Page 24 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

“Probably,” she said at last.

“Yeah, cool. So see you tomorrow,” he said, sitting to put on his shoes and then shrugging on his jacket. He fastened it while she watched. The way he adjusted the collar was the same as Ford used to do.

His eyes were a bit red.Grief.

“Wait. Do you want to stay and...talk about Ford?” she asked, throwing him a lifeline against her better judgment.

“You just made me put my coat on,” he pointed out.

“I know. It’s just... Well, you have some of his mannerisms and I can tell you were crying.”

He shrugged. “Turns out I’m not dead inside.”

“Hot cocoa or something stronger? I have some Baileys left over from Christmas. I’m not too sure if it’s still good or not.”

“Cocoa would be great,” he said, taking his jacket and shoes off again and then following her down the hall into her intimate little kitchen.

She put two mugs of tap water into the microwave and then pulled out packets of Swiss Miss. “I’ve got regular or mini marshmallows.”

“Got to be marshmallows,” he said.

She tried to ignore him as he sat at her table, but it was hard. Her body was still pulsing, and she remembered how he’d felt inside her. Maybe that was why she hadn’t let him leave. She’d never been one to cling to a lover. Sex was just something she needed, something she used. That was it.

Normally.

But nothing about this day had been normal.

She pulled a can of Reddi-Wip from the fridge and turned, holding it up toward Wes. “Want some?”

He nodded, pulling the journal on the table closer to him. “Can I look in this?”

She appreciated that he’d asked. “Sure. I use it as a planner.”

She finished making the hot cocoa and brought it over to him. His long fingers were skimming the journal, flipping the pages carefully. He stopped on a Thursday. She’d printed off a picture of Ford and herself on sticker paper and put it in the journal. Just a selfie she’d taken when they’d been outside the coffee shop, about to head home.

He was smiling and looking devil-may-care, the way he did when she’d finished reading a new book he recommended and they had a really good discussion about it. She reached over and touched the photo.

She was going to miss him.

Her eyes burned and she blinked, not sure she wanted to cry in front of Wes. It was one thing to acknowledge they were both grieving, but crying was something she had always done alone.

“What was he smiling about?”

“We’d debated the merits of Tolkien, one of his favorites,” she said.

She had even jotted down some of the discussion under it.

“You were good friends.”

Wes seemed surprised to have figured that out.

“We were. Hamish told me he was glad Ford had found me because he was sick of listening to him talk about books,” Sera said, smiling a little.

She had felt like she and Ford were kindred spirits, the kind that Anne Shirley used to wax on about inAnne of Green Gables. It was a relationship she’d never expected to find, and wasn’t sure she ever would again.

Seeing Grandpa’s smiling face just reinforced the fact Wes had been a jerk over the last few years. He was tired. He was unsure. He wanted to stay in this cozy cottage of Sera’s, even though it made his skin feel too tight and itchy.

He should have declined the cocoa. He should have declined the fuck too, but he was so glad he hadn’t. She’d satisfied something inside that he hadn’t realized had been empty for too long. Another thing he planned to ignore. When he got home, hopefully the leather would be ready for him to start working on that manuscript so he could stop thinking.

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