Page 69 of Night Shift

But up until all of ten seconds ago, I really thought I’d ruined everything and let this boy slip through my fingers. So, I think I deserve to be a little dramatic. Just this once.

I’m so lost in Vincent that I don’t hear the footsteps approaching.

But I do hear a scandalized gasp, followed by, “Oop.”

Our mouths break apart in surprise.

There are two girls standing at the end of the aisle, both wearing Clement sweatshirts and both staring at us with wide eyes. They’ve got their phones in their hands in what I recognize as the trademark stance of avid readers who’ve been hunting for recommendations all week and have come to the store armed and ready for battle.

Right. Because it’s Friday night.

And this is a bookstore.

And we can’t catch a fucking break, apparently.

“I’m so sorry,” one of the girls stammers. “We just need to get to the, um . . .”

She trails off, clears her throat, and points to the spicy booktok reads shelf behind us like she can’t stomach the thought of saying it out loud. I feel immediate kinship with this girl. Which is probably the only reason that I don’t tell her and her friend to pretty please take a fucking hike.

“Yeah, no, of course,” I squeak, releasing my white-knuckled grip on the front of Vincent’s jacket and clearing my throat. “Excuse us.”

Vincent doesn’t budge. It takes a few encouraging pats to his shoulder before he relents and untangles himself from me with a tortured groan. I smooth down the back of my hair, which is thoroughly rumpled, and then shake out the wrinkles in my oversized cardigan. Vincent watches me with a look I haven’t seen on his face since Jabari Henderson interrupted our birthday festivities in his bedroom.

Sorry, I mouth.

The look he shoots me back says, Please end my suffering.

Vincent reaches around me to grab his sunflowers off the shelf—and I’m glad for the reminder, because I momentarily forgot about the existence of literally everything except for Vincent. I would’ve been so upset if I lost his note. I snatch it off the shelf and tuck it into the safest part of my wallet, right between my student ID (which I can’t afford to lose) and a gift card to a sporting goods store (which I haven’t touched since it fell out of a card on my seventeenth birthday). I go to reach for The Mafia’s Princess too, but hesitate when a wonderful thought occurs to me.

I won’t need a romance novel to get me through this weekend.

I turn back to the pair of girls at the end of the aisle.

“This one,” I say, tapping the naked abdominals on the cover, “is really good. She’s a lawyer. He’s an ex–hit man. There’s an elevator scene in chapter three where he—yeah. I haven’t gotten to finish it yet, but the dialogue is . . . five stars.”

Vincent’s lips twitch when I turn to face him again.

“Shall we?” he asks, offering me his arm.

I loop my hand around his forearm and give it a squeeze as we begin our walk of shame out of the romance aisle. Behind us, in the least discreet whisper I’ve ever heard, one of the girls says, “This is the most embarrassing cover I’ve ever seen.”

“The sticker says it’s only a dollar,” her friend points out.

“Yeah, because it’s garbage.”

“So, you’re not getting it?”

“Of course I’m getting it.”

The worn-down original wood floors creak under our feet as Vincent and I march to the front of the store. Everything is just as it was when I rushed in here: the well-dressed couple perusing the art history section are still flicking through architecture books, and the old man posted up in the armchair over by science fiction is still deep in what looks like a Tolkien book. The woman behind the front desk is arranging a display of female-led crime thrillers. It’s bizarre. Everyone’s going about their business like I didn’t just have a life-altering experience three aisles over.

Vincent and I slow to a stop by the door. The rain is coming down in torrents, the trees lining the street outside nothing but dark blurs swaying in the howling wind.

“My car’s a few blocks away,” Vincent says. “You wanna wait here, and I’ll come pick you up?”

His chivalrous offer, while appreciated, is a little too late.

“I’m already wet,” I point out.

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