And who even said a relationship would work? Noah wanted London. Quinn wanted Hay.
‘I’m thinking of printing posters about the protest, too,’ Quinn said to Daniel. ‘I’ve made something up to put around town. Mind printing it for me?’
‘Oh, yeah, sure.’
Quinn watched him open the file, his shoulders slumped. Right now, he didn’t have the time, but he felt as though he needed to speak with Daniel. Maybe he’d upset him. Maybe it was the Christmas blues.
Quinn turned to the email left in his drafts this morning. An email confirming if Noah could sign his books on Wednesday.
Hey Noah,
Great seeing you recently. Just confirming that you are happy to attend and sign some books here on Wednesday. If so, I can send out the invites and start advertising it. I’m sure plenty of people will come by to see you!
Speak soon,
Quinn x
He re-read the email not once, but thrice. He felt like an editor at work, overanalysing everything he typed, wondering if he needed to tweak something here or there. Was it too casual? Too ‘I don’t care’? Was he breezy like Monica Geller?
‘Recently’ was fine, wasn’t it? How else could he say ‘it was great to almost kiss you last night and now I feel awful’ without saying that? Yes, ‘recently’ worked.
The kiss. The X. Too much? Was an X sign-off too soon after what almost transpired between them? The floating X was like a tease, hinting at what could have been. Should he go fullGossip Girland add xoxo?
Deciding that he was no Dan Humphrey, he erased the x, re-reading the email one more time.
Then he sent it, wondering if they could go on and pretend nothing had almost happened between them.
A few seconds later, an email swooped into his inbox, one that he couldn’t ignore.
Noah.
Confirming the signing for Wednesday was ‘perfect’, and that he ‘couldn’t wait’. And there, at the end of the email, was a kiss.
An X, to be more specific, but a kiss!
The almost kiss, haunting them like the ghost of Christmas past. Only this was a digital kiss, and he’d sent it, and that meant it happened.
They had kissed!
Virtually!
Quinn caught himself smiling, and a customer thought he was smiling at them, so he went with it, taking a sale of one hundred pounds. ‘I travelled from north Wales for this when I heard about the shop. You’re not closing, are you?’
‘We’re doing everything we can to save it in such a short amount of time,’ Quinn said, using the words he gave to anyone who asked. Which was everyone. Which was exhausting, but fine because they cared. And they knew he cared.
‘Ofnadwy!’ they said, using the Welsh word for terrible, and Quinn agreed. It was very ofnadwy.
With confirmation of both Blair and Noah, on two consecutive days, Quinn printed posters and plastered them on the window of his shop. Daniel came back from putting up posters about the protest with snow in his hair. Quinn tacked the remaining posters to the bookshelves so that the influx of customers would not miss the date and time, as well as who would sign what. He then turned to the digital world, posting the details on all of his social media pages. And each time, he enjoyed looking at the image of Noah, with that commanding stare of his.
Turns out, both Blair and Noah beat him to the punch, already tweeting that they would sign copies of their books in Kings & Queens. Quinn noticed that there was more excitement for Noah than Blair and his almost ten-year-old book. It was too late to order the children’s copies now.
That didn’t matter. Both of them had shown up. Both of them were helping in the best possible way.
The door dinged and Ivy came in, wearing a long parka coat.
‘I got your invites.’ Ivy held up her phone. ‘Perfect, wonderful. I’ve already spoken to some locals and they’re happy to hang up some flyers or posters to help spread the word. Not that we need it. The press wants to come to the protest.’
‘Ivy, none of this would have happened without you.’
