Chapter Six
Jorja
I STARED DOWN AT THE bills laid out on the cramped desk in front of me. I didn’t even know where to start.
Next to the stack of bills that needed to get paid was the envelope that Wharton had given me. Which I knew would be the answer to all my questions, all my struggles, if I was to just accept his help and sell this place to him, and yet...
I pressed the tissue to my face again, trying to pull myself together. I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t even know where to start. The weight of all of this seemed to be pressing down on my shoulders, and I had no idea how much more I could take before it crushed me entirely.
What was that Seth guy doing back here? I just didn’t get it. He had already gotten his book. Maybe he had come back to return it because the copy was too scuffed up. That was just what I needed, the last little bit of profit I had been able to hang on to today out the window.
Five days. The next bill was due in five days, and I knew I didn’t have the money to pay it. All of this just felt so painfully, completely impossible. My grandma had gone through times of struggle with the store, of course she had, but she had always been able to come out the other side in one piece. It had never gotten this bad. Or maybe it had, and she just hadn’t let me know about it because she knew I would worry. I had always been an overthinker, ever since I was a kid, probably thanks to losing my parents so young.
I wished she was with me right now. I wished she was here, so she could put her arm around me and tell me that everything was going to be okay, even if I knew there was no way it was the truth. She always had this knack of making me feel better, even when things felt impossible. She had this softness to her, this warmth, that made everything in the world feel possible to me.
But she was gone, and it was just me, and keeping this place alive lay entirely on my shoulders. If I screwed it up, then there was nothing and nobody to fall back on.
I pressed my fingers into my temples and took a deep breath. The last thing I needed right now was to panic. But it felt like the envelope Wharton had given me, which I still hadn’t so much as opened yet, was glaring up at me, a threat of what he would do if I didn’t play along with what he wanted. How far would he go? I had no idea, and that scared the heck out of me. I had heard whispers of what he had done to get his hands on other properties around town, and I was sure he wouldn’t be above doing the same or worse for the store. Especially since I hadn’t exactly been responding to his attempts at flirtation. It struck me all at once that he might make me pay for that, too.
But, before I could ponder on it any longer, the door swung open, and Haley stood before me, an excited grin on her face.
“What’s up?” I asked, quickly stashing away all of the bills before she could see them. I didn’t need her worrying about all of this, it wasn’t her problem to handle, it was mine.
“Did you meet a guy in the store recently?” she asked, keeping her voice pointedly casual.
I narrowed my eyes, but then nodded. “Yeah, Seth,” I replied. “He was in here earlier picking up a book. Why?”
“Because he just came back,” she explained, clasping her hands together. “And he wants to take you on a date.”
My eyebrows nearly shot off the top of my head when I heard her come out with that. I could have laughed. There was no way, just no way someone like him could have been asking me out. She must have misheard him or misinterpreted him somehow, I was sure of it. I refused to believe, even for an instant, that he would have truly wanted anything to do with me, after the mess I had made of myself when I had first met him.
“On a date?” I blurted out, and then, I shook my head. “No. There must have been a mistake. I—”
“He was pretty clear about it to me,” Haley replied, raising her eyebrows. “And why would it be that strange for someone to want to take you out, anyway?”
I picked at a splinter on the desk.
“I just don’t... I don’t go out much,” I admitted.
“But that doesn’t mean you can’t,” she urged me. I knew she wasn’t going to drop this anytime soon. She had gotten it into her head that this was how this was going to go, and I doubted I was going to be able to convince her otherwise.
“I don’t know why he’d be interested,” I confessed.
“Because you’re a total catch, Jorja!” she exclaimed, leaning on the desk opposite me.
I snorted with amusement. “Yeah, okay.”
“No, really, I mean it,” she replied. “You’re a catch. You’re kind, you’re funny, you’re smart, and you’re gorgeous. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”
I pressed my lips together. I wanted to argue with her, but I got the feeling she wouldn’t have taken it well. I still wasn’t sure about Seth being interested in me. I would have to hear it right from his own mouth if I was going to believe it. It just didn’t feel right, that a guy who looked like that, who seemed to carry himself with such confidence, would have looked twice at someone like me.
“I don’t have time for dates,” I protested. “I have the store to run. Especially with it coming up to Christmas.”
“You’re right, it’s Christmas,” she pointed out. “That’s supposed to be the season of cheer and magic, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t you want to make the most of that? See if there’s a little Christmas magic out there for you?”
I sighed and smiled as I looked up at her.
“You’re not going to drop this, are you?” I remarked, and she shook her head.
“No way. Guys like him don’t pass through Mastin Falls often. You should take any chance you can get with him.”
“I need to stay focused on work right now,” I told her gently, trying to assure myself as much as I was her. Haley parted her lips, clearly intent on continuing to protest, but before she could get another word out, the doorbell chimed.
“I’m going to deal with that,” she shot back. “But we’re not done with this, all right? I’m not letting you throw away a good man like that!”
I waved her off, and watched as she went, wondering if, maybe, she might have had some reason to her. When was the last time I had been asked out? I couldn’t even remember. It felt like a lifetime ago now. Not that Seth had exactly asked me out face-to-face yet, not at this point, and I still wasn’t sure he was actually interested in me that way. Perhaps he just wanted to talk about books, or see if I could get a specific copy of something in for him. It wasn’t anything serious.
Although...
I could almost imagine sitting opposite him at dinner, some sweet little restaurant where the lights were low and a candle flickered on the white cloth between us. The smell of savory deliciousness in the air, a glass of wine to my side, that feeling... that electricity crackling in the air between us. I had felt it when I had first met him, and I knew that was dangerous. A man who looked like that, there was no way he didn’t have plenty of women to choose from, and I wasn’t going to let myself get distracted from what really mattered here just because he seemed to have shown an interest in me. When he got to know me— if he got to know me—and saw how boring and slow most of my life was, I was sure he would lose interest.
Once I was sure the customer who had just arrived was gone, I made my way into the store to tidy up the last of the Christmas decorations and make sure the place was looking as perfect as it could be. Inhaling the scent of the books, old and new, I felt a pang in my chest as I thought of how close I was to losing the place. I knew I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I let it slip through my fingers, and I refused—I just refused —to let it escape me. This was my family’s place, and I wanted to hand it down to the next generation when the time came.
Which, given my current dating life, was looking as though it was going to be a while yet.
I could sense Haley watching me out of the corner of her eye as she worked. I could tell she was busting to bring up that conversation she’d had with Seth earlier, but I didn’t want to get into it again. I knew she meant well, but she was a little younger than me, and she was likely still holding on to her belief in romance and being swept off her feet. Back when I was her age, I might have been able to do the same, but now, I knew I had to stay focused on the store.
“So, what are you going to do about Wharton?” she asked me, cutting through the silence, as the two of us dusted off the shelves.
I winced. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I... I don’t know what else I can do.”
“There has to be some way we can keep the store running and turning a profit,” she muttered, pausing for a moment to tap her finger on her chin.
“I’m all ears,” I replied. I had been wracking my brain all day, ever since Wharton had come in, but I didn’t know what else I could do. Short of something drastic, like taking out a loan, but that would land me in just the same problem I was in now down the line, wouldn’t it? I would have to pay it all off to someone else, and they might be even harsher than Wharton—if that was even possible.
“Like... we could do a book fair?” she suggested, gesturing around to the stacks on the shelves around us.
I frowned. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, a Christmas book fair,” she continued, her face lighting up, as though she was already selling herself on the idea. “We advertise it around town, we make sure it’s going to be busy, see if we can get some of the local cafés to work with us to provide coffee and hot chocolate. Make it feel really seasonal!”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” I remarked, wrinkling up my nose. It was a nice idea, don’t get me wrong, but what were the chances people were going to come to a fair to buy books when they wouldn’t even step into my store to look at them most days? It seemed like a lot of effort for not much return, and I couldn’t risk something like that right now.
“I’ll work it for free,” Haley offered.
“You’re going back to visit your family for Christmas next week, aren’t you?” I reminded her.
She groaned, slapping the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Ugh, you’re right,” she complained. “I won’t be here. But I could see if I can get some of my friends in to give you a hand?”
“They deserve to be paid if they’re doing work,” I replied, shaking my head. “I can’t afford to hire anyone else, not right now. And that’s not even thinking about planning it. I don’t have time to put together an event like that, not with everything else that’s going on.”
“I could help with that.”
A voice cut in to our conversation, and I spun around to find, to my surprise, that Seth was standing there, listening to what we were talking about. I felt a heat rise in my cheeks again, my whole body tensing as I stared at him. What was he doing back here? And what was he talking about, helping me? I felt like all my thoughts had been tossed into chaos, and now, I had to pick them up one by one and figure out how to get a word out.
Because, looking at him right now, I was very much finding it hard to think straight.