Page 62 of His Heart

Brooke

In the beginning,Iowa was good for me.

Moving here had been impulsive. Maybe even reckless. But I hadn’t had anything to lose. Starting over, and putting some distance between me and Phoenix, seemed to wake me up. A little bit, at least. I’d been in Iowa for two months and felt better than I had in a while.

I glanced out the window of the bookstore as I finished the new display. The blue sky was deceptive. It was beautiful outside, but not nearly as warm as it appeared. I tugged the sleeves of my sweater over my hands and hugged my arms around myself. Joe, my boss, was baffled at how I could be so cold all the time, even on a sunny day. But I’d grown up in the Southwest where the weather was warm—if not stifling hot—most of the year. As far as I was concerned, the seventy-degree June weather was barely warm.

I’d found my job at Booklover’s Corner my first week in town. Joe had hired me without so much as an interview. Just took my application, asked me a few questions about my availability, and gave me the job on the spot. Maybe it was serendipitous. It had avoided the need for me to answer awkward questions about my employment history. But mostly Joe was distracted and a little scatterbrained. And I think he was tired of hiring college students and having to work around their schedules. He was about sixty, with a thick white mustache and wire-rimmed glasses that constantly slipped down his nose. He tended to be distant, but he was a decent boss. He was easygoing, and he’d given me a break when I’d come in late a few times.

I was trying—hard—to hold it together and not screw this up. But some days, just getting out of bed still felt impossible. The ache in my chest left me feeling hollow, and that same sense of apathy would overtake me. I knew if I didn’t get up, I’d probably lose my job. But would it matter? Did I care?

On days like that, I’d force myself out of bed. Make myself go through the motions of living. And most of the time, I’d be glad that I had.

Charlie had made good on his offer to help me find a place to live. His grandparents’ rental house was a short walk from where he lived with Sebastian. It was small, but I didn’t need much space, and the whole interior had been freshly painted. I’d been slowly adding things as I could afford them. A bed. A couch. Kitchen stuff. Charlie’s grandma had given me an old table and chairs. Sebastian had helped me repaint them, and now they looked great.

Sebastian. It was disconcerting how often he was on my mind. I saw him, and Charlie, frequently. The three of us had become good friends. Charlie still joked about me being a crazy person who was plotting their murders, but jokes and insults were how Charlie showed affection. He did it to Seb all the time, and those two had the cutest bromance I’d ever seen.

But whereas my friendship with Charlie was laid-back and fun, my relationship with Sebastian was something else entirely.

Sebastian was unlike anyone I’d ever met. He was so serious. Not that he didn’t smile or laugh—he did. But he had an intensity that smoldered beneath the surface. I could feel it radiating from him whenever he was near. His presence did strange things to me—stirred up emotions I barely recognized.

I didn’t know what to do with all those feelings.

We didn’t have any customers, so I wandered into the back and sat down at a little table surrounded by half-empty boxes. I opened my spiral notebook—the same one Sebastian had given me on my first morning in Iowa. The first page still had the list I’d made—things I needed to do to start over. I’d checked them off, one by one. And for a while, I hadn’t written anything else. The rest of the pages had remained blank.

There had been a time when I’d never been without a notebook. I’d gone through dozens of them. In high school, it had been a way to pass the time. Something to focus on so people wouldn’t notice me. A place to put all the thoughts I’d been afraid to share.

When I’d been with Liam, I hadn’t felt stifled by my life anymore. But I’d still filled notebooks with words. Poems. Lyrics. It had been such a part of who I was, even when the words were happy ones, they’d still found a home on those lined pages.

Not after he died.

I’d stopped writing things down. It had felt like I no longer had anything to say. The once-constant stream of words had dried up. Gone silent.

There were words in this notebook. Halting phrases. Half-finished thoughts. Eraser marks and parts crossed out or scribbled over. Some pages had more doodles than words. But they were there.

Too many of my words were about Sebastian.

I never wrote his name. But I’d be lying to myself if I said what I wrote wasn’t about him. I felt like I should be writing about Liam. Remembering him, or processing my grief. But my mind always went back to Sebastian. To the way he filled up the space wherever he was. To the color of his eyes. To the way my heart beat a little harder every time he was near.

So I let the words come as they would, feeling guilty all the while.

The bell above the front door tinkled, a soft sound that could barely be heard in the back room. Joe had gone home, leaving me to close up. I shut my notebook and went to see if the customer needed help.

Sebastian stood near the front, looking at a shelf of mysteries. He tilted his head to one side, like he was reading the titles on the spines. I paused and watched him, a little flutter tickling inside my chest. The sleeves on his University of Iowa t-shirt looked like they might burst open beneath the muscles of his arms. He rubbed his chin, his fingers sliding through his thick beard. I’d never been into facial hair on men, but on him? God.

He was gorgeous. There was no way around it. He was one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen, with his thick dark hair, sexy beard, and captivating eyes. His body that exuded so much strength and power. There was a tension inside of him, like he was constantly holding something back. Like there was a fire within that he kept carefully controlled.

His fire made the spark inside of me want to jump to life. To burn. But I was afraid it would turn me to ash and I’d blow away in the wind.

As if they were compelled by some outside force, my eyes drifted to his chest. I swallowed back the rise of emotion I always felt when I thought about who he really was. About the heart that lived inside of him.

“Hey,” I said. The air was warm, but I hugged my sweater around myself. “What are you doing here?”

“I had to meet with one of my professors,” he said. “Since I was nearby, I thought I’d see if you were getting off soon. Maybe walk home with you.”

I got around fine without a car, so I hadn’t bothered with the expense of buying one. Sebastian drove, but I’d noticed he walked places a lot, even when he didn’t need to.

“Yeah, we close in about ten minutes,” I said.

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