Festive with a Grumpy Fae

Chapter 1

one

Of course, this isn’t a book, not by the definition of what we sell here.

For a start, it’s handwritten, and though it claims to be a recipe book, it’s full of nonsense “recipes” for things like growing wings, inciting lust, and enhancing beauty.

I take a few seconds to read that one, just in case it’s a natural skincare recipe—anything to save a few bucks—but the second I see “tears of a mature virgin” listed in the ingredients, I lose interest. Even if it does work, I don’t know anyone who’d qualify as a “mature virgin,” and it’s not the kind of thing you go around asking people.

I snort as I picture myself not only asking my neighbours about their sexual experience, but then also potentially asking them to cry so I can look more beautiful. That’ll get the gossips going. Knowing my luck, it’ll also start the matchmakers up.

Sighing, I flip a few more pages in the book, remembering how badly it went the last time I agreed to be set up. It’s hard being a romantic who yearns for love when you don’t quite fit in with the people around you.

“Um, excuse me? Do you work here?”

Glancing up, I paste on a semi-professional smile for the woman with the tentative voice and unsure expression. I can understand her confusion—I might be wearing a name tag, but I’m also sitting on the floor in front of a bookshelf, essentially reading.

“Sure do. What can I help you with?” I scramble to my feet, book still in my hand.

“Oh. Well, I asked downstairs if you have any second-hand romance novels, and the man at the register said there were some up here, but I can’t find them….” She bites her lip, and I hold back a sigh. Another potential sale lost.

“We have some second-hand editions of Jane Austen’s works, and the Bronte sisters,” I suggest gently. “And several excellent volumes of medieval romantic poetry in both the original Italian and the English translation.” None of which is what she’s looking for.

Her face confirms it. “So… nothing by Ali Hazelwood or Casey McQuiston?”

I wish. I could have sold them a dozen times over this week alone.

“Not second-hand, but I think we still have a copy of Ali’s latest with the new books.

” I finally managed to talk Godfrey into a small genre fiction section downstairs with the new stock, and only because I promised that anything not sold within three months could go back to the publisher.

I haven’t had to keep that promise yet, and I’m hoping that in the new year, he’ll let me expand that section and maybe start accepting second-hand genre fiction too.

“Someone bought it just before I got here,” she murmurs, frowning. “And I have everything else that’s on the romance shelf. Is there anything second-hand? I’m okay with Mills and Boon from the 1970s, even.”

Oh, girl… me too. Some of those plotlines were seriously fucked-up in the best dramatic, no-thanks-in-real-life way.

Regretfully, I shake my head, and she sighs. “I just need something to distract me from my in-laws,” she begs. “I’ve gone through everything I brought with me, and they’re driving me to drink. We’re here for two more days, and I desperately need a romance to escape into.”

I hear stuff like that all the time. The thing about being a touristy small town touted as perfect for short getaways with friends is that people do exactly that…

and then realize they really can’t stand being with their friends and family twenty-four-seven, and that small towns are small.

They don’t have big shopping centres, movie cinemas, kids’ play centres, and all the other convenient ways of keeping occupied without actually needing to interact with the people you’re with.

Godfrey could make a killing off tourists if he’d let me stock kids’ books that aren’t first editions, more popular fiction—including cheap second-hand copies—board games, and puzzles.

Leaning in close, I whisper, “Try the op shop down the street.” Unlike us, they don’t turn their noses up at romance novels.

The poor woman gives me grateful thanks, and I watch her head down the hall to the stairs and mourn the loss of another easy sale. She looked like the type who would have walked out with a stack of books, too, because it’s easier to just get them all than it is to choose between them.

Since I’m already standing, I do a quick circuit of the upstairs to see if anyone else looks like they need help.

It’s midafternoon on a Friday, and the bookstore isn’t that busy.

Most tourists drive up Friday afternoons or nights, but we get enough who come early to have a long weekend that locals try to avoid Main Street on Fridays—not that we get many of them in store, anyway.

Godfrey only agreed to sell new books because the local chamber of commerce petitioned him about it.

Frome’s Books is the only bookstore for seventy kilometres in any direction, and they had visions of adding to the town’s tourism cachet with book signings and author talks—things they could build into weekend retreat-type events.

Little did they know that even the thought of it would give Godfrey hives.

He agreed to stock some new release literary fiction and a small selection of nonfiction, but that’s as far as he went until I talked him into three shelves of genre fiction—romance, sci-fi and fantasy, and crime/thriller.

Three. Measley. Shelves. Still, I’m wearing him down slowly.

Very, very slowly.

I help an older gentleman who’s looking for nineteenth-century medical textbooks, of which we have a surprising number, and then walk him downstairs to the register.

“It’s my passion,” he explains with a chuckle. “My wife thinks I’m ridiculous. Forty-five years as a practicing GP, and I’m spending my retirement reading about historical medical treatments and theories. Most of them were disproved a hundred years ago or more, but I can’t resist them.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” I say as I ring up the sale, which is a hefty one. He grins at me.

“I’ll tell the missus that next time she says I should find a different hobby.”

Great. “You’re not local, are you?”

“Nah. I drove up from Melbourne.”

“Are you here for the weekend?” The three weighty books won’t fit into one bag, so I divide them between two.

“Not this time, though I bet my wife would like it here. I came just to visit this store. Someone on Reddit said you had a good range of medical texts, and they were right.”

I grab a business card. “Our phone and email details are here if you ever want us to search for a specific title,” I inform him.

“We don’t list all our stock on the website, but usually we’ll update it with some general information about new shipments, and we’re happy to mail books if you want to save yourself the drive. ”

His face lights up as he takes the card. “Mate— What was your name?”

“Lachlan.”

“Lachlan, you’ve made my day. Thanks for your help.”

“It’s my pleasure. Drive safe.” I wave him off, then sell a waiting tourist a new release biography. “This is a great read,” I tell her. “Especially if you like dry wit.”

She smiles and thanks me as she takes the book, crossing paths with Godfrey on her way out.

“There you are, Lachie,” he pronounces. “Have you— Oh, dear, did that customer forget to take this?” He grabs the slim, leatherbound book that’s sitting beside the register.

“No, I had that in my hand when I helped another customer, and it ended up coming downstairs with us.” I take it from him and flip the pages so he can see. “It’s another one of those wannabe witchy spell books.”

He sniffs disapprovingly. “Remember, if it’s dated after 1960—”

“I’ll get rid of it. Yes, I know.” We find a surprising number of handwritten “spell books” from the 1960s and 70s that are mostly just the diaries of stoners.

Godfrey decided long ago that nothing “arcane” from that era would be accepted into inventory.

Personally, I think stoner spell books are the best of the lot, but they don’t really sell.

It’s too recent a period in history for most people who are looking for old arcane books.

“Thank you. Now, I’m afraid I need to ask a favour of you.”

“Oh?” I try to sound interested, but Godfrey’s favours are inevitably boring.

“The chamber of commerce called earlier to remind me that we’re required to decorate for Christmas.

” That’s all he says, but the half-baffled, half-afraid expression on his face fills in the gaps.

Godfrey has nothing against Christmas, but the concept of decorating the store seems pointless to him.

The clientele he wants to sell to are serious antiquarian collectors or hobbyists searching for specific subject matter, like the doctor I just helped.

That’s not a customer base that fluctuates around the holidays, so he doesn’t understand the purpose of seasonal retail shoppers and why we might want to attract them with a decorated store.

I’m working on changing his mind about that, too.

“I’ll take care of it,” I assure him. “As soon as I’ve finished processing this latest shipment.”

He beams at me in relief. “You’re a good sort, Lachie. I’m so glad you moved to town.”

The stab of pleasure/pain is familiar. I’ve found a home and community—of sorts—here in Typford, but my decision to move from Melbourne wasn’t exactly voluntary.

Being thrown out of home at fifteen by bigoted parents wasn’t in my plans.

I had very little money and nowhere to go when I called my mum’s estranged sister in the hopes that she might help me.

Her offer for me to move in with her wasn’t ideal but it was all I had, so I left the city and moved here.

That was nine years ago, and I guess I’m stuck in a rut now.

I could move back to the city, but I have a decent job here with a lot of autonomy.

I also don’t pay rent or have roommates, because Aunt Maggie lets me live in an old workers’ cottage on her farm.

I did offer to pay rent, because she could let it out to tourists for an obscene price, but the thought of having strangers on the farm horrified her.

As she put it, either I live there or nobody does.

So… maybe I didn’t want to come here to begin with, but now that I’m here, I’m too scared to leave. I just wish I didn’t feel like an outsider all the time. Even Godfrey is only glad I’m here because I’m good at my job, whereas for me, he’s probably the closest thing to a dad I’ve got.

Pathetic, right?

“Lachie,” Godfrey says as I turn away, and I glance back at him. “It’s still okay for you to mind the store while I’m on my buying trip, right?”

I nod. Leave it to Godfrey to plan a business trip for the week between Christmas and New Year. “Yes, as long as we hire a couple of casuals to help out. The tourists will be thick that week.”

“Yes, of course. What a relief. Sheila at the hot bread shop said that since Maggie is away on her cruise, you might want to go visit friends or a boyfriend or… I’m not really sure.

I wasn’t listening. But I told her you’d be here like usual.

” He turns to help a customer, and I try not to let his words hurt.

It’s not his fault I don’t have a boyfriend or friends to go visit.

It’s not his fault I’ll be spending Christmas all alone.