Page 84 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

She loved him. She wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t.

The new moon had given her all the clarity she’d needed. And that morning, making love on this very couch with Wes had pushed the rest of the doubts from her mind. But then he had to go and be the biggest asshole.

Someone cleared their throat, and she lifted her head to see Wes standing in the doorway that led to the shop. He held a box in one hand, which he set on the table where they had eaten lunch together.

“What?”

“Can I come in and talk?”

“Sure,” she said. She wished—wished—her heart hadn’t started beating faster when she saw him. But he was wearing one of those cable-knit sweaters he favored that hugged his chest. His thick blond hair looked rumpled, as if he’d been running his hands through it. His eyes met hers and then he skirted his gaze away from her.

“Are we back to that?” he asked as he took a few steps closer.

He stopped and stood not too far from the couch, his hips canted to one side as he watched her and waited.

“I’m not sure we ever really left,” she said. The thing she’d only just realized about love was that it was easy to deceive herself into believing they were both experiencing it. That seemed one of the great injustices of being human—one person could experience all the love feels and the other could just be having fun.

“Sera, I’m sorry.”

She shifted a bit so she sat up straighter. Sorry wasn’t something he said often, but she knew from the past that Wes was usually sincere when he did apologize.

“For?”

“What I said to you. My dad is sorry as well, but he didn’t know you like I did, so he at least has an excuse.”

She nodded as she crossed her arms under her breasts and just watched him. “Why would you think I’d take something that meant so much to you?”

“I’m an ass.”

“Don’t. You’re just saying that to deflect. You’re not an ass. And your reaction was something deeper than anger. What motivated it?”

He shoved his hand through his hair and tipped his head to the side, watching her and then letting his eyes drift from her to one of the bookcases crammed with books. He nodded as if he’d figured out something inside his own mind.

“Sera, you’re like that bookcase over there. It has every adventure a reader could want on its shelves, and all I’d have to do is reach out, pick one up, and I’d be on the adventure too.”

“I thought you had,” she said.

“I thought so too, but there was a part of me that wasn’t fully into the book. I was still thinking of my own empty bookcases. When I get an old book that needs to be repaired, I fix it and give it to someone else. Like I don’t deserve to keep it.”

She shifted around again, setting her teacup on the floor by her feet as she got up and walked closer to him.

“You’ve always had a family and people who loved you, Wes. Why wouldn’t you deserve it? Or me? Do you mean me?” she asked. Her emotions felt like she was on a big old-fashioned wooden roller coaster. The kind she’d read about inGoosebumpswhen she’d been a teenager. His presence made her feel like they were being slowly pulled up to the apex and she was holding her breath, not sure if the drop would scare her shitless or make her laugh with pure joy.

“I do mean you. And I don’t deserve you because I have always walked away from those who cared for me,” he admitted. “So when I sawRobinson Crusoeon your table, all I could do was seize the excuse it gave me to protect myself again. To not let myself believe I could care for someone as deeply as I care for you, Sera, and keep you.”

What was he saying?

Did he care for her? Did he want a second chance? And if he did, could she trust him to stay?

He had come back. And Wes wasn’t one for making gestures without following them up. She needed more answers.

“What does that mean? You care for me enough to want to remain here for good?”

He’d been relieved she hadn’t kicked him out and told him to never darken her door again. But that wasn’t Sera. From the moment he’d met her she’d been brave; she didn’t back down.

Now she stood before him with dark circles under her eyes, asking him to come clean with his emotions. He had practiced the words at Grandpa’s place before coming to the shop. It had taken a promise that he wouldn’t hurt Sera again, and that he’d leave if she told him to, in order to get Liberty and Poppy to both agree to let him into WiCKed Sisters after it closed for the day.

So here he was, and it was time to do the thing he’d been preparing for since Sera had kicked him and his dad out of the shop the other day.

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