Page 31 of A Bookish Story

He quirks a brow. “Does it involve writing your own books?”

“Without a safety net,” I say, borrowing from the phrase of earlier this afternoon and turning it into a metaphor.

His lips quirk into a smile as if I’ve spoken in his secret code. “That’s the very best way to write.”

CHAPTER 12

A little magic sometimes happens while inside a bookstore.

Ryan and I have been staring at each other for several seconds. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I’m once more inappropriately noticing the way his deep-set dark blue eyes tip downward at the corners, giving him the look of both sorrow and annoyance at the world. There’s an unnerving desire in me to know him better, to find out how she hurt him, how it ended. Why. He’s been hurt and his entire body seems to carry some of the weight of that. It’s in his eyes, and in his shoulders.

We’ve never gone over the line of being professionals, but I wonder if it counts when we’re not technically at work now.

I break the stare fest first to look over his shoulder when the store clerk pushes a cart filled with books toward the front of the store.

“Look.” I point.

He turns to follow my gaze.

The clerk is stocking Soulmates, dozens of the special edition hardcover copies.

“Should we tell them we know the author?” I elbow him. “That might be fun.”

“No.” He takes my arm and stills my forward movement.

His grip is stronger than I would have guessed, but I still shake him off. “You’re right. It’s better if we’re here incognito. Undercover.”

“You know what this means.” He gives me one of his serious professorial don’t-mess-with-me looks.

“Yes. We can listen to people talk about the book.”

“And they won’t feel like they have to lie to…us.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. It appears I might not be the only one who’s not crazy about the book.

We stand for several minutes, watching quietly from a distance. The clerk stacks the books in a gorgeous center display with signage that might as well be fluorescent red blinking arrows ordering, “Read me!” and “Don’t get stuck being the only idiot that hasn’t read this book.”

Clearly, one of the booksellers loved this book, too.

I sidle up to the display, leaving Ryan behind me. “New release?”

“Yes, it’s a debut with high praise,” the clerk says.

Ryan joins me. “I’ve heard it’s a pedantic approach to story. Not that I’ve read it.”

The clerk, a young woman, gives Ryan the look you’d give someone who’s just insulted your best friend. “As booksellers, we get early copies and I’ve read it. I disagree. The writing is lyrical. Poetic.”

Ryan clears his throat. “Seems my information is wrong.”

I give her a wide smile. “Huh. So, you don’t think it’s a pedantic approach to writing?”

She straightens. “I wouldn’t hype anything I felt that way about!”

A middle-aged woman elbows her way into our conversation. “My book club is looking for a new selection. Do you recommend it?”

“Highly,” the bookseller said. “The book is written entirely from the hero’s point of view. He’s neurodivergent and suffering with PTSD. In his case, he’s grieving the man he used to be. We read and talk so much about grief as the loss of a loved one, but not as much about the grief we feel for another version of ourselves. This is far more than a love story. It’s truly a hero’s journey.”

I don’t like hearing it quantified as “far more than a love story” as if that itself isn’t enough, but I’m going to be the bigger person and let that go.