Page 33 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

“How long did that take?” Wes asked wryly.

“Almost a year and a half,” she said with a smile. “He was stubborn about everything.”

“Yeah, that’s sort of a Sitwell trait,” he admitted. “So after that you just started meeting?”

“Yeah, but it was more organic. I pointed out that sometimes the only way to read an older, out-of-print book was on an e-reader. And he said, ‘Name a book you can’t get and I’ll bring it to you next week.’”

“Which one did you pick?”

“A specific edition ofThe Scarlet Pimpernelby Baroness Orczy,” she said. “He brought it and I loved it. But he included a couple of Alexandre Dumas books as well. Of course, I’d heard of him, but had never read any of his books. He’s a good writer, butThe Man in the Iron Maskwasn’t really my thing. However, I lovedThe Three Musketeers.”

Wes nodded slowly. “I never talked books with him.”

“Why not?”

“Oz—that’s my twin—and I used to be sent to stay here every summer so my dad could have some downtime from being a single parent, and Grandpa used to leave us to our own things. Mostly we played on our Game Boys or outside on our bikes. He seemed to not really want us here, but we were too young to go anywhere else. We just kept to ourselves and only saw him at dinner, which he insisted we eat together.”

“That sounds...sort of sad. Didn’t you talk at dinner?” she asked.

“No. He put the news on and we were encouraged to think about current events,” he said.

In his mind were those long-ago summer nights and that lonely table. All he’d wanted to do was get back to his game, or his laptop when he’d been older and brought one. He hadn’t been interested in anything his grandfather had to say. Not then.

But he was now, and he was so envious of the time Sera had spent with Grandpa. It was time Wes could have had for himself if he’d been able to let go of his pride and just reach out. But that hadn’t been an option for him.

Sera knew pretty early on that all families weren’t built the same. Being in the foster system, she’d been placed in three different families growing up, and her last foster mother, Tawdra, had been great. Her husband worked for a software company and traveled most of the time, so he hadn’t really been a part of their everyday life. Tawdra had been a good foster mom, giving Sera the space she needed to grow and try new things.

“Was your brother...? What does Oz stand for, or is that his name?” she asked because she’d never heard that name before.

“Oscar. And he’s grouchy just like the character onSesame Street,” Wes said.

“Good to know.” Wes could be a bit prickly, so that tracked for his brother. She wondered what their dynamic was like; it seemed as if they were close, which intrigued her, as from Ford’s stories she wouldn’t have expected that.

“Ford wasn’t really prickly about much. Though Hamish and he did have a big, heated argument last summer about an illegal move in chess and it lasted for three weeks,” she said. She’d never seen Ford that way, and now that she was remembering it, there had been a bit of Ford in Wes when he’d first come into her shop yesterday.

So much had happened in a day, even though it felt like a lifetime since they’d first met. Just one day. She’d learned Ford was dead, she’d thought about using some of Liberty’s spell books to turn Wes into a toad, and then she’d fucked him instead and hired him.

Yeah.

That might be why it felt like a lifetime.

“Sounds like Grandpa. He and Hamish might have known each other all their lives, but they fell in and out a lot.”

“Why do you think that is?” she asked. “I like Hamish and I looked up the move he made... It was legal, but Ford didn’t want to hear it.”

“Please tell me you didn’t try to convince him he was wrong,” Wes said.

“I did,” she admitted. It hadn’t gone well. Actually, it gave her a little insight into how Wes and Ford might have fallen out. Ford could be very stubborn, and she’d almost backed down but hadn’t. Ford and Hamish were both old men; they didn’t have time to let petty grudges dominate their moments together. One thing Sera had always been aware of was the time she got with the people she cared about. It was finite.

“I told him yelling at me wasn’t going to change the facts and he’d clearly been misinformed.”

“Did that work?” Wes asked as he finished the binding of one journal and started to gather six more signatures to start another one.

“Sort of. I could tell he didn’t like it, but the rules were written clearly in one of his own books. So he changed the subject and then the next week he and Hamish were on friendly terms again,” she said.

She’d had very little exposure to anyone of the grandparental age when she’d been growing up. She’d only seen them in movies and on television, and usually they were boozy socialites who spoiled the kids like Rory Gilmore’s grandmother, or just warm and fuzzy. So she’d never really thought about what it would be like to be old.

She’d always dreaded turning eighteen, when she’d age out of foster care and be on her own. But she’d never thought beyond it, beyond the present, until she’d met Ford.

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