Page 9 of Claimed By the Bookstore Alpha
He ducked his head, but not before I caught the hint of a smile. "You keep saying that."
"Because it's true. And because you need to hear it."
We finished the inventory review as the afternoon light started to fade, and I reluctantly began gathering my things. I didn't want to overstay my welcome, especially when Flynn seemed to be warming up to having me around.
"Thank you.”
I shouldered my bag.
"For the help. And for..." And his voice trailed off.
I finished the sentence for him. “For seeing what you're doing here instead of what people assume you're doing?"
"Something like that."
Now I was ready to take this to another level. "Would you maybe want to grab coffee sometime? Not for business reasons or anything. Just... because."
I held my breath while he processed it. His fingers drummed against the counter, a nervous habit I noted before.
"I..." He gulped. "I don't really do coffee dates."
"Not a date," I said quickly, though part of me wished it could be. "Just coffee. Between friends. If we're friends. Are we friends?" Now I was babbling.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I suppose we might be friends."
"Great. Coffee between friends who happen to both like books and might enjoy continuing conversations about inventory management and butterfly migration patterns?"
"When you put it like that.” He grinned. “It sounds kinda nice.”
"I'll take that.” I had to name a time because if I left it to him, he might never pick up the phone. "Tomorrow afternoon?” It was Sunday and he was closed. “There's a good place two blocks down that's usually quiet."
"Quiet is good. Three o'clock?"
“I’ll be there. It's a not-date."
As I walked home, I couldn't stop smiling. Flynn Tolliver had agreed to coffee. Not because he needed help or because Janine had cornered him into community involvement, but because he wanted to spend time with me.
Maybe Miranda was right and I was reading too much into things. But he'd said we might be friends and he'd made time for coffee despite being someone who valued his solitude. It was progress.
FIVE
FLYNN
I'd never been to a comic convention. People talking, yelling and singing plus a mingling of smells, some good, others not so much, overloaded my senses when I walked through the doors of the convention center.
There were hundreds of people in elaborate costumes milling around vendor booths and the air was thick with excitement and the smell of overpriced food. My wolf complained, wanting to retreat to somewhere quiet and familiar and he reminded me we had a coffee date with Clark later.
But what Clark had said about the science fiction sales spikes had been nagging at me. If I was going to expand that section of my store, I had to understand what drew people to these events. Many drove for hours to get here and when they did, they paid an admission fee just to buy books and merchandise they could probably find online.
The answer had to be community.
I'd been wandering the aisles for twenty minutes, noting which booths had the longest lines and checking out the most popular books when I spotted him. A guy about my height in an elaborate Peter Pan costume consisting of forest greentunic, brown leather boots, and a feathered cap that should have looked ridiculous but worked perfectly. His features were obscured with face paint to create a more animated appearance.
He was at a booth selling vintage children's books and chatting with the vendor about first editions. I knew that voice. But the costume threw me off just long enough that I stood there staring before my brain caught up.
Clark!
My wolf raised his head, a reaction that was becoming more common when we were near Clark. I forced myself to focus on the merchandise instead. The vendor had an impressive collection of science fiction first editions alongside newer releases that was the kind of mix that might work in my store.
