Page 53 of Late Fees

Naomi bit down on her lower lip and tilted her head to the side. “Sure, she’s in the back. You wait here; I’ll get her.”

“Thanks,” I said, the hammering in my chest so loud I could hear my pulse inside my eardrums. I watched as Naomi walked away. A heavier guy with a ponytail walked past me with a stack of videos.

“How’s it going?” he said with a tilt of his forehead as he crossed the store, placing the tapes behind the display boxes, one after another, like he was doing it for the hundredth time that day. He barely even glanced at the tapes beneath his chin as he walked from one section to the next.

“Wyatt?” Tilly’s voice broke my fixation on the employee, and I turned to face her. The skin above her nose crinkled as she glared at me. “What are you doing here? Again?”

“I, uh,” I looked down at my hands, “I had to return some tapes. You know, from last night.”

“I’ll take those,” Naomi said, grabbing them from my hands with a tight-lipped smile and returning to the front counter.

“Okay,” Tilly said with a sneer, her hands planted firmly on her hips. “You’ve returned them. Have a nice day.”

She turned on her heels and walked away. Instinctively, I followed close behind.

“Tilly, wait.”

She whipped her body around to face me, red curls bouncing against her shoulders as she stiffened. “I’m trying to work here, Wyatt.”

“I have no other way to reach you. I don’t have your number or your address or anything.”

She leaned forward, tilting her forehead toward me. “Exactly.”

I stared at her.

“C’mon, you can’t be this clueless,” she said with cold sarcasm.

“What do you mean?”

Impatiently, she ripped out the words, “I don’t want to see you. Didn’t you get that through your head last night?”

“One cup of coffee. Please.”

She cocked one hip to the side and crossed her arms. “What’s the point, Wyatt?”

“We haven’t seen each other in two years.”

“Two and a half,” she said, her tone curt. But her eyes betrayed her. She was trying to seem impervious and stoic like she had not one ounce of feeling for me. But I knew better when I saw the tears forming in her stormy eyes.

“Just a cup of coffee, Till. Please. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

Her eyes hardened. “I doubt it.”

“Weezer,” the guy with the ponytail said, approaching us. “Is this guy bothering you?”

Weezer? Who’s Weezer?

Tilly’s expression softened as she relaxed her shoulders. And I realized that he had called her Weezer. It wasn’t a band I would have assumed that she liked enough to be called Weezer, but people change. Maybe Tilly’s taste in music had changed since we were together.

Tilly shook her head. “No, he’s an old friend. I’m good.”

“All right. We need you to help return some tapes.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “Oh, and your shelf is ready.”

Once he was out of earshot, I tilted my head to the side in curiosity. “Your shelf?”

“Employee picks shelf. Once you’ve been here for a while, you get to recommend movies to customers.” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder, doing her best to look unaffected, but if I knew Tilly at all, she was thrilled to get that shelf and to place her favorite movies on it.

“That’s awesome,” I said with a grin. “What do you think you’ll pick?”

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