Page 74 of A Novel Love Story

“I’d feel bad if I just left.”

“And,” he went on, “you’ve already gotten almost every main character to like you.”

“And you?” I asked, searching his face. “Have I gotten you to like me?”

“Eileen,” he said softly, his minty eyes having melted to pools of emeralds, “I’m not sure how many times I have to say it, but I’ll say it as many times as you need: I never hated you.”

“Not even when I almost ran you over?”

“I was in the middle of the road. In the rain. To be fair, I didn’t expect anyone to come into town just then.”

“And when I slapped you?”

“It hurt, but I understand that I upset you. I deserved it.” Then he repeated again, slower, “I never hated you, Eileen.”

I looked away, trying not to blush, because I’m sure he very much could. I wondered how he saw me. As someone who wasn’t perpetually afraid of people she hadn’t met yet? As someone who went into new places with hope instead of heartache? I wanted to meet that version of me,whoever she was. She could run a bookstore—I could almost see it. “It’d be small, you know?” I said, returning to the subject, and the tension between us eased a little. He sat back on the bench, listening. “Maybe one just for romance novels.”

“What kind of romances?” he asked.

“All sorts. Sky’s the limit. Romantasy to bodice rippers, for sure. Oh, and there would be a weekly book club.”

He nodded. “Obviously, all good bookstores have one, but I’m a bit partial.”

“So am I.”

“And what would you name it?”

I scrunched my nose. “Shit, I don’t know …My First Bookstore?”

He rolled his eyes. “You can do better than that.”

“I don’t know. I’m bad at names. Um …” I thought about it, glancing around the park, and then back at him. Every good romance had meet-cutes and love scenes and kisses. It had to have something to do with that. Maybe—“I’d call it the Grand Romantic.”

A flicker of a smile crossed his mouth. “And you said you were bad at names.”

I ignored him. “We’d host events for romance readers, and people would come from all over the country just to shop there. It would be the kind of place that made you believe in romance again.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment.

So long that I forced out a laugh. “It’s just a dream, though. I doubt any bank would loan me that kind of money.”

“It’s a good dream,” he replied finally. “I’d be first in line.”

I smiled at him, because that was kind. “In that tweed jacket I know you have?”

He sighed. “I’m telling you, I don’t have one.”

“Mm-hmm. Keep fooling yourself.”

He laughed, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. A real one. For the first time. And it changed his entire face. The lines around his mouth, perpetually scrunched in a frown, vanished. The hard set of his eyebrows turned soft. He had a nice smile, too.Charming.

“So,” I said, and I pulled my feet up and laid them across his legs so I sat sideways on the bench and could see him better, “what about you?”

He took another taffy from my bag. And here he said he didn’t like sweets. “What about me?”

“What would you do, if you could do anything?”

In the book world, the sky was the limit, after all, and I wondered what piece of herself Rachel Flowers put into Anders. Her love for reading? (Obviously.) Her drive to write?

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