Page 8 of A Novel Love Story

“Well, at least one of us has taste,” I quipped, “and—”

“It’s certainly not you,” he interrupted before I could say the same. I gave a squawk of indignation, and for the first time his stoic expression twitched a little into whatmighthave been a smile. If he hadn’t fought it off. Pity. I think he might’ve had a nice smile. His laugh was probably good, too. Deep and throaty, coming right from the center of his belly. He pushed away from the window. “Though what should I expect from the woman who almost ran me over?”

“You shouldn’t have been standing in the middle of the road,” I pointed out. “In the rain.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“Killed someone? No. But I’ve thought about it,” I said, and—were we getting closer?

He subtly shook his head, his mouth twitching at the edges again, fighting some kind of semblance of a smile. He was like a cat batting around a ball of yarn,and I was just knocking it back to him. “I mean get caught in the rain.”

“Not if I can help it.” My voice had gotten quiet, almost too quiet to hear above the downpour outside. There was something magnetic that made me look at him, and I couldn’t figure out why. I’d met plenty of handsome men before, whose eyelashes were just as long, and who wore scars like pickup lines. But the scar on Anders’s lip was so infuriatingly apparent, I couldn’t stop looking at it. Not because it was on his mouth, surely not. Not because I was a lightweight when it came to drinking. Not because of the house wine. “I don’t really like the rain.”

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “What a pity, then.”

If this was a romance novel, we’d kiss. That’s what always happens—the gumptious heroine meets her match in the first chapter. A meet-cute. Something memorable. Remarkable. In old Harlequins, we’d be intimate by page one hundred, and a part of me intimately wanted to know what it felt like to unbutton this stranger’s shirt. To let go of this plot and just fall headfirst into someone else’s.

My story wasn’t that interesting, anyway. A three-star read at best. I could imagine the trade reviews—Though she tackles the mundanity of her life with aplomb, nothing happens to Eileen Merriweather. Angst-ridden backstory told in deeply regrettable prose. An utterly skippable read.

I sat back on the window seat, sobering at the thought. Prudence would’ve taken him by the face, she would’ve crushed her mouth against his, making him fall in love with peas, anyway. But I wasn’t Prudence, which was why I was here. Alone. In a no-name town.

But I wasn’t Prudence, and I didn’t need to fall in love.

He leaned back, a frown tugging at his delicate mouth, as if he was puzzled about why it hadn’t happened.Or maybe why he’d toyed with the idea in the first place. But then he shook off the thought, and pushed himself to his feet. “I best take my leave. Should you need anything, I live in the house behind the store. If the starlings wake you up in the morning, I warned you.”

He retreated to the door, his long fingers curling around the brass doorknob. My heart was hammering, quick like a rabbit, and I hoped he didn’t notice. That he attributed my blush to the wine.

The question slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it: “Why?”

He gave me a curious look. “Why what?”

“Whywereyou standing out in the rain?”

He tilted his head in thought. “Why did you take the road here?”

“You can’t answer the question with another question, that’s not fair!” I replied, frustrated. I threw up my hands. “Because it was raining! And I was lost.”

“Then it was raining,” he echoed, “and I was lost. Good night, Elsy,” he said, his voice a low rumble, and closed the door behind him.

Thatstillwasn’t an answer.

Downstairs, a door near the back of the bookstore opened, and closed again, and I was left alone in the quiet. The rain drummed against the window in the bedroom like tiny fingers. I sat down on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes, listening to the way the water trickled down the sill.

When Pru and I were in school, we’d plan our reading days based on the weather. She’d circle the spring rains on her calendar, mark off the weeks when hurricanes came through in the fall, and then when the storms hit, we’d have at least a dozen books ready—library reads and wilted paperbacks from the secondhand shop.We’d curl up on the couch for hours on end, playing hooky from school.

Then in college, we built sheet forts like we were twelve again, and had weekend escapes into quaint rose-tinted towns.

In the rain, I could hear the flick of a page as we imagined moments and scenes and lives never lived, falling in love with the heroines of happily ever afters.

And we swore that when it was our turn to chase our happy endings, we’d do it together. But that was before all the heartbreak, all the broken promises, because life never panned out like a romance novel, no matter how well plotted and meticulously planned.

As I turned off the lights in the loft and listened to the tiny taps of fingers on the windows, I wondered if there was a way back to before, when happily ever afters felt real.

4

Star(t)ling Realization

MORNING LIGHT POURED INTOthe loft from the skylight. And there was a sound. A voice? Yes. Maybe.

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