Chapter 2 – piper
two
piper
Hi? Hi. Two tiny, little letters make up the smallest greeting in the English language, so unobtrusive and inconsequential and yet so loaded.
That’s how Dorian McConkie chooses to greet me after nine years?
It feels like a sneak attack. He stands there all suave and manly, throwing out blasé “hi’s” like it’s no big deal that there’s a line the size of the Mississippi in here to have him sign books, and the last time we saw each other—well, I don’t want to get into that.
I’m still trying to catch my breath from the way he’s flashing his pearly whites at me.
This man hated me in college. We weren’t even in the same friend group, really—more like friend-adjacent.
We had a lot of classes together since we shared a major, and he was never nice to me.
I wouldn’t even classify his demeanor toward me as aloof.
He’d been straight-up rude. Unkind. Never wanted me around and always let me know it.
All these years later, his face ignites the same impulse in me to disappear to the other side of the room with my tail between my legs.
“Dorian” is all my pea-sized brain can squeak out.
He cringes, his gaze flicking to the line behind us.
The situation crashes down on me like a tidal wave.
Dorian McConkie, D.M. James, the extremely successful and very private author whom I just announced as my favorite, does not want readers knowing his identity.
What else had I said about him? Oh yes—one of the most talented writers of our age.
Gag me.
Dorian doesn’t deserve those accolades. The author of these books deserves them…but not Dorian. How unfair that he heard them from my lips. Despite how incredible his books are or how much of a man he’s grown into.
His brown eyes sweep over me with awareness, sending a zing down my spine. Kind of regretting going full bookstore frump today.
Is it possible to sneak out of an event your own store is throwing?
“You want me here?” Dorian asks, gesturing to the table.
The question catches me off guard. Do I want him?
No. Not anymore. Even if he’s somehow become a sexy, broody, tormented writer type with perfect two-day-old stubble, a sweater that looks softer than a puppy, and the ability to produce incredible work.
None of that makes me imagine pressing him against the table he’s gesturing to while my mouth goes dry.
His eyebrow hitches up.
Okay, Piper, rein it in. I nod. Excessively. “Yes. Right there is fine. Unless you want to say a few words first.”
He puffs out his cheeks and shakes his head. “Your introduction was flattering. I’m not sure I could add anything to it.”
Heat bleeds into my cheeks. He heard the whole thing. Of course he did. He was standing behind me the entire time I gushed. A whiff of cologne wafts beneath my nose. He even smells amazing. This isn’t fair.
I take a step back. “Water and pens are on the table. We’ll check in periodically, but flag down someone from the store if you need anything else.”
His trademark serious expression falls over his face as he takes a seat. Now that’s the Dorian I remember.
The first man in line steps up to the table. “It is an honor, sir.”
“The pleasure is entirely mine,” Dorian says affably, shifting into what appears to be a pleasant robot. “What is your name?”
I slip away, circling the edge of the room until I make it to the register, where Natalie is finishing up with a customer and her children. She bags the book and hands it across the counter. “Enjoy.”
The moment the family leaves, Nat turns on me. “What was that?”
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me. I saw it. You had a moment with him.” She drags her blonde hair into a claw clip to get it off her neck. “Was it book-related? Is he going to take you to dinner after this and let you read his next manuscript and have his babies?”
At least I know we weren’t picked up on the mic. “No moment. More like a foot-in-mouth moment I can’t ever get back. I think I’ll duck out early.”
Natalie grips my forearm. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I just…don’t think I’m needed.”
Her green eyes narrow to slits. “You can’t leave, Piper. This event is your baby. You’ve been buzzing since we scheduled it. I’m sure he’ll forget whatever you said by the time he gets through that line anyway. It can’t be that bad.” She gives me a look. “Besides, you sleep upstairs.”
If he didn’t forget me in the nine years since college, the next two hours won’t change that.
But to Nat, I just smile.
“You aren’t, like, intimidated by him, are you?”
We can go with that. “He’s kind of a big deal.”
Which is true, isn’t it? Oh gosh, it makes me squirm just to think about that. I lean back.
“So are you.” She presses her shoulder against mine, leaning against the rough brick wall beside me. “You’re amazing. You own this store, you have your own little minions, you run the best book club in Nashville, and you’re not even thirty.”
“For another two months.”
“Still counts. You’re the epitome of a successful woman.”
But somehow, seeing Dorian still sent me back almost a decade to the insecure girl who didn’t understand what she did to make him dislike her so strongly.
The man who was first in line approaches the register and drops a book on the counter with a sigh. “I need to buy a second copy.” He taps the book under his arm firmly. “I will not be reading my trophy.”
Nat jumps to assist him. “Great. How’d it go?”
“Incredible.” He adjusts his vest. “The man’s a genius.”
I hate myself for agreeing, but it’s true.
The vested customer notices the flyer we have taped to the counter. “Is D.M. James one of the teachers at this writing class?”
“No. I’m sorry, he isn’t,” Natalie says, pulling the receipt from the machine and dropping it into his bag. “This class is sold out already, but keep an eye out for future workshops.”
“Try to get D.M. on for the next one, eh?” he says, snagging his bag. “I’m not a writer, but I’d pay good money for that.”
“I wish!” Nat calls as he retreats. She turns her back on him and faces me, an evil smile curving over her lips.
I know what she wants to say before the words leave her mouth. So I cut her off. “No. We can’t.”
“Just ask him.”
“He won’t do it. He’s a recluse.”
“And a local. You heard all that stuff about Tennessee in his bio. You’re the one who said it.”
“It’s a big state. He could live in Memphis.”
Her expression is telling. “You won’t know if you don’t ask.”
I swipe a stack of staff picks to take to the back office and circle behind the desk. “I’m going to type these up and send some emails. I’ll put out some feelers.”
“Consider it!” she calls.
I make my escape without saying anything else, seeking solace in the emptiness of my office while a line of women clamors for a hot thirty-year-old Dorian McConkie.
Earth, just swallow me whole already.
It wasn’t enough that I had a secret unresolved crush on him back in college despite the way he wanted less than nothing to do with me—probably something in my psyche about wanting the thing you can’t have, but let’s not get into it—now he’s dripping appeal, and I’m sitting here in clothes that blend into my shop like a dowdy librarian.
I never did learn what made me so unlikable to him. But it’s probably the same reason none of the people I’ve reached out to about replacing our writing instructor agreed to help me out. Which is a problem, since our class begins next week.
I open my phone camera and hold it up, combing back my light brown hair.
If I were a heroine, the writer would describe it as mousy or average.
My eyes would be the color of mold, and my skin would be…
something boring and lifeless. Not pale, exactly, but not tan either.
In my defense, we’re coming out of winter.
Unremarkable, pretty much. Not the glow-up that would have made Dorian regret ever getting up and moving to the other side of the room when I sat beside him in English.
Or make him regret turning down the invitation to my birthday dinner, even though it was only a pity invite because we shared friends and they were all going to be there.
Or make him regret leaving in the middle of my sentence when I tried to walk with him between English and the class we shared on the British Romantics.
Did I have the bubonic plague? Spots? Cooties?
I know for a fact I didn’t smell bad. Thank you, Daisy by Marc Jacobs.
If I had known I was facing my past tonight, I would have tried harder, though. Why is it that on good hair days I end up seeing no one, and when I’m having a bit of a Miss Trunchbull moment, I run into everyone I know? That’s what this feels like.
“Are you planning to rejoin us?” Natalie asks from the doorway.
The voice comes at me so suddenly that I squeal, tossing my phone and managing to hit myself in the face. I tumble to the floor and conveniently snatch my phone up again. “Got it.”
“You can pretend all you want, but I saw you fall. What is up with you?”
“It’s an off day. How’s the line?”
“Growing.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to do. You need to come out here. At what point do we cut them off?”
I glance at the time. “We’re supposed to close in twenty minutes.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Did you talk to Dor—Mr. James? Is he leaving right at nine?”
Natalie shakes her head. “I don’t know. Ravi’s been working the line, and I’ve been at the register.”
I get up. Dust clings to the side of my leg, but I pat it away.
What is wrong with me? Just because my college nemesis has been holding court in my store for the last ninety minutes, I’ve been holed away like a mole person, allowing my employees to cover while I cowered in shame.
They deserve better than that. My pride isn’t worth their good opinion of me.