Dating by the Book Page 7

  When twilight blanketed the night sky, I closed out my cash drawer, relieved that I was still treading water. I went to drag in the books from the sidewalk. Max must have passed by at some point because the sign now read:

  Q: WHAT BUILDING HAS THE MOST STORIES?

  A: THE BOOKSTORE!

  Heavy sigh.

  My mom had offered to feed me, so I went home and changed into some running gear to jog over. It occurred to me I’d be spending a Friday night at my mom’s house, and I felt a bit castigated for all the shade I’d thrown toward Silver Fox and my fictional caricature of him as a basement dweller. But I couldn’t make myself feel too bad.

  I stretched and started the run. As I turned the corner onto the long country road, I realized I’d been repeating Snape, Snape, Severus Snape with the rhythm of my footfalls and tried to empty my mind.

  A pickup approached, coming from the opposite direction. When it slowed and stopped, I saw it was Dylan’s dad’s truck, but Dylan himself rolled a window down, and I became acutely aware that I looked like hell from having run half a mile. My yoga pants had a hole at the knee, and I hadn’t even brushed my hair before tying it in a ponytail. Why that should matter I had no idea, but maybe it was because Dylan’s gaze brushed along my body from head to toe. He didn’t look any fancier than me with his baseball cap and scruffy, neglected beard. I blamed the weakness in my knees to being out of shape.

  “Hey, Maddie.”

  “Where are you heading?” The last time I’d seen him in that truck, we’d both gotten hell for staying out all night after prom. It was worth it to sleep in his arms for once, albeit in the bed of that very truck.

  “I was on my way into the city.” He leaned out farther. “Do you want a ride?”

  He bit his lip in that way he did. He might as well have come out and told me he wanted to have sex as soon as humanly possible. I wondered how many girls had fallen for that look in smoky clubs.

  But this was Dylan. “Do you mind? I’m just heading to Mom’s.”

  “Hell no. It’s a short detour.”

  Is that what I was to him?

  The passenger door opened with an agonized creak, and I had to climb up like I was mounting a horse, but once in the cab, I was only aware of Dylan, who’d somehow become someone I no longer recognized. I knew his features, those fingers that fretted his guitar, those shoulders I’d held onto while riding on his motorcycle, those eyes that saw right through me. But he’d draped himself in someone else’s aura, and while I could see Dylan Ramirez, I couldn’t unsee Dylan Black.

  We rode in silence a beat, until we spoke at the same time. I said, “It’s really great to see you again,” just as he said, “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  I gaped at him. “I didn’t think you had been.” The words echoed around my brain. “Were you?”

  He dragged his fingers through his dark hair. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve been home for a month.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know. I needed a break from it all, and I thought I could come home, work the farm, get all the bullshit out of my system.”

  “You’ve been here the whole time?”

  The right turn blinker click-clacked, and he turned into the subdivision, glancing at me before focusing on the road again.

  “I’ve mostly been sitting up in the barn, reading. Just trying to escape.”

  “So what you said about the label?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, that part’s true. My head hasn’t been in the game. I have to make a decision if I want to try to move into the big leagues or be a flash in the pan one-hit wonder.”

  “That’s a monumental choice.”

  “Sometimes I think I just want to come home and lead a regular life. Teach guitar lessons to kids with stars in their eyes.”

  “What would be wrong with that?”

  He slipped his hand into mine, and when he looked my way, he was literally brooding. I threw up every defense against desires I’d locked away a long time ago.

  “Do you ever wonder how things might have been if we’d made different choices?”

  Did I tell him that was my constant inner monologue? “Don’t we all?”

  “More lately.” His thumb ran along mine. “I’d like to find out.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about enough to say anything.

  Thankfully, we arrived at my mom’s. I leaned in to give him half a hug. “Come out to the book club on Friday, okay?”

  “Jane Eyre, right?”

  I was surprised he remembered. I patted his arm, then leapt from the truck.

  As Dylan drove off, Mrs. Beckett hollered over from her neighboring backyard, “Is that Maddie?”

  I waved. “Hi, Mrs. Beckett!”

  “I was about to gather strawberries, and I was thinking about how this would be so much easier with you. Do you have the time?”

  My stomach grumbled for dinner, but I couldn’t turn down Mrs. Beckett’s request. “Sure.”

  The sunlight had faded and left a bruised sky behind, but floodlights shined over the expansive terrain behind the house. The Beckett’s yard once held the neighborhood’s best swing set and a trampoline—until we’d outgrown one and destroyed the other. Now it had become a dedicated garden. Unlike my mom’s yard, flowers didn’t steal the show. Blueberry bushes ran wild in the back of the lot, and strawberries grew in their shade. Mrs. Beckett’s strawberries meant summer had officially begun.

  When I was younger, before she’d started her catering business, Mrs. Beckett would let me help her in the garden. I realized later she was opening her home to me so that, despite never knowing my birth parents, I’d never want for family.

  Not that my mom wasn’t amazing in her own right, but since my dad died, she’d had to work full time and be two parents in one. A single working mom and an only adopted daughter don’t form the kind of bustling household I found at the Becketts.

  Because the Becketts had adopted me as much as my own mom, I got a surrogate dad in Mr. Beckett, not to mention pretend siblings in Layla and Max. On top of that, since Max had inherited his dad’s more prosaic auburn hair with only a hint of Layla’s glorious red, he looked more like me than her. Whenever the three of us would encounter strangers, they’d always assume I was a Beckett, that Max and I were siblings. Layla stood apart like a rare bird of paradise.

  As we worked, Mrs. Beckett asked how Layla was doing, as though it was small talk, but I knew she wanted a report Layla would never volunteer. Satisfied Layla wasn’t taking drugs, she switched topics abruptly. “And has Max been bothering you with his plans?”

  She’d watched us long enough to know that we often squabbled like legitimate siblings. “It’s okay.” I dropped a fat strawberry into the basket, tempted to bite into it. “What do you think?”

  She didn’t even pause to consider the question. “I’ll let the two of you work that out. This has always been more of a hobby for me. It’s Max who wants to take on the world.”

  The basket filled, and she stood. “Come on inside. I set Max to work on the shortcakes, and he may need some supervision.”

  We entered her kitchen, and the sight of Max measuring sugar, flour dusting his chin, transported me back in time.

  He spared me a glance as he set his ingredients out on the island, just like his mom used to. Her lessons were meant to prepare Layla to bake a pie and run a proper household. Layla would roll her eyes and say she had no intention of living in any proper manner. I envied her that cavalier attitude.

  While Layla rejected her mom’s instruction, I soaked the attention up. And since Max did everything I did, he and I both absorbed the same process for preparing a shortcake. Under Mrs. Beckett’s tutelage, Max and I might as well have both been her children.

  I relaxed against the fridge, watching him mix everything together, my mouth watering at the plump berries glistening in the strainer. Compared to when we first
learned to roll out a pie dough, Max’s hands were now much larger, much more certain. His forearms thicker, his shoulders broader, and his eyes directly on me.

  I quickly glanced away, embarrassed to be caught staring again. He was going to think I was a creeper. I looked at Mrs. Beckett, who turned away with a knowing grin.

  Something was up.

  I half suspected Max had sent his mom over as a pawn in his plan for world domination. Was this whole baking day an exercise in proving how well we’d all work together?

  Well, I wasn’t playing. I had a book to write. Nostalgia and shortcake wouldn’t pay the bills. Well, shortcake might, but I thanked Mrs. Beckett and told Max, “See ya later,” then headed to the safety of my mom’s house.

  * * *

  On Saturday morning, right after I’d read to the children, Max and his mom arrived, carrying boxes and a couple of containers. I peeked in one box and discovered a couple dozen shortcakes, plain. I knew what they were up to, but I relented as they moved everything into my kitchen. I was as big a sucker for strawberry shortcake as anyone.

  Max returned with a plate, overflowing with strawberries and fresh whipped cream. He hollered over to Charlie, shortcake aloft, “I don’t want to spoil your lunch, but look what we have!”

  He played so dirty. Charlie had a sweet tooth, so this was unfair by all standards of measurement.

  Charlie dropped everything and came to inspect. “Oh, wow. Are those for sale?”

  I’d be a fool to fight against guaranteed customers, so I went outside to update my sidewalk sign. As I was chalking in Fresh strawberry shortcake today! a UPS truck pulled in behind Max’s van. I signed for a trio of boxes, and Max helped me move them to the storeroom. I failed to notice one of them came from my publisher until I opened it and discovered roughly fifty finished copies of my book. Until then, I’d only ever held the advanced copies, but this was altogether different. I covered my mouth with a fist and quietly screamed with giddy delight.

  I waited until Max returned to the kitchen before picking one up to run my thumb over the gold letters embossed on the cover. The man’s face was half shrouded in the darkness of his hood, signaling his mysterious identity. He had Dylan’s eyes.

  In the book, the Shadow is a stranger who appears to Lira and entices her to go on an adventure. The Shadow eventually reveals himself to be Rane, a powerful wizard who has been accused of crimes against his own family. Lira holds the key to vindicating Rane through the magical heritage she has no idea she holds. Adopted by humans, she comes to discover she’s descended from an elf race and a sworn enemy of Rane’s people. Along the way, their feelings grow complicated—and forbidden.

  I intended for their love story to simmer, for readers to root for them to find a way to restore their relationship and act on their, to me, obvious attraction. I guess I needed to work on that last part.

  It was a couple of weeks yet before the official release, but I was still tempted to put the book on display to gauge reaction.

  I lost myself in daydreams about book signings and bestseller lists and five-star reviews. I could maintain that fantasy since I’d turned off my Google alerts once I’d realized I was never going to be happy reading every random critique that came my way.

  The bell rang up front, shaking me back to reality.

  Thanks to the Becketts, traffic spiked for the next couple of hours. I had to bust ass behind the counter to take orders and make coffee. Patrons lingered in the café with their laptops and a mug of coffee, sucking up my free WiFi.

  I had to admit it—Max had made himself indispensable for a day.

  Chapter 8

  After the crazy busy Saturday, Monday morning seemed so quiet with just Charlie typing away in the corner. Max had made his point, but I wasn’t convinced he could sustain that kind of traffic. Not every day could be that magical, and I didn’t want to take a business risk on a fluke.

  Of course if the bookstore remained an absolute mausoleum, it wouldn’t matter either way.

  This would have been a perfect day to set up my laptop and write another chapter alongside Charlie, but the blank page continued to taunt me. Instead, to pass the time, I sat reading on the rickety stool, engrossed in St. John Rivers’ pursuit of Jane Eyre, internally screaming at her to run far away. Why did Jane even consider him? Sure, Rochester was a mess, but poor Jane deserved more passion than coldhearted St. John. I took out a piece of paper to jot down book club questions.

  What does St. John offer Jane that Rochester doesn’t?

  The cry of You’ve got mail! broke the silence, and I made the mistake of checking my phone. The preview showed me an incoming email from Silver Fox. I steeled my nerves for the inevitable sting and clicked the link with one eye closed, bracing for a deadly attack. Here he was a total stranger, and the prospect alone of what he might say had my heart racing worse than a Stephen King novel.

  I bounced my foot on the spindle of the stool and dove headfirst into what I was sure would be a flogging.

  Ms. Kincaid,

  I don’t know why I’m responding to you, but I confess that I keep arguing with you in my head, so I’ve finally decided to tell you a thing or two.

  First, you’re wrong if you think reviewers don’t hear from authors. We hear plenty, and trust me when I tell you that responses can be pretty vicious. I sometimes ignore them, but believe it or not, I do realize that authors are people, too, which is why I find myself wanting to mentor you to a better mental place. My main argument is that you shouldn’t respond to reviewers because your opinion is no longer valid. Or let me rephrase it—your opinion is no more valid than mine.

  Second, I find myself once again in the position of defending my own personal situation. While I do enjoy video games as much as anyone of my generation, it’s not my primary occupation. In fact, writing reviews is my hobby. I may do this in my underwear, but not simultaneously at my mother’s house.

  Third, I do have a healthy imagination, and I can read between the lines. You may have romantic experience, but I suspect you’ve forgotten what it feels like to truly be in love. Un fortunately for me, love is a feeling I’m all too familiar with, and I recognize when someone is faking it. If I could offer you some free advice, I’d urge you to get out and get more experience—romance, sex, heartache. Live a little. If you haven’t felt your stomach flip when your hand brushes someone else’s, if your spine doesn’t tingle when you think back on your first kiss, you can’t bring those feelings to your readers.

  Or ignore me. I’m sure there will be plenty of readers who don’t care about the romance anyway. You can write for them.

  SF

  P.S. I’ll tell you my name when you tell me yours. I’m pretty sure Claire Kincaid could only be a pen name.

  * * *

  Heartache? He wanted me to intentionally fly into that turbulence again? It had taken me six months to nurse myself from the depths of the abyss before I could sink my fingernails into the ledge and heave myself up and out. Silver Fox expected me to just do it again? Sure.

  But what if he was right? What if the cocoon I’d wrapped myself in was preventing me from writing a genuine relationship? Worse, what if it was preventing me from moving on with my life?

  I poked at my bruised heart and didn’t recoil in agony. Had it dried up and died?

  “Live a little.” Like that was so easy.

  I made a fresh latte and walked over to sit with fellow romance-phobe Charlie.

  “What are you working on, Charlie?”

  “Reading.” He closed his laptop and stretched. “Why do you think so much of literature is about waiting? Why can’t it all just be the good parts? Why do I have to wade through hundreds of pages lost in the mines of Moria before getting to some real action?”

  “Are we talking about Tolkien?”

  “It’s just a metaphor. So much wandering around. My patience grows short.”

  “Sounds like my life. I strayed from the path in Mirkwood forest and can’t find m
y way back.”

  “Have you considered flipping pages?”

  “Of my life?” I laughed, trying to imagine how that would work.

  “Why not? Choose your own adventure.” He pointed his index finger toward an invisible lightbulb. “Stuck in the mines? Go over the mountain.”

  “Madness.”

  “Maybe, but it’s still a choice. Or just go to the next chapter. It can’t be that hard.”

  I considered his premise. “But what if you skipped over all the boring or hard parts of life? You’d go straight to your death bed!”

  “Hmm. I think you can always choose to stray from the path.” He stirred his coffee. “And with that in mind, I’m going to make a monumental decision to start a new book.” His eyes sharpened with sincerity. “You could, too.”

  Charlie the Chronicler had struck again.

  “Choose your own adventure. . . .”

  Peter wasn’t even in this chapter of my life. How long was I expected to wait for the return of the king? Did I have to return to the original path? Did I have to wait for Peter to come back around?

  Or could I consider other avenues?

  What if, instead of sitting in my own self-pity, I took a chance on a perilous quest fraught with messy complications, whose successful completion seemed impossible? It wasn’t like there was safety hiding in the mines anyway. I’d already spent six months in the dark, chased by a cave troll of emotional destruction. I might not die of heartbreak, but loneliness rose up like a flaming Balrog from the depths of hell, and only I could choose to fly to higher ground.

  I wanted to emerge as the heroine of my own adventure. A badass heroine controlling her own destiny.

  But how?

  I’d tried the option of going it alone, persevering stoically in the solitary post-jilting landscape I’d cultivated. I’d leaned on friends for companionship. I’d spent time reading, improving my mind, writing, improving my career, working, and improving the bookstore. I wanted more than that.