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There stands a photographer who, as soon as he sees me, starts snapping pictures. The other people in the store turn to see what’s going on, and Tina presses her lips together. I knew this might reach the limit of her patience.
So I take the bull by the horns.
“Sir,” I say, rushing up to him and taking him by the arm, “this is a place of business, and you are disrupting it.”
He shakes out of my grip and shoots more photos.
I step back and watch him patiently. “Are you done? Because you can either buy some romance books or leave.”
He ignores me, continuing to snap photos.
So weird. I’m not even doing anything interesting.
That’s when it crosses my mind to make this work for Twisted Hearts.
I hold up two of the books on our front table, one on either side of my face, and smile. Then, I take one and flip through the pages, settling on a section I pretend to read.
He keeps snapping photos so I open the front door and go out on the sidewalk. There, I stand next to the shop’s huge sign, pointing at it, smiling, and blowing kisses.
Finally, the photographer puts his camera down. “Lady, you’re good,” he says, shaking his head.
“Thank you,” I say with a little bow. “Oh. Wait right here!”
I dash back into the store and grab a book from our sale rack. I’ll pay Tina for it later.
“Here. You need to read this. It’s really good. I guarantee you’ll get hooked on romance.”
He accepts it, turning it over in his hands. “Um, thank you?”
“You’re welcome. Look, you can take all the photos of me you want, but you gotta give the bookstore some publicity in return.” I whip my phone out of my pocket and snap a shot of him looking at his new book.
“If you publish a photo of me, I’ll publish my photo of you in our monthly newsletter. I’ve always said we need to get more guys reading romance.”
He waves his hand as he tries to thrust the book back at me. I don’t bite.
“You can’t do that,” he says.
I smile sweetly. “Oh, I can. And I will. In fact, I just did.” I extend my hand. “I’m Petal. Come by anytime.”
I head back inside and Tina’s beaming. “Looks like you’re learning how to play the game, honey.”
About damn time.
19
PETAL
I don’t haveto work for a couple days, so I head back to Rake’s place to continue our charade.
When I get there, he’s pulling a huge pan of lasagna out of the oven, another treat made for us by Betty.
I tell him the story about the photographer. He approves of my approach.
We take our plates to the table, and I don’t speak again until I finish everything on my plate.
“Oh my God. This is so good, and I was so hungry,” I say. “You’re lucky you get a lot of exercise and you can eat like this all the time. Guess I need to start using that fancy gym you have here.”
Rake smiles at me. “Speaking of exercise, can you come to the game this week?”
