Page 105 of Quake

Listen carefully, the kettle is singing,

Find the place where comfort clings.

“Okay,” she says. “Well, this book isElevator Pitchand the riddle is talking about an elevator and a kitchen. So maybe the next book is about cooking?” she asks me.

I smile at her, extending my arm forward. “Lead the way.”

She rolls her eyes, dragging me along down the aisles. She spots a doorway with dark wooden trim that leads us into another part of the store. She pulls us through it, similar to what the riddle had suggested. As soon as she sees the tall floor lamp lit up in the corner with a table and another stack of books beneath it, she sprints over to it. She grabs the bookDesserts for Stressed Peopleand opens it up, quickly reading the next poem.

“In pages sweet, where sugar weaves,

A tale of love in frosting leaves,

A hidden path begins to show,

To fields where passions freely flow.

From cakes and pies, a love divine,

To where the heart and sport entwine,

Find the romance, kick and score,

Wherelove and soccer meet once more.”

Her eyes meet mine. “A soccer romance?” I nod, and she pulls me to the sports romance section. I watch as she trails her fingers along the spines of the books. They stop the moment she sees it.

A paper crane sits on top of a book calledScoring Wilder. She flips through the pages, and instead of a poem, aHockey Smut Book Clubbookmark falls out from the center of the pages. It’s from someone my mom met online who runs her own smutty book club. Hopefully, this one will be pretty self-explanatory.

“A hockey book…” she says, trailing off. She turns around, looking through the hockey section and snags a book off the shelf with a maroon cover that looks sort of out of place amongst all of the blue, purple, and pink books.

“Quiver?” she asks, opening it up and finding another message written inside the cover, this time in Spanish. This one she stares at but doesn’t read aloud. “You’re gonna have to help me out here. I can’t read this.”

I chuckle. “Oh, come on. Lucia and Josie have been teaching you Spanish for months now.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Yeah,monthsnotyears.I’ve got something about goals being scored and hearts. That doesn’t really help me.”

I take the book from her, reading it in Spanish first and quickly translate it to English for her.

“In the game of ice and fleeting chance,

Where hearts may glide, and sparks can dance,

A love story starts where goals are scored,

But shifts to dreams of a star adored.

From skates and sticks to guitar picks,

A second chance in life’s grand mix,

Where a rock star’s tune calls hearts to play,

Find your loveOn The Rockstoday.”

Her eyes go wide, and my favorite smile spreads across her lips. “I know that one!” she shouts, running toward a display labeled “Rock Star Romance.”

She picks up the first book in the display,On The Rocks,a second-chance romance. This one simply reads, “Find the one that makes youQuakewith need and emotion.”

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