Page 39 of Accidental Blind Date
Chapter 11
Dax
The view from the top isn’t what most people think.
As I stare out the floor to ceiling window of my highrise office in the heart of Boston, I don’t feel high and mighty. I don’t feel accomplished or even good about anything. I’ve never had a store flop. I’ve never had a purchase be this difficult. Usually, I see a bookstore that is failing and I buy it. I cover the windows and the doors with COMING SOON HEMINGWAY BOOKS AND ORION COFFEE and we get to word. Or I buy a vacant building and do the same.
But who knew this one would be such a headache? All because little Miss Frizzle had to get involved. I am buying a shop from my best friend for Christ’s sake. This should be a no-brainer. And yet, my brain is very much involved, not to mention other parts of my anatomy.
No matter how hard I try to focus on the tasks at hand, my mind keeps wandering back. Back to the way Libby looked in her sunshine-colored outfit, stumbling about with her zucchini plant or whatever the fuck it was. Smelling like apples, wine, and something more musky that gave me a hard-on as soon as I approached her.
And don’t get me started on the little stunt she pulled with the keys. I don’t think she expected me to go diving down her front side to retrieve them. Honestly, I didn’t expect myself to either. But between her sass and the temptation, I was outnumbered. And I went for it.
And fuck me it was worth it.
Except now, thoughts of Libby are dancing around in my head like a hangover that no amount of caffeine or Advil can kill. I worry that the only way to satisfy the beast is to feed it. And that…I cannot do. I shouldn’t do. I won’t…
I try to focus on work. On the tasks at hand. The construction crew said that the wall between Way With Words and the storefront next to it, which I also purchased, is in fact weight bearing, which means we won’t be going in with sledgehammers any time soon. It doesn’t, however, mean that we can’t put an archway that leads into the coffee shop. The layout won’t be an exact mirror of most Hemingway locations. Even with adding on the neighboring storefronts, it’s still going to be smaller than most. But that’s something I can work around.
“It’ll be a niche Hemingway,” Kai assured me. “A Beacon Street version. Smaller, a little more character but also all of the essential defining points that make it Hemingway ™.”
That said, things on the business end of it all looked promising. Beacon Street is prime shopping for Boston real estate and snagging this was a winning lottery ticket as far as Hemingway is concerned. And yet, it’s a headache.
All because a girl in yellow that smells like wine and decorates her apartment with fake plants save for one has my mind straying from work and swirling around the possibility of a kiss that neither of us let happen.
I stay late at the office, not needing to be home any time soon. I check my phone and find that nothing is pressingpressing, and I have time to get a few back burner thingsdone in peace and quiet. I order take-out and word until my neck is kinkedkinked, and my back is soresore, and I need a full body stretch to untangle myself.
I get in my car and turn on the radio, making my way down the dark streets that are neither busy nor dead. Boston has always been home. With its hustle and chaos mixed with culture and architecture and history, the old and the new, I love it. Yet parts of it feel like ghost towns. Not because they are abandoned but because of the memories there. There are places I avoid (the pizza place near my house, even though they make the best pepperoni rolls), places that make my heart tight every time I go inside (the Icecream shop around the corner). And there are places I will never go again (the farmer’s market near the Aquarium).
There are roads I don’t take. And every time certain holidays or simple dates of the year come up, I prefer to not leave the house at all. And because of these detours, I find myself driving past Way With Words.
I slow when I see her car parked out front. A sun faded, sky blue Miada. I can smell the old upholstery mixed with vanilla air freshener and years of cheap body sprays. I find it odd that Kai drives a BMW and Libby drives that. And at the same time, it’s not odd at all.
I slow as I approach the shop. That’s when I realize the lights are still on. My heart dips in my chest and I keep driving. Then my eyes flicker to the rear view. My grip tightens on the wheel. And I turn around.
I don’t pause at all as I kill the engine, unbuckle and get out of the car. If I stop and think about what I am doing, I won’t do it. I have a key to the shop that Kai gave me and I use it. The door is old and it takes some fiddling with to unlock.
“Sorry, we are closed!” Libby calls from inside. But as I walk inside, I realize she isn’t looking. She doesn’t know it’s me andshe doesn’t know I am fast approaching her. She has her back to me and she’s making her way down a ladder attached to a built-in-shelf labeled Travel, almost to the bottom.
But before she reaches the ground, her peripheral catches me and she yelps, clearly startled. I reach out to catch her as Libby loses her footing on the last rung.
“What the hell are you doing here? You can’t just come in here,” she snaps as her body crashes against mine. She’s not in yellow, she’s in orange. Equally as bright, equally as Libby, equally as intoxicating.
“Actually I have a key so–”
“It’s not your shop yet!” she shouts. And I do mean shouts. There’s frustration and hurt and confusion behind it. Like the sound an injured animal would make if someone touched its wounds. Protective.
And it breaks me. My eyes search hers and her glare softens around the edges and I cover her mouth with mine.
At first, Libby presses her palms to my chest, as if she is going to push me away. But she never does. Her entire body softens against mine and her hands relax, gripping my shirt in them. The kiss goes deeper on its own and we both give into it. We give into what I think we’ve both been wanting for days. The thing we wanted on her doorstep but said no to.
I’m tired of saying no. I’m tired of doing what I should do and not what I want to do in that moment. I have been so careful for so long and I just want to let go. For just a few goddamn minutes, I want to let go.
And we do.
“Why are you here?” she asks into my mouth, refusing to break contact.
“I don’t know,” I answer, pulling her tighter against me, one of my hands on her cheek, the other one wandering down her off-the-shoulder orange hoodie, down to her waist where myfingers brush the skin above the elastic of her leggings, making her giggle. She’s ticklish. She’s a million wondrous things and I want to know them all. I want to explore them all.
