Chapter 43
By noon, I’m convinced the universe is out to personally kick me in the metaphorical teeth.
First, my favorite pen runs out of ink while I’m in the middle of an order list. Not a tragic situation to most, except I’m halfway through jotting down a rush restock for the new romance shelf (yes, again), and I’ve developed a weird loyalty to this one specific pen that fits perfectly between my fingers and makes me feel like a put–together adult woman. Switching to a janky, chew–marked blue pen from the bottom of the drawer feels like a betrayal.
Then, the espresso machine the customers are allowed to use decides to blow steam like it’s reenacting “The Little Engine That Couldn’t–ear- splittingly loudly, overly dramatic, and with just enough hiss to trigger my fight–or–flight response. Gemma cackles from behind the check–out. counter like I’m a sitcom rerun she’s seen a hundred times. “You really pissed off the caffeine gods this morning, huh?”
“No, Gem,” I mutter as I mop up the coffee station counter with a dishcloth that looks as haggard as I feel, “just the gods of every mildly redeemable part of my day
She tsks at me but doesn’t press; she just gives me that look that says / pry it out of you by hunchtime. I’d usually appreciate her restraint. But today? I want to stab something soft, preferably a freshly baked pastry.
But I don’t miss him. Not at all. I refuse to.
I’m not thinking about how warm his jacket was on my shoulders Saturday after dinner at that ridiculously expensive restaurant, or how it smelled luxurious and frustratingly comforting. I’m definitely not thinking about how he kissed me in the car afterwards, or how his hand cradled my jaw like I was something rare and breakable. And I’m most certainly not thinking about how he carried me inside last night like I weighed nothing more than a paperback.
Absolutely fucking not.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket, and before I can think better of it, my hand darts out and pulls it free. There is no text or call notification- just an email notification of an upcoming book fair in the next town over.
I open my messages and hover over the blank screen, my thumb twitching like I might type something, but then a harrowing thought strikes me. I don’t have his number. At that realization, I shove my phone into the top drawer of my desk like it personally betrayed me.
Genima doesn’t say anything until after the lunch rush hits with a vengeance and just as suddenly dies down in a heap of leftover biscotti crumbs. Then she saunters to where I’m sorting the new bookmarks that came in over the weekend, leans both elbows on the counter like she’s preparing to interrogate a suspect, and says, “So. We gonna talk about why you keep zoning out like a Victorian widow who just spotted her dead lover on a misty moor?”
I raise a brow and play dumb when I reply, “No
No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Uh–huh. You’ve overfilled three coffee cups, forgotten one of our regular customers name, and tried to tap another customer’s card on your phone instead of the store’s card reader.”
“All minor glitches,” I deflect, unable to meet her eyes as I straight out lie to her.
“Girl, you tried to pour steamed milk into the tip jar earlier,” she calls me out yet again.
I sigh dramatically, which is basically emotional shorthand for fine, but only because I trust you.
Gemma perks up as she sees I’m about to crumble under her interrogation. “Alright, Moody Blues, spill it. What’s crawled into your coffee and curdled it?”
“Life,” 1 deadpan, scrubbing a hand down my face as my shoulders slump. “It’s just been a weekend of epic proportions.”
“A dramatic one, or a ‘someone drank the last of the milk‘ one?” she asks, genuinely interested in my answer.
“Somewhere in between both,” I mutter, already retreating behind the postcard display stand like it might shield me from her further questioning
Her head tilts. “And yet you look like you’re one wrong word away from crying into the register.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I reach for a postcard with a picture of our local canyon on the front, like it’s suddenly the most fascinating thing on the planet. Gemma doesn’t push–not yet–but her silence is the kind that has teeth that’s sunk into me and my dramatic life, and won’t let go until
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Chapter 43
she knows everything.
The rest of the day spirals exactly how you’d expect for someone trying really hard not to
miss a
someone
she’s totally no
totally not attached to…
A box of new titles arrives, and when I slice it open, the top book has a tagline that reads ‘One night. One kiss. One unforgettable mistake.–Not helping, publishing gods. 1 try to shelve them and accidentally knock down the entire romance display that took me almost two days last week to perfect,
A hardcover of nearly 600 pages bounces off my foot, hits a shelf behind me just right, and triggers a domino effect that almost decapitates a cardboard cutout of a fan’s depiction of Rhysand from ACOTAR.
A kid knocks over a cup of hot chocolate near the register, and in the chaos of paper towels and marshmallow goo, I miss a call from an unknown number. For half a second, I think it might he him. But the person doesn’t leave a voicemail, so there’s no way of knowing. So, I clean sticky cocoa off the linoleum tiles and pretend it doesn’t feel like my day’s unraveling at the edges faster than a Nascar driver at the Indy 500.
Not because I miss him. Not because I feel like I let something go that might’ve actually mattered. Just…because the lighting’s weird in here today. That’s all.
When the last customer finally trickles out and the bell over the door jingles for the last time, 1 sag against the counter and matter to no one in particular, “I’m totally fine. This is fine. Everything is aggressively, irritatingly fine.”
Gemma walks by me; pats me on the back, her bag slung over her shoulder, and on her way out, she hands me a glazed donut covered with pastel colored sprinkles.
I eat it, but I don’t really taste it. All while I pretend the sugar high will fix everything.
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