But this, this messy, loud, laughter-filled life, was healing it, one small, perfect night at a time.
Chapter 37
Blair
It was raining in the morning when my book was on display.
Not a dramatic storm, just a steady drizzle that turned the sidewalks into mirrors and made the leaves stick to windshields like fall confetti. I could’ve stayed in bed. Greyson offered to drive me. But something about walking to the bookstore alone, umbrella in one hand and hope tucked tight against my chest, felt right.
Delilah’s Book Nook sat in its usual place, crooked teal shutters, a bell above the door that sounded like it belonged in a Christmas movie, and the window fogged up just enough to make it feel like another world waited inside.
When I opened the door, I smelled everything at once: rain-damp wood, cinnamon and books, old and new, spine after spine breathing stories into the room.
“Back here, darling!” Delilah’s voice called.
I followed it around the corner to the front table and stopped.
There it was.
“A Second Chance”
ByBlair Cunningham.
Fifteen copies, fanned out in a gorgeous display with tiny string lights and pressed leaves tucked around the edges. A hand-painted sign read:
“Local Author Debut, Staff Pick!”
And at the center was one open copy, the first page displayed behind a delicate sheet of glass.
I blinked hard.
Delilah stepped up beside me, her lipstick a fresh coral today, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
“Well?” she said.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered.
“Start with thank you and work up to sobbing tears of joy. That’s what I did when my poetry chapbook launched in ‘93.”
I laughed. “You had a chapbook?”
“Sold three copies. One to my sister, one to my ex-husband out of guilt, and one to a stranger who thought it was a guide to winemaking. Still my proudest moment.”
I turned to her, overwhelmed. “You did this.”
She smiled gently. “Sweetheart,youdid this. I just lit the candles around it.”
Delilah didn’t treat me like a customer. She treated me like a writer. A peer. Someone who belonged in this sacred place of stories.
“You believed in me when I was twelve,” I said. “When I was stuffing poems into the shelves and pretending not to cry overAnne of Green Gables.”
“I saw a girl with too much in her heart and not enough safe places to put it. And look at you now. You made your own place. Now let’s do this and start your release party!” she says, winking at me.
I hugged her and smiled so hard my cheeks hurt, but I didn’t care. My book was going to be read by other people. It was a dream come true.
From that moment on, Delilah and I were more than a bookshop regular and owner, we were something closer to kindred spirits.
I headed back to the front of the store and took it all in one last time before Delilah let everyone inside. I paused, taking a breath. Delilah’s Book Nook glowed like a postcard under the early evening light, fairy lights strung along the windows, little paper bees dancing across the front display in a nod to my nickname. My nickname that only one person ever really used.
