Page 54 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

She put her hands on either side of his face, rubbing her fingers against his cheekbones as she came up on tiptoe and kissed him hard and quick. “I don’t want to be hurt or hurt you either. Let’s start there.”

“Start there?”

“Neither of us, from what I’ve seen or heard, has successfully figured out adult relationships. But not wanting to hurt each other works for me.”

He hugged her close, burying his face in her thick, soft curls, the scent of lavender wrapping around him. That worked. He had been expecting her to want perfection or some sort of surety that was foreign to both of them. This felt right.

“Okay.”

She shifted back. “Great. And so you have time to freak out, in two weeks on Valentine’s Day I’m going to ask you to come with me to Poppy’s annual not-Valentine’s party.”

“I don’t freak out,” he said.

“Ha.” Her lack of confidence in him was harsh but honest.

“Why are you so sassy now?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“You know I do,” he pointed out. Her sass teased him out of his own solitude and made it comfortable to be himself with her. To let loose and have a little fun. He liked it. She never let him be overly moody when everyone else in his life had left him to it.

The look on her face was contemplative, and he could tell she was going through a lot. “Everything okay?”

“Liberty read my cards,” she said.

“More witchy magic. Did she tell you something about your parents? About us?”

“It doesn’t work that way. But, man, I wish it did,” she said.

How did it work? He wanted to ask, but he had a feeling even if she explained it he wasn’t going to get it. Maybe some things were better left uncertain. So he changed the subject. “Where are we going for dinner?”

“The Bootless Soldier tavern.”

Immediately images of the two of them screwing in the dark hallway that led to the bathrooms flooded his mind. She was wearing leggings, so that would make it difficult. “Will you be changing into a skirt?”

She threw her head back and laughed hard and loud, and he couldn’t help smiling. On some level he got her, and she got him too. On the surface he could only see the ways he wasn’t right for her. That he was too different and too difficult. But this moment gave him hope.

“Perhaps, if you asked me nicely,” she said.

He pulled her close again until his semihard cock was nestled against the bottom of her stomach. “Please.”

She rubbed herself against him and winked. “Sure.”

Fourteen

Sera did go home and change into a taffeta skirt, which she’d bought at Christmastime but never had the confidence to wear out of her house because it made her feel extra. She paired it with a sleek black scoop-neck bodysuit and her favorite chunky boots. She grabbed her bag to head out the door and it felt heavier than usual. She glanced down and realized she was carrying a book from Ford’s house.

She’d put it in her bag the day after the funeral. It was one with signatures from Ford, Benjamin, Wes and Oz in the front cover, but it was falling apart from use and disrepair. She wanted to get it fixed for them—Ford had mentioned he’d started looking into restoring it but hadn’t made any plans. Now she set it in a basket under a blanket in case Wes came back with her that night. She wanted the restored book to be a surprise.

Grabbing her coat off the hook on the wall, she left her house.

The earlier heavy clouds had given way to snow and she stopped, tipping her head back to let the flakes fall on her face. It didn’t matter that she’d been living in Maine for eight years; the Florida girl she’d been still loved the snow. She opened her mouth, catching a snowflake on her tongue.

“I guess you like the snow.”

She turned to look at Wes. He’d changed as well. She saw the thick black cable-knit of his turtleneck sweater under the collar of that wool coat he’d been wearing the first day they met.

“I love it. Do you?”

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