Page 17 of Bear and Book

Leo didn’t even pretend to hide his smile.

“So you’re saying you’re holding out for the right one?” He asked.

I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t start.”

Leo held up his hands in mock innocence and went back to the bookshelf, but I noticed he worked faster after that. Probably so he could get the next question in sooner.

By midday, we’d fallen into an uneasy rhythm. He’d hammer or sand or rearrange planks, and I’d sort, wipe down, and set books out to dry.

Every so often, he’d ask something else. About the shop, about the storm, about why I’d moved to Sugarpaw Springs.

The ridiculous thing was, he was good at it. Not just the fixing, though he clearly knew what he was doing, but the talking, too.

He didn’t pry so much as leave space. Like I could say something if I wanted to, or let the silence be comfortable. Somewhere in the early afternoon, he got me to smile.

It was entirely accidental, I swear. I was explaining how the floodwater had warped the bottom row of one of the mystery shelves, and he shook his head. “A crime against crime novels.”

It was a terrible joke. My mouth still twitched.

Leo noticed instantly. “Was that a smile? Did I just win?” Leo asked.

“You’re not keeping score,” I said.

“Oh, I am.” Leo leaned against the shelf, eyes sparkling. “One to nothing, fox.”

I shook my head, but my small and traitorous smile stayed.

The rest of the afternoon went like that. Awkward-but-sweet, with him trying way too hard to look casual while obviously angling for any scrap of personal information I’d give him.

I caught him once, clearly wiping his hands on a rag before picking up a particularly delicate hardback, as though proving he’d learned my “rules” from yesterday.

It was absurd. No one tried that hard unless they cared. Which was exactly the problem.

Every time Leo laughed, or brushed his sleeve against mine while passing me a stack of books, or crouched down to get a better look at a crooked shelf, I could feel the pull.

Not just the potential fated-mate thing, though that was bad enough, but the part of me that noticed the little details.

The way his hair curled slightly at the ends when it got warm in here.

The way Leo whistled under his breath when concentrating.

The way he smelled faintly of sugar and citrus from those muffins, even hours later.

And gods help me, he’d left the muffins on the counter, still warm when he’d set them down. I told myself I wouldn’t touch them until he left. I lasted twenty minutes.

He caught me mid-bite. “Good?”

I swallowed. “Passable.”

* * *

I was elbow-deep in the poetry section, trying to decide if an out-of-print chapbook belonged under “anthologies” or “miscellaneous,” when I realized the shop had gone suspiciously quiet.

Leo had been fixing a crooked shelf near the travel guides not fifteen minutes ago. He made enough noise to sound like two people.

Hammer taps that echoed, the scrape of wood against tile, the occasional clatter of a dropped screw.

He hummed sometimes, off-key but cheerfully determined, and muttered to himself like the shelf and he were having a private argument.