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“Hey. Promise is still on to hang out at your place and scare them into behaving.”
Even if that promise felt like it was another lifetime. Back at the festival, where I’d attended alongside Harper…
I couldn’t think about her right now. But I stopped myself too late, because Emberlynn caught that look I must have had in my eyes. She softened.
“Are you okay?” she said, voice low. I looked away.
“I’m good. I’ve got work to do.”
“Aria and I worry about you. A lot.”
“Ew, gag.”
She reached over the counter and squeezed my arm. Blessedly, she didn’t pursue the subject any further. “I know you’re pulling a double shift with the bookstore, so we’ll have dinner later tonight. Come by at eight.”
What a sap. I tried to smile. “Trust me, I’m tempted to call off the entire shift, close the bookstore down altogether if it means I get soup.”
It was a transparent lie, but Emby pretended she believed it, which was pretty cool of her. She left with her bread in tow, and I went back through the motions, one step after another, just… living.
I wondered how long it was going to hurt like this. Did Harper coming back restart the clock and I’d lost those six months’ progress in healing?
And what if I didn’t want to heal?
I finished up at the bakery, closing the store, spent the next forty-five minutes cleaning up and preparing for next morning’s open. Went upstairs, took a shower, got changed, and I headed down the short walk to the bookstore, down the steps and into the plaza where I pushed in through the old door that jingled overhead and waved to Oliver behind the counter, ringing up a line of orders. Did the inventory count while he cleared out his line, and I took over the front, letting him go.
“Have fun with your kayaking,” I said, and he stopped, looking back over the register.
“Thanks, Pais. That’s next week, though.”
Right. Time was all the same to me. “Okay, have fun with sitting at home alone or whatever you do, now scoot.”
I was halfway through a numbingly quiet shift—everybody was waiting for Black Friday sales at the end of the month, so most of my shift I had nothing to do but stand there and think, which was my least favorite part of every day. I was in the middle of tidying up the same display I’d already tidied twice this hour when the doorbell jingled, and I looked at where Kay came in with a cup of bubble tea. Matcha. What was once my favorite flavor was now as appetizing as dishwater.
“Hi, Pais,” she said.
“You’re coming to a bookstore? You mean you can read?”
She put a hand on her hip. “Is that any way to treat paying customers? I’m going to leave a scathing review of this place.”
“Looking for something?”
She beamed. “Yeah. You. Um… there was extra… matcha that was cleared to go at the end of today, so I whipped you up your favorite drink and brought it here. Just figured it was better than throwing it out.”
“When was the last time your matcha ran to the end of its shelf-life?”
She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Um, it happens sometimes…”
“Who told you to bring me a drink?”
“Nobody!”
I crossed my arms. She cracked.
“Okay, you can’t tell anyone I told you, but it was Emberlynn.”
How on earth did I know? I sighed. “I already ate a pastry this morning, so I don’t think I have room.”
She scrunched up her face. “It’s not just Emberlynn who’s worried about you. It’s all of us ever since—”
