Chapter 12 – piper
twelve
piper
“You’re coming to the Whiskey Sage tomorrow, right?” Natalie asks once the customer we were helping takes her heaping bag of romance novels and heads outside.
“I wouldn’t miss it.” Bars aren’t really my scene, but I can suck it up for Nat’s birthday celebration. “Do you care if I invite Dorian?”
Natalie’s grin widens. “You like him. I knew it.”
I can’t give her the satisfaction of confirming it. “So it’s okay?”
“When did this change happen?”
“I’ve always liked him. We were just rivals. Kind of.”
“Ooo, enemies-to-lovers is my favorite trope.”
I roll my eyes. “So yes?”
“Of course you can bring him.” She tidies the front desk, pushing things around that don’t really need tidying. “I invited Ravi, too.”
“You’re back together?”
“No.”
Not yet, she means. Maybe I need a third employee, but I don’t think the store can afford it. I need to run our numbers and see how our events have helped improve the quarter’s sales.
“I should do some admin work. Are you good up here?”
“Sure. Hey, speaking of admin, I had an idea for a spring fair. Kind of like the Galentine’s event, but we do a short panel of local authors, and then they break up to tables around the store to sign and sell books.”
“A Spring Fling kind of thing?” I ask.
She wrinkles her nose. “I was thinking something more like Blooms & Books. Give it a really floral theme. Tulips or something like that.”
“This is why you do marketing, Nat. That’s amazing.”
She beams, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. “You like it?”
“It’s a great idea. I’ll start working on a list of authors if you want to begin designing the flyers.”
“On it.”
My gratitude for Natalie knows no bounds.
I pull up the sales numbers and identify the nights we had events during the first quarter—book clubs, classes, Galentine’s, signings—most of which were improved by her ideas.
The coupons to shop the store during events—totally Nat. The great social media presence—Nat.
Man, I really owe her. I lean back in my chair, mindlessly swiveling side to side. If we keep this up and increase store events, our numbers could continue to rise. This store could become self-sufficient by the end of the year, and I’ll owe it to Nat.
But a raise would put us right back where we started, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t make much money on the store, but she’d be fairly compensated.
And my books bring in enough to cover the difference…meaning I’m right back where I started. I let out a long, weary sigh and rub my eyes. At what point do I admit defeat? The store takes so much time that I can’t write like I used to, so my royalties will start to suffer at some point.
I pull out my phone and call my parents’ landline. Because yes, they still have one.
“Hey, sugar,” Mom says, obviously having seen the caller ID.
“When do I know it’s time to quit?”
She’s silent for a moment, but I hear her footsteps, then the telltale creak of the garage door. “Barry, it’s Piper.”
“Hi, honey,” Dad says, his voice a little distant.
She’s fetched the cavalry. I set my phone on my desk, hit the speakerphone, and press my fingers to my eyes.
“My book royalties are floating the store. If I give Natalie the raise she deserves for all the work she’s doing to drive more business, it’ll probably end up balancing out the additional revenue to a degree. I’m not sure I have a viable business.”
“What do you mean your royalties are floating the store?” Dad asks.
My cheeks flush. “I might have been using them to supplement my employees’ paychecks.”
“Oh, Piper,” Mom says. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I wanted this to be a success. I’ve worked so hard to make this store exactly what I want it to be.”
“How’s your writing going? I haven’t even seen a preorder recently.”
“It’s…taking a back seat. I’m halfway through my next novel. But I can’t put up a preorder until it’s finished. Things are slower now that I have the store.”
“Your attention is split,” Dad says.
Mom hums. “Which one is your dream?”
“I have more than one dream?” I say, but I ask it like it’s a question. Is that allowed? Am I allowed to dream so big? To want to be an author, a bookstore owner, a wife, a mom, a friend, a daughter, a reader?
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Mom says firmly. “But you need to find a way to make the store a viable business on its own. That’s important, or you’ll run yourself ragged.”
Dad mutters something under his breath, then speaks to me. “Should we come help out? I can take a few shifts.”
“I’m not ruining your retirement with work.”
“I’d enjoy it.”
My chest swells with love. “I shouldn’t take work away from my employees, either.”
“That’s fair, honey.” Dad makes a thinking sound. “I know you have your own accountant, but do you want me to take a look at your books?”
He could, and he might find something, but he doesn’t need to. I employ an accountant, like he just said. Dad doesn’t need to waste his time looking at my books when I already pay someone else to do it.
“Thanks, but for now I’m good.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line. Immediately, I feel like I said the wrong thing, but I don’t know how to turn it around.
“We’re always here for you,” Mom says carefully.
“I know. Thanks.”
“Now, tell me about this boy,” she says. Changing the subject must be her way of breaking the tension. “Last I heard, he was tugging your pigtails on the playground.”
“Weird analogy.”
“I always wondered if there was more to it than we knew,” she says smugly. “No one could just not like you.”
“Says my mother.”
“I’m right, aren’t I? You think I’m an old lady, but I know I walked in on something the other night.”
She definitely walked in on something. If she hadn’t interrupted, I’m almost positive he would have kissed me, or I would have kissed him. And the four days since that moment have dragged by, each minute a slow trudge in my eager anticipation of our date. “He might be taking me out tonight.”
“Your first real date!”
“With Dorian, yes. I’ve dated other guys.”
“I know, I know,” she says. I can practically picture her holding up her hands to placate me. “But this one feels special.”
His laughing brown eyes pop into my head. “Yeah, he is.”
Dorian picks me up after the store closes, and we drive along the 40. We chat, so I don’t pay attention to where we’re going until we reach a quiet little row of houses with one streetlamp and very middle-class cars. He pulls into a driveway and puts the car in park.
“Is this where you grew up?”
He shoots me a look. “It’s where I live now.”
My stomach swoops. Dorian brought me to his house?
He comes around the car and opens my door, then stands directly in front of me. “Is this weird? I wanted to cook you dinner, but now I’m thinking it was forward of me.”
“So forward,” I tease. “How bold of you to make me food.”
The look he gives me dives straight to my belly. “Okay.”
We walk up the path and he unlocks the door, letting me in. The smell of his house is much like him—sharp and clean, but it’s quickly overtaken by the aroma of food. Something savory and rich.
“Tuscan chicken with sun-dried tomatoes and a cream sauce over pasta,” he explains. “With asparagus.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“This meal is my only flex. Don’t start thinking I know how to cook. I can make this one thing.”
“I’m almost positive you’re being humble, but I’ll take it at face value and let you prove me wrong later.”
“True. I make a mean waffle.” Dorian’s smile is warm, making my toes curl. “It’s all finished. I just need to make the sauce, but that’ll only take a few minutes.”
I take my coat off and hang it by the door, then leave my shoes next to his. It makes the sweetest domestic picture, and my brain takes off a mile a minute. I have to shut it down.
Dorian’s house is simple. The furniture is mostly neutrals—browns, blues, tan, stone gray.
He has green accents and art on the walls that looks like real paintings, not the knockoffs I picked up at Hobby Lobby.
His rug is lush beneath my feet, and I can tell that, while Dorian doesn’t have a lot of belongings, the ones he does have are carefully selected.
His kitchen is updated, with the deep wooden cabinets looking freshly stained. I pull out a barstool and get comfortable. “So, where does all the magic happen?”
He glances at me over his shoulder. “My writing?”
I love that he knows what I meant. “Yeah.”
“I have an office around the corner there.” He nods in that direction, since he’s sprinkling flour over melted butter. “Actually…I haven’t left that room pretty much all week.”
“Dorian.” I try not to make a big deal out of this. “Are you writing again?”
I can sense his grin, even though his back is to me. “Maybe.”
My squeal is loud and jarring, but he doesn’t even flinch.
I hop down from the stool and race around the island, throwing my arms around Dorian’s waist. He never stops stirring his roux, but his other arm clamps around me, and I inhale his spicy scent.
My eyelids drift closed, every nerve ending on fire where my body is touching his. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks,” he murmurs into my hair.
We stand like that for a while, and I don’t know exactly when he wraps me in both arms, but soon he’s rubbing my back, his fingers are trailing over my neck, and volleys of shivers are washing over my skin.
I’m warming from the inside out. My heart beats furiously, pounding in rhythm with the popping on the stove.
When his hand slides into my hair at the base of my neck, lifting it, his thumb drawing lazy circles on my skin, I think I might lose control.
It’s only a hug. The most supercharged, electric hug I’ve ever felt, but still…just a hug. I want to live in it forever.
My fingers splay on his back, dying to keep him close but conscious of the sizzling roux on the stove beside us.
“Sorry,” I mutter, trying to pull away.
He doesn’t let me, his body bending into mine. “Nothing to be sorry about.”
“But you’ll burn your dinner.”