Page 117 of A Novel Love Story

“Some stories end,” he said, “and I’m not Bea’s happily ever after. I was Rachel’s, for a little while, and I never want to be that again.”

Oh.I dropped my hand from his face. “So …”

“I want to be a beginning, and a middle,” he went on. “I want a first chapter, and a second and a third—those long chapters, you know, the ones you have to take a break from halfway through. I want all of it, not just the end.” He looked down at my hands, and took them in his, and squeezed them tightly. “And I want it with you.”

With me?

“I love you,” he said, and it felt like a phrase he’d uttered a thousand times even though I’d never heard it before. He said it like it was part of a grocery list, like it was a greeting, and a good night, and a promise all in one. Three words that were everything, and anything. “I love you,” he repeated. “I love the way your mouth always slides into a smile, even when no one’s looking. I love the way you go out of your way for people you’ve barely met. I love how your hair always curls right here,at the nape of your neck”—and he ran his fingers along the side of my neck. “And I love how you make me want to see the world in color, and I love how I feel when I’m with you. And maybe we won’t work out, but maybe we will—and I’ll run across cities, and I’ll show up with boom boxes outside your window, and I’ll meet you at the tops of buildings, and I’ll kiss you in the rain just to remind you that you’re worth every moment.” He bent and kissed my cheeks, and I realized that he had kissed the tears off them. I was crying, and I couldn’t stop.

“How long have you been rehearsing that?” I asked, sniffing, trying to stop crying.

He laughed, and pressed his forehead against mine. “You’re worth every second I did.”

“I know,” I replied, and pulled him down to kiss him again. The kiss was slow and languid, like he suddenly had all the time in the world to kiss me.

And I really hoped he did.

I traced the curve of his jaw, drinking him in in the soft fluorescence of the bookstore. There was a buoyancy to him that there hadn’t been before, a boyishness, as if he’d reined himself in while staying in Eloraton, and put himself into a box that now no longer fit. I imagined this was the man whom Rachel had once fallen in love with, or closer to him than the stoic and sour owner of Ineffable Books.

I took him by the hands and squeezed them tightly, unable to keep from smiling. “Can I show you around?” And I barely gave him a chance to nod before I spirited him along all the aisles, and showed him the murals, and theDATE A BOOK BOYFRIENDdisplay with books wrapped in paper, the love interests mocked up like a dating profile. I showed him the colorful crystal chimes I’d found at a garage sale, and the book spinners for the mass-market paperbacks,and the old cashier’s till Jasper found in his granddad’s decrepit shed.

“It’s a beautiful store, Elsy,” he said, running his fingers along the spines of novels. “It feels like you.”

“It still needs a little work,” I replied, rounding the tiny checkout counter, and popping out the register to count the money, “but all good things do.”

He agreed.

“Do you miss yours?” I asked.

“Yes, but I left it a while ago,” he said, and when I gave him a strange look, he explained. “I left town with Butters as soon as Frank could find a new carburetor for my Buick. It took about a week digging through the junkyard, but it was worth it. Besides, I had to find someone to take over the bookshop.”

“Who did you find?”

“Thomas,” he replied.

I smiled. “I bet Lily loved that.”

“You have no idea,” he agreed, and came over to lean against the counter while I tallied up the bills. “They were all very sad you left, by the way. I told them you’d be back around.”

“In a way,” I replied sadly. “Do you think the town is still there?”

He shook his head. “I went back a few weeks later, after I’d thoroughly cleaned my apartment in the city and got everything in order, and the town was gone. The only thing left was the waterfall, which was the only real part of the town to begin with.”

I let out a breath, and I hoped it didn’t sound too sad. “So it really is over.”

“It was a good ending.”

“It was,” I agreed, and finished cashing out the drawer. I put the money in the lockbox under the counter, and went to go return a few of the novels to the display table in the middle of the store. The pink neon sign behind me flickered tiredly.“What took you so long to come find me, then?” I asked, my back turned to him.

He followed me to the table, rubbing the back of his neck in thought. The soft light of the bookstore made his fair blond hair almost silver. “I wanted to set my life in order again first. When I left, I left everything.”

“Except Butterscotch.”

“Except Butterscotch,” he agreed, “who misses your pets, by the way.”

“I do give the best scritches.”

“I wanted to come find you the second I left Eloraton,” he went on, “but I … I also wanted to come find you as the man you deserve. Someone who has a life. A story. Who has his feet firmly planted on the ground. So I did that. I started my life again. I read books, I learned how to write critiques again, I caught up with my parents, I visited my sister in Manitoba. I learned to be Anderson Sinclair again.” He took a deep breath. “So … what do you think? Was it worth the wait?”

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