Page 62 of Meant to be Mine

“We’ve got the event details.”

“It’s done. Kensey has it under control”

“What about⁠—”

“Edith.” I held up a hand. “Everything is handled. The calendar’s clean. The event is on track. The store’s going to run just fine without me hovering over it for the rest of the afternoon.”

She looked genuinely thrown by this. It was probably the first time in six months I’d left before six.

“Amazing what a difference it makes having good help. I should have hired an assistant earlier.”

Edith rolled her eyes. “I could run this place a lot better than you.”

“Great.” I grinned at her. “It’s all yours for the rest of the day. Don’t forget to lock up.”

She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue the point, then apparently decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

I put my arm around Kensey’s shoulders and headed out the front doors. The store was fine. The event was on track. Nothing was going to fall apart because I wasn’t standing over it. I wasn’t going to feel guilty about spending the day with a woman who’d come home for a vacation and I’d put her to work.

“Where are we going?” she asked once we hit the sidewalk, the afternoon heat rolling off the pavement.

“You’ll see.”

She squinted at me like she was trying to read the answer off my face, then gave up and let me steer her toward the car.

I didn’t tell her where we were headed until we were parked outside it. Syke’s Used & Rare Books. Her whole face changed.

“Oh my God.” She actually grabbed my arm. “Is this still here?”

“Still here. Same guy behind the counter, probably. I checked yesterday to make sure it hadn’t closed on us.”

“You checked?”

“I did. I’ve planned a whole afternoon for us.”

We walked in and the smell hit us both at the same time. Old paper, dust, and the faint mustiness of books. Kensey closed her eyes and breathed it in like it was perfume.

“We spent so many afternoons in here,” she said.

“Some of the best days of my life,” I said.

She was already drifting toward the fiction section, trailing her fingers along the spines the way she used to. “This place hasn’t changed even a little.”

It hadn’t. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been back in years. When had I stopped coming? I pulled a book off the shelf, studied the cover, and put it back.

“Okay,” she said, pulling one off the shelf in the romance section. “This one looks good.”

She held it up. The cover featured a man with hair that could only be described as majestic, shirt open to his belly button, cradling a woman who was mid swoon against his forearm like her spine had simply given up. Her knee was dangerously close to his manhood but I had a feeling it was posed like that to bring attention to where her knee was pointing.

“That’s not real.”

“That’s Fabio, Drew.”

“I don’t care what his name is, that’s weird. Who likes that? Don’t tell me you’re into the long hair.”

“This is a masterpiece.”

I scoffed. “Gross.”