Page 60 of Not in My Book

Eventually, I started picking out my own books and handing them down to him from the ladder. “Keep the stacks separate!” I said anxiously whenever he put one of mine in the wrong pile.

“Why?” He leaned against the bookshelf behind him. Handsome men like Aiden should bebannedfrom leaning. I didn’t understand the science behind it, but it made him a million times hotter. “You know which ones you’ve read. This is just creating more work for me.”

“Just do it.”

He rolled his eyes and separated our books into two stacks.

When we were finished in the romance aisle, Aiden grabbed a basket and places our books in it. “My turn,” he said.

He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the fiction section around the corner in the E-F-G aisle. It was different from all the other straight, narrow aisles. This aisle had a small alcove that Aiden and I could barely fit into. His hand had slipped so easily into mine, our fingers were now intertwined. I tried my best not to read into it and convinced myself this was just him being friendly.Platonic.

But Aiden didn’t seem like the type of guy to hold a girl’s hand through a bookstore if he didn’t feel anything toward her.

Still, if this was all I ever got from Aiden, I’d be okay with that. Just sweaty palms pressed against each other and taking up too much space in the tight aisles of a bookstore. The line between reality and fiction was almost as big as the one between love and hate, but I was desperate to convince myself it was thinner. That this wasn’t all in my head.

He was still holding my hand as he searched through the shelves. The aisle was so small that we had to stand chest to chest with our faces craned toward the shelves. I studied him as he scanned through the Fs, his brow furrowed.

“I’m not reading Faulkner, no matter how big your crush is on him,” I said as his finger ran along the spines. He ignored me, deep in concentration.

“Aha.” He pulled a thick book out of the shelf and turned to me with it.As Best I Canby Maggie Frantel. “This book is sad, but it’s a little romantic too.” He held the book out to me, and I regretted having to let go of his hand to take it.

“Are you kidding? I love Maggie Frantel,” I said, flipping through the book. Everyone and their mother had heard of her. She had started off doing literary fiction tinted with romance, but over time she’d morphed into a Nora Roberts kind of writer. Under a pseudonym, she had churned out a mystery every year up until her death a few years before. The television adaptation of her Detective Pierre St. Clair books was currently the longest running series on ABC.

“Down Your Blockis one of my favorite moviesever.” I peered up at him. “I didn’t think you’d like anything that has so much romance in it.”

He shrugged, “These are my exception. Always.”

“You know, I’ve never read this one. It was her debut, right? Didn’t it win the National Book Award?”

He nodded. “About fifteen years ago. It’s one of my favorites. You really get submerged in the main character’s head.” He continued on, talking about how the prose was beautiful without even trying and how, by the end of it, the book would be all I could think about. You could tell how much Aiden admired this writer. Even in class when he talked about his favorites, his eyes never quite lit up like this.

“Did you cry when you read it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, unashamed.

“If I read this and I can’t stop crying …”

“You can call me. Any time. And we’ll talk about every detail,” he promised.

“The same with your books.” I nodded at the basket. “You’ll cry tears of happiness at the Happily Ever Afters.”

He smiled at that. “Oh, definitely.”

We stood in the aisle, chest to chest, with no space for either of us to move. I was sohappyto be in my favorite bookstore with someone who was slowly becoming my favorite person. I couldn’t help my eyes flickering down briefly to his lips. And when I did, his eyes fell to mine, too. His head moved, just a centimeter closer to mine. No one would be able to see us if we did kiss, with my back pressed against the shelves, the alcove hiding me from the rest of the store.

But just as quickly as he’d moved toward me, he moved away and said, “C’mon, let’s keep looking around.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. My heart was beating rapidly eventhinkingabout what kissing Aiden would be like. I wanted to stay in this small aisle and learn exactly what it felt like when Aiden took what he wanted.

We spent nearly all day together at the Strand. We went to every floor and pointed out books we loved or ones we’d want to read. I could barely focus with Aiden’s touch always finding me. His hand would linger on the small of my back when someone wanted to scoot past us, or it would fall on my shoulder when he wanted to point something out to me.

By the time we were ready to check out, the sun had begun to set.

“We need to go in there with a clear head,” I said as we neared the line. “Oh shoot, I should probably move my money now.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I swear the Strand line is the scariest one in all of Manhattan. Those booksellers will yell at you if you delay. They’renotoriouslygrouchy. We’ve got to be focused while we’re in line.”

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