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“A bookstore?”
“The world’s best secondhand bookstore,” I corrected her with a grin. “I practically live in this place. My gran’s always pissed when I clutter up her trailer with more books.”
“I didn’t really peg you as a big reader,” she admitted as we strolled further inside. The bookseller at the counter greeted us, and we both gave them a wave.
“Was it the attitude, or the piss-poor GPA?”
“Bit of both, honestly.” She laughed. She kept hold of my hand as we wandered through the stacks.
Jade was surprisingly easy to talk to as we wandered the bookstore. She pointed out cool covers and silly titles, saying “That’s us” about every funny-looking animal duo on the kids’ books on display. She laughed at my jokes as I made up backstories for the cheesy author photos on old thrillers. She picked out a couple of books that looked interesting to her, some fantasy thing with a horse on the cover and a copy of the most recent Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick that was in pristine condition despite being secondhand.
I already had plenty of books cluttering up my tiny bedroom, propping up the kitchen table, hidden under my grandma’s couch so she wouldn’t yell at me. So, instead of choosing anything to buy for myself, I pointed out some of my favorite titles and talked Jade’s ear off about them, earning her rapt attention even when I struggled to remember wacky plot details from things I’d read years before.
She seemed genuinely impressed by me when I showed her a few of my favorite poetry collections, especially when I quietly rattled off a short poem I’d memorized into her ear. Jade blushed and snuck a quick kiss on my cheek that had me blushing, too.
“It’s awesome that you read so much,” Jade told me as we were wrapping things up. The store was empty other than the one employee at the counter, and we were tucked in a quiet back corner. “Have you ever thought about getting a job someplace like this?”
“Customer service isn’t really my forte. Can you picture me playing nice with some asshole who doesn’t know the name or author of the book they’re looking for and just remembers it as the one with the blue cover?” I pointed out to her, raising one eyebrow. When she realized her mistake, she laughed, and I wanted to kiss her, but I resisted the urge. Instead, I followed a different out-of-character impulse and told her, “I’ve always wanted to be a writer, though.”
“What kind of stuff do you want to write?” She asked as we left, her freshly-bought books in her hands. I tucked my wallet back into my pocket, satisfied that she'd let me buy them for her.
“I don’t really know what my main genre is, I guess,” I explained as we walked down the sidewalk toward a little pizza place we’d planned to hit up for dinner. “As a kid, I wrote all kinds of silly Sci-Fi stories. Aliens and shit. But these days, Ithink I picture myself writing something a little more serious. I journal a lot, and I’ve got plenty of ideas, but…”
“It’s hard to get started,” she guessed, and I nodded.
Jade asked me more questions as we ordered and then ate some cheap, delicious pizza. She let me ramble about the kinds of important, influential literature I’d always dreamed of publishing someday, and I noticed a lot of the stories she told about her own childhood passions involved the horses she rode on her grandpa’s farm.
“I bet you look hot on horseback,” I told her playfully. “Ever try riding a horse naked? You know, a long-haired, Lady Godiva thing?”
“You’re such adude.” She laughed, playfully shoving me in the booth we shared, but I pulled her to me with a secure arm around her shoulders, following my heart for a second and kissing her on the top of the head. It felt weirdlyrightto be so casually affectionate with her this way, like we were meant to be intertwined, somehow. I watched her from the corner of my eye, noticing the tiny shift in her expression as she became more serious.
“What is it?” I asked carefully, worried that she’d say it was me. But when Jade shook her head and pulled away to look at me, she kept my fingers laced with hers.
“It’s just… I think it’s so great that you know what you want to do, even if you don’t quite know how to get there yet. I wish I was like that,” she admitted.
“You should do something you care about,” I said, and Jade rolled her eyes at the platitude.
“Well, yeah. But it’s not that simple. My parents want so much for me—college, all the best internships, a lucrative career. They talk about my being a doctor, following in their footsteps and graduating top of my class in medical school. But the onlything I’ve ever had any real interest in… I’m pretty sure it’s not something they’d see as a legit career path.”
“What is it? Something with horses?” I guessed, and the surprise in her face was so open and innocent, like she'd never expected anyone to care about how she felt. A small ripple of rage went through me at the thought of Owen, who’d dated her for so long and had never given her that kind of attention. He’d just broken her down until even other people’s kindnesses were hard for her to accept.
“Yeah, actually. I… I guess you just got that from all of my horse stories.” She half-laughed, and I lifted the back of her hand up to my lips, kissing it to assuage her embarrassment. “I’ve loved them since I was little. They’re such gentle, majestic creatures, and even the history behind them… like, they practically helped us build our whole society, you know? That sounds so dorky to say.”
“Cute dorky, though,” I countered, and she laughed again.
“I’m just not sure what kind of jobs even exist where I could work with horses all day. I’m pretty good at science, so I’ve really considered trying to go to veterinary school, but I’m not sure if working withallanimals is really my thing. Equine science is a thing, but…” She shrugged, and there was an air of defeat in it.
“You’ve got time, Jade. You don’t have to figure out what you want out of life when you’re eighteen.”But I know that I want you,a tiny, foolish voice said in the back of my head.
By the time we finished eating and were headed to another spot for ice cream on Jade’s suggestion, we’d moved past the more serious topics and were laughing and talking like old friends. When we finished our cones—cookies and cream for me, and butter pecan for Jade, which she refused to admit was an old people flavor—we climbed back into my car, since I’d told Jade eating in my prized possession was off-limits. She was still teasing me about that when we got to our final destination, alittle clearing on the outside of town that had a perfect view of the night sky, the distant woods.
“Was this your big plan, Dane? Bringing me to a make-out spot in hopes you’d get lucky?” Jade asked me, but there was a sultry tinge to her words that told me she was just as one-track-minded as I was. I parked the car and we clambered out together, stepping into the chilly night air.
“I don’t think I need some big scheme to get lucky with you, princess,” I told her. She gasped a little when I pulled her flush against my front, her soft stomach and full breasts a warm cushion I wanted to sink into and never escape. Catching her by surprise, I kissed her once, hard and dirty, and she panted a little when I pulled back. I held up my phone near her face and said, “But we’re here to get the perfect photos. You know, for your revenge.”
Jade grinned wickedly and snatched the phone from my hands, setting up the angles and filters to get the perfect selfie. We switched the phone back and forth so I could get us better angles with my longer arms, and our photos got more and more flirtatious until there was a particularly steamy one, the two of us leaned back against the hood of my car, Jade’s head tipped back in pleasure as I nipped at her neck with my teeth. It was a hot photo, and having that concrete evidence of her weakness for me satisfied something primal deep in my chest.
Jade was breathing heavily when she looked over the photos, sending them to herself and laughing a little breathlessly as I continued to tease her with kisses to her neck and jaw. She bit her lip through a smirk, looking up at me through her lashes as she handed the phone back.
