Page 15 of Undeniable You

Time to leave ASAP.

“Okay, well, have a good weekend,” I said, rushing to grab my bag and knowing how fake and cheery my voice sounded but I needed to GO.

“Bye, Juniper!” I waved and she waved back at me before I was through the door and all but running down the stairs and out into the stifling summer heat.

I sucked in a deep breath that tasted of car exhaust and pavement and other city smells. Gross, but it helped clear my head a little bit.

After a few seconds of getting myself together, I looked around and had to remind myself where I’d parked my car. Larison’s apartment was just a little too far from my place to walk every day. Good thing I was only doing this for the summer because it would have been a pain to get here in the winter.

I stopped at the grocery store to get some dinner before I went home. It was nice getting done with everything with plenty of daylight to get things done if I wanted to. If only I had the energy. I was wiped. Under normal circumstances I would have gone to hang out at Sapph with Reid, but since she was working only a few shifts every now and then, my nights at the bar had decreased.

My other friends were so coupled up that they would rather spend time with their significant others and more horizontal activities than dealing with the summer mayhem at Sapph. I didn’t really blame them. Summers at Sapph were wild. The tourists in town added a whole new reckless and chaotic dimension that could be fun and could be extremely un-fun.

A Friday night in wasn’t a complete disaster and I was used to it. At least I had plenty of time for reading and didn’t have to spend the whole night on homework or stress-eating salt and vinegar chips in the glow of my laptop screen as I struggled to edit one of my papers.

Tonight I could read all I wanted, which felt like an indulgence.

Reid sent me a message and asked what I was up to and how the first day had gone. I was assuming that she’d heard Larison’sside via Sophie, but I wasn’t going to ask if Larison had said anything about me.

First day was great. Juniper is an awesome kid and we got along like two peas in a pod. Please thank Sophie again for suggesting this job. I think it’s going to work out.I was probably jinxing myself by saying that so soon, but I wanted to be more optimistic. First step was to stop always going to the worst-case scenario. I was going to take a leaf out of Sophie’s book and think positive. Seemed to work for her.

Sophie says your welcome and that Larison has already given you a rave review.

It was a relief that no one could see me blush when I read that message. To think that Larison was pleased with me felt way too good. I didn’t think of myself as a glutton for praise but hearing that she’d been talking about me to Sophie was better than just about anything, and that included brownie batter ice cream.

The feeling is mutualI responded to Reid. I couldn’t gush too much about Larison or else Reid was going to get suspicious and see lust written all over my face. I wasn’t that great at lying and Reid knew me really well. I wouldn’t be able to hide much from her, so I’d have to just avoid the topic until I stopped wanting Larison. This fire inside me that ignited when we’d met would go out. Ithadto.

While at thelibrary with Juniper, I’d spotted a few new releases that I wanted to read myself, so I’d grabbed them before we left. When I’d been in school, most of my reading had been put on hold so now I had a massive list of books that I’d had to put off reading until now. It didn’t help that somany of my friends were big readers and were always giving me recommendations.

Not to mention there was Eloise, who literally wrote romances and would sometimes pawn extra copies off on the rest of us. As if there weren’t people who paid lots of money for her signed books in online auctions.

I was drowning in books, but it was a problem I was happy to have. One thing my mom had done, even when she’d been so tired her eyes were barely open, was read to me. Every night that she could. She’d named me for two of her favorite literary characters. Her own dream had been to be a librarian, but between financial difficulties and a few undiagnosed learning disabilities, it wasn’t in the cards for her.

I’d encouraged her to try anyway, but she always said that sometimes you had to give up your dreams in the face of reality.

One promise I’d made to myself was that I wouldn’t do that. And that I wanted to help other people discover the world through books. Reading was so important. It was an essential skill and one that I never took for granted. I’d done some volunteering at an adult literacy organization and saw the difference it made.

I couldn’t change things for my mother, but I could change things for someone else and that would have to be enough.

I had to get my degree first, though, and the way to do that was by keeping my new job and NOT lusting after Larison and getting fired.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

Chapter Six

Larison

Friday had been rougher than I expected. Even with so much to fill my hours at the bookshop, I couldn’t stop wondering if Juniper was okay and if she was missing me. If she was angry with me for leaving her. Juniper had never been a super clingy kid, and I’d never had many issues dropping her off at daycare or preschool, but there was a first time for everything.

I’d uprooted her, again, and now I was abandoning her for a bookshop. Rationally, I knew that most of my worries were overblown and irrational, but that didn’t stop me from thinking that way.

As a result, I sent probably too many nervous messages to Jo, but she responded each time and usually included a picture or a video of my daughter that soothed my worries for a few minutes at least.

The bookshop was coming along. We’d finally gotten the right flooring, the toilet got fixed, and the electrical was done. Instead of getting generic shelves online, I’d visited another independent bookshop further up the coast and had loved the beautiful custom shelves in the shop. The owner had found meadmiring them and said her wife had built them and would be happy to make them for me as well. I’d barely even looked at how much they were going to cost. I’d cut corners somewhere else. My shop was going to have beautiful handmade shelves.

Once they finally got installed, things would really feel like they were coming together. I’d also hired a local artist to do several murals on the walls and the bathroom and behind the checkout area. I’d found this gorgeous old desk that I’d had raised for the checkout counter and had the point of sale system ready to install. There were five thousand other things I still needed to do, but we were on track to open in a month and a half. It wasn’t ideal timing, but I didn’t want to wait, and I couldn’t make it happen any sooner.

It was overwhelming and some days I expected someone to burst into the shop and say “hey, you’re not allowed to do that!” and shut everything down. Another irrational fear, but it kept coming up.

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