Page 73 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

Chose.The way Liberty said it made Sera believe her friend was slowly getting her mojo back. She was determined to be in control of her fate.

Sera was too. Liberty shoved her doubts and fears aside and stepped into her normal sassy self, and Sera needed to reach into her own hidden depths. Pulling out her confidence. Because when Wes had given her that book, she had wanted to ask if he’d done so because of the inscription. But fear had kept her silent.

If Liberty could face a man who had never wanted to know she was alive, then Sera could be brave enough to ask the man she was coming to care deeply about, the man she was starting to see a future with, if he felt the same way.

Nineteen

Wes was in Grandpa’s house alone for the first time in about a week. It was sort of odd and sort of nice. He liked the relationship he was developing with Sera, but at the same time, his neck itched and his skin felt too tight thinking of how he’d rather have her here with him. He ate his dinner standing up by the sink, which had been his habit before Sera.

Then he worked on the Beatrix Potter book she’d found for him; the book was in sad shape and would require his gentlest approach. As he worked, he thought about Sera. She was with Liberty and Poppy tonight. He envied her the closeness of that relationship, and though he and Sera were sleeping together and sharing their lives, a part of him felt comfortable with that only because it was still temporary.

He had realized it when he’d seen the three women together. Sera was different with her friends. She let her guard down in a way she didn’t with him. And until that moment he’d been patting himself on the back for moving closer to her. But now those old doubts and fears stirred.

But what more could she want from him?

Their family had never been dirt-poor, but they weren’t the Kardashians either. There was no monetary gain she could want from him the way his mother had wanted money from his father. Did she want him to open up more, or to be the one to make a commitment even though neither of them knew what that would look like?

He heard a car outside and walked to the front door and opened it, sure it was Sera.

But it was his dad.

“Hope you don’t mind me dropping by without notice. I still have some of Dad’s old clients in Birch Lake. I used to stay with him overnight. Didn’t think to let you know,” he said.

Wes stepped back to let his dad in. He hadn’t realized his father had been visiting Grandpa once a month. Which just made him feel like a shittier version of himself.

His relationship with his dad had stalled out when he’d been forced out of college and Wes had given his dad the bird and walked away. But that was almost a decade ago. Maybe it was time to start again.

This time in a more adult way.

“You alone?” his dad asked as he came into the foyer and took off his coat.

Wes nodded as he grabbed the coat from him. “Sera’s with her friends tonight. But she might be here tomorrow.”

“I’ll be gone in the morning,” he said. “So that’s going well?”

Wes shrugged. He thought so, but he couldn’t shake his doubts and anxieties. He’d given her a book with a romantic inscription, and she’d seemed happy about it without acknowledging it. Letting her guard down and really counting on him being around for longer than six weeks was more than she could do at this moment.

Would that ever change until he admitted he wanted more time?

“That’s not really an answer,” his dad said. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

His dad smiled and nodded. “I get it, son. I’m dating again.”

“Really? I guess hell froze over,” Wes said. His dad had used antiquated sayings like that a lot when they were growing up.

“Maybe, or just a light dusting of snow.” His dad walked down the hall to the kitchen and took two glasses from the cabinet and then the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He held it up toward Wes, who nodded.

He hadn’t thought he wanted to talk, but as he glanced at the Potter book open on the kitchen table, he decided he should. “Dad, what made Mom leave?”

His father glanced over his shoulder but finished pouring the whiskey into their glasses and then turned and handed him one. “Let’s go into the living room. I’m going to need to be comfortable if we’re talking about her.”

Wes followed his father into the living room and sat down in the large leather armchair that used to be Grandpa’s. It smelled faintly of the cologne he’d worn and the cigars he used to smoke in here.

“What’s bringing this up?”

“I suck at relationships.” That was enough for the old man to hear. But Wes wanted to be better and part of it had to be everything that happened in his childhood. His therapist had tried to get him to talk about it more than once. But Wes didn’t know where to start.

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