaking even for a while. My mouth twisted. “A few.”
If I told him the store wasn’t doing well, he’d worry, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it from Salt Spring. A little spike of bravery rose in me.
“Hey, Dad, I wanted to ask you about something.”
“Go for it.”
Over the past few days, as I spent more time on social media, I had found a few accounts from local artists. One artist, Naya Kaur, had caught my eye with her paintings. Her style was colorful and whimsical, characterized by detail and nature. Her latest collection depicted people daydreaming in forests. One of her paintings was of a woman lying in a hammock, staring at the sky through the trees.
I’d been thinking about that painting for a couple days now. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It reminded me of lying on my surfboard next to Wyatt, staring up at the sky.
Without a doubt, Naya was the right artist to redo the mural outside the store. If we had more days like today at the farmer’s market, we could afford it.
“The mural outside the store is in pretty rough shape.”
He didn’t say anything, and my stomach clenched. I swallowed my anxiety.
“Um, and, like, parts of it are crumbling.” I cleared my throat. Shit. I should have practiced this. “What do you think about someone fixing it up a bit? We don’t have to change it, just fill in some of the faded parts. Revive it.”
He made a humming noise and my heart sank. I’d heard that noise before.
“I don’t know, honey.” He made a huffing noise. “Did someone complain or something?”
“No, but—” I gathered my thoughts. My heart pounded in my chest. “It looks bad. I think it would be good for business to have a new mural.”
“A new mural?” His voice went high.
“The same mural,” I added quickly. “Fixed up a bit.”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I think we should keep it as-is. We can talk about it when I get back.”
I exhaled through my nose and clenched my jaw. That meant no. He just didn’t want to say it outright.
My dad would never let me make a single change to the store. That was clear.
“Alright, well, I have to make dinner now.” My tone was sharper than I intended. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Oh. Okay. Goodnight, honey. Love you.”
“Bye. Love you, too.”
We hung up and I stared at the phone a moment before I pulled up Naya’s social media and wrote out a DM.
Hi, Naya. Your work is beautiful. Any chance you would be interested in painting a mural outside Pemberley Books?
