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CJ is still pouting over the mess on the floor, the camera ready in his hand. We start goofing around, both of us laughing at his expression as we take the last of our photos.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” she tells me in that accent of hers, giving me one last hug.
“It’s my pleasure. Thank you for being awesome. I’m excited for your next release.”
I grab my pretties before moving over to CJ, helping him pick up my stuff before getting out of the way of the line.
“Can we sit down? My feet are killing.”
I give him an ‘are you kidding’ look. “We only get five hours, CJ. Every second is precious. We can’t waste time sitting down. Sitting down is for quitters.”
He takes a step back from my outburst before nodding. “Okay, it was only a suggestion.”
We move on to the next table and the author starts laughing. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
I look up from my browsing to see that her question isn’t directed at me but at CJ.
He chuckles, struggling to manoeuvre the bags into a more comfortable position. “Apparently I’m only here to carry the goods. She won’t even let me take a break. I’m starving.”
The woman is flabbergasted but doesn’t frown in disappointment. If anything, she’s amused.
I growl under my breath and turn to CJ. “You have a stash of stuff in my trolley, which is why you’re carrying four of my books. And you ate a Burger King half an hour ago when you left to ‘take a phone call’.”
“I’m a growing boy.” His reply is always the same. I swear, he uses the excuse for everything.
The author laughs. “I have some spare room under my table if you’d like to store some of it until you leave?”
CJ is about to accept, but I hold my hand up to stop him. “That’s really kind of you, but he’ll only annoy me if he has nothing to do.”
She laughs, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Enjoy the rest of your visit.”
“I will.” I smile, handing her the money for a book that caught my eye. The cover is pink with sparkly writing all over it. I don’t even know what it’s about, but I can’t wait to see what it looks like on my shelf.
As we move away, CJ sidles up close to me, leaning down to whisper in my ear, “I didn’t know you get this heated over books. It’s like you’re a different person.”
“I’m not,” I lie. I totally am. I’m like a kangaroo on speed, wanting to jump from one table to the next. I can’t help it; I want to make sure I get to see everyone. And then there’s the people I talk to in the lines. I can’t exactly blank them. We’re like family in the book community; we share everything and anything.
“Cupcake, you nearly took out that woman who was browsing over the table. She wasn’t even waiting to see the author and you got all crazy-eyed.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” he argues, silently laughing at me. “She was seconds away from either pissing herself or ramming her cart into your legs.”
I scoff. “She shouldn’t have pushed in. We were in that queue ten minutes.”
“She picked up a pen. I noticed she had a bagful, so she must have been collecting from each author.”
“Whatever.”
“And don’t get me started on how many times you’ve spoken so fast no one has understood a word you’ve said. That one author just nodded and smiled,” he says, laughing.
“I was nervous,” I tell him, blushing a little. I tend to get carried away when I speak about something that means so much to me.
“And the nearly falling over your feet to get to authors?”
I send him a mock glare, but I can’t really be mad when he’s one hundred percent right. I have tripped more than once. At one author’s table, I knocked over her display. It was embarrassing. She took it like a champ, though. Even offered me a chair and a bottle of water.
Bless her heart.
