Page 10 of The Story of Us
“Ah. Tomorrow night. I’m doing this Valentine’s thing—a cooking class down at the restaurant, and Lucy said she’d come.” There was the dopey grin again. Sawyer was suddenly very glad Dana had all but forced him to come for the town council vote. Seeing Rick reduced to a lovesick puppy was well worth the trip. “Do you think that you could…?”
“Count me in.” He wouldn’t miss it for the world. “You know, just obviously don’t expect me to cook anything edible.”
Unpacked boxes labeledkitchenhad been sitting around his apartment for nearly a year. Or was it two?
“Oh, I know better. No, no, no, I’m the chef.” He pointed double finger guns at Sawyer. “You’re the wingman.”
Rick the Romancer needed a wingman. There truly was a first time for everything.
“Yes, chef.” Sawyer nodded with exaggerated seriousness.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He smiled, and glanced out the window at the soft streetlights casting a luminous glow over the quiet streets below—streets where he’d first learned how to ride a bike without training wheels, where he’d played catch with his mom, where he’d walked his high school sweetheart home from school.
Why had he stayed away for so long? He hadn’t intentionally turned his back on his hometown. It had just sort of it happened. He’d gone away to college and one year had turned into two, two into four. His mother had come up to Columbia during the holidays so they could spend Christmases in New York. After graduation, he’d been consumed by his work. Then his mom had moved across the country, and he hadn’t had any reason to come back. Waterford had simply faded further and further into his past until it had become nothing but a memory.
He’d thought it had, anyway. Now he wasn’t so sure. Sitting across from Rick, laughing and making plans, he didn’t feel like he’d stepped into a memory.
He almost felt like he’d come home.
The following day was Tuesday, more commonly known throughout the book world as pub day. For as long as Jamie had worked at True Love Books—even back in high school—Tuesday had been the day of the week when newly published books became available to sell. She had no idea how or when this literary tradition first came to be, but it was very much a thing. Publishers large and small released their latest offerings on Tuesday mornings, just like clockwork. So of course it was Jamie’s favorite day of the week.
Too bad the town council meeting was scheduled for lunchtime, ruining what should have been a perfectly lovely Tuesday. At least after the meeting, she’d have a better idea of what the developers had in mind. Until then, she’d just have to busy herself with celebrating all the new book birthdays and properly displaying her latest inventory.
She spent the morning unpacking boxes in the storeroom and getting the new novels shelved. Eliot tiptoed behind her, pausing every so often to wrap his ginger tail around her leg, which Jamie liked to think of as a kitty hug. Lucy worked the sales floor, darting back and forth between the café counter and the sales register.
As Jamie headed to the back of the store for her third armload of hardbacks, Lucy was gift wrapping a journal for a customer doing some Valentine’s Day shopping. But when Jamie rounded the corner, books in hand, she stopped short at the sight of a familiar, well-coiffed woman flipping through the pages of a Brontë novel near the paper flowers display.
Oh, no.She darted behind a corner and hid. What was Karen Van Horn doing at True Love Books?
Not her. Not now.
“Hi. Can I help you find something?” Lucy’s voice rang like a bell from behind the sales counter.
Please say no. Please just go away.Jamie squeezed her eyes shut tight in a pathetic attempt to make herself invisible.
“You know, actually, I was hoping to catch Jamie,” the woman said. “Is she here?”
Ugh.
She couldn’t do this, not today, of all days. The pending town council meeting was a big enough thorn in her side. She couldn’t handle dealing with her ex-boyfriend’s mother. Jamie had broken up with Matt months ago. What could she and Mrs. Van Horn possibly have left to say to one another?
Maybe her romantic hiatus needed to broaden in scope to include not just prospective dating partners, but their family members as well.
Or maybe she was just a chicken. Possibly—probably—both.
“Um.” Lucy’s gaze flitted in Jamie’s direction, and Jamie fled back to the storeroom like the chicken that she was.
Eliot batted a paw at her as she zipped past him. The tattletale.
“She is not,” Lucy said awkwardly.
“Oh.” Mrs. Van Horn sounded surprised. Obviously, she remembered that Jamie practically lived at True Love. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.”
Thank goodness for Lucy.
