Page 26 of The Midnight Book Club
“It’s a brilliant shop,” Sophie said to him as she swept out the door.“I’m sure you’ll find something here to pique your interest.”
Oh, honestly, Aurelia thought as she struggled not to roll her eyes.First David and James, now Sophie.
Once they were alone, Oliver and Aurelia stared at each other.
“Hi,” she said at last.“Uh… welcome.”
“Thanks.”
They stood in silence for another moment until she blurted out, “How’s your jacket?”
“Sorry?”
For some reason it had been the first thing she could think to say, but of course he’d be confused by it.
“The other night—my wine, your jacket,” she clarified.“No permanent damage, I hope?”
“Right.No, not at all.”
They both nodded uselessly in the ensuing silence, and then Oliver took his first proper look around the shop.She watched as he gazed at the shelves with their books, the mezzanine, and Fezz—who was asleep in the armchair—and saw a smile creep across his face.
“I get it now,” he said at last.
Aurelia knew without asking what he meant.After all his talk during their date about digital being the future, he now understood why she would run a bookshop.She smiled, looking around for herself.It wasn’t often that she had a chance to share the shop with someone new, and she liked seeing it through the eyes of a person who seemed to feel in his bones what made it so special.
He walked over to a bookshelf and ran his eyes over the spines.
“A healthy collection of the classics,” he said, moving to another bookshelf.“More classics.”He looked around the shop again, then up at the mezzanine.“Are all your modern books upstairs?”
“I don’t have any ‘modern’ books.The shop only stocks novels written by authors born before 1900.”
He let out a laugh and then his face fell.
“You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“That’s… oddly specific.”
“I know,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.“One of my aunts—I can’t remember if it was my great-great aunt or my great aunt—had this thing about hating modern literature, how the writing was stilted or the stories were dark and twisted… I can’t remember exactly, but it sort of became a shop thing—not to sell anything after a certain period.”
Oliver grimaced and Aurelia cocked her head at him.
“What?”she asked.
“I’m just not a fan of the old stuff.”
“The old stuff?Well, that’s oddly non-specific,” she teased.“You know, some people consider authors like Dickens or Trollope modern,” she added, thinking of Elinor and Marianne.
Oliver laughed.“I’d like to know who.”
Aurelia avoided answering that, saying instead, “There are countless ‘old’ authors here—I’m sure there’s someone you like.”
“Not really,” he said, wrinkling his nose.“Give me dark and twisted Vonnegut over, what…” he said, looking around and spotting the Recommended Reads table, “Collins or Austen.”
Aurelia’s mouth was open but she couldn’t find her words.Oliver’s face broke into a broad grin and she couldn’t help but smile back.Had he been baiting her, or did he really not like Austen and Collins?She was mentally planning a reading list for him, but he spoke up again before she could start reciting the books he needed to read.
“Believe it or not, I didn’t come to argue about books,” he said, his smile fading.“I came to apologize.”
