Chapter Eleven
Hannah wasn’t sure when Ethan had taken her hand in his, but she liked the feel of his rough palm against hers as they made their way from the Museum of Everything to Plot Twist, a used bookstore a few blocks away. As they walked, Ethan pointed out Tessa’s bakery, Kyla’s boudoir studio, and a large colonial home that handed out full-size candy bars on Halloween when he was a child. She collected each small piece of him, the glimpses of the life he’d led, as though they were precious gems, wrapped in her affection and tucked away for safekeeping.
The bookstore was nestled on a side street not far from the main downtown area of Aster Bay. Bookshelves stretched nearly to the ceiling with sliding ladders placed periodically throughout the too-narrow aisles. In the back corner of the store, a wisp of sheer fabric had been hung like a canopy over a half-height bookshelf stuffed with children’s books, the floor beneath strewn with mismatched pillows and cushions. An elderly orange tabby cat prowled the aisles, casting disdainful glances at any customer who dared get too close.
"Is this quirky enough for you?”
he asked as the cat passed, hissing at Ethan on his way by.
“This is perfect!”
Hannah gushed, dropping his hand to run her fingers over a pretty hardcover with foil details.
“Ethan!”
a tall man with a bushy beard of curly red and gray hair appeared around a row of bookshelves. He set down the stack of books he carried and clasped Ethan’s hand in a firm shake. “How did Julie like those Sally the Dog books?”
“She loves them,”
he said, his eyes lighting up in a way that seemed to be reserved for his granddaughter. “Especially the one on the farm.”
The tall man smiled. “If she likes farm books, I just got in a pop-up book she’ll love.”
Ethan started to follow him down an aisle, but hesitated, glancing back at Hannah. “Go,”
she said, shooing him away. “I can look by myself.”
He nodded, sending her a soft, secret smile, before he followed the man to the children’s area in the back corner. Hannah watched for a moment as the cat wove between their legs, flopping on the pile of cushions with an imperious glare at Ethan, and the bookseller began pulling books off the shelves. Her stomach swooped when Ethan opened the cover of one and threw his head back, laughing, then glanced back to find her, holding up the book to show her the giant pop-up cow face from across the shop.
She watched a moment longer, until Ethan was fully engrossed in the business of choosing new books for his granddaughter, before she wandered off in search of her favorite part of any bookstore: the romance section.
Hannah had always believed you could tell a lot about a bookstore by its romance section. Too few romances and the owners were literary elitists—or prudes. But Plot Twist’s romance section was the stuff of dreams. An entire long aisle of shelves, lined on both sides with weathered paperbacks and sturdy hardcovers. There were Harlequins in a short, uniform line and larger contemporary romances with bright covers, historical romances with breathtaking paintings of the couples embracing inside the front cover and paranormal romances filled with werewolves and vampires. A treasure trove if she’d ever seen one.
Hannah trailed her fingers over the spines, plucking books from the shelf as she went, until at last she found a small selection of erotic historical romances by AK Wild. She’d only ever listened to Wild’s books in audio, but faced with their painterly covers, the defiant heroines rendered in swirls of gold and red against medieval landscapes, she could hardly stop herself from buying a few.
She pulled her favorite, The Lady’s Knights, from the shelf and flipped open the front cover, gasping when she saw the two-page image she’d only ever seen in fuzzy photos on the internet. A copy of The Lady’s Knights with the stepback was hard to find—only a few thousand had been produced before the book had been redesigned—but there, in a little bookshop in Rhode Island, Hannah had found one, and it was even more beautiful than she’d imagined.
“What’d you find?”
Ethan asked, coming up behind her, a stack of children’s books under one arm.
She closed the cover of the book quickly to hide the scandalous scene in the stepback, though she wasn’t exactly sure why. Ethan wasn’t likely to judge her for reading romance, unlike some people she’d dated in the past, but she still wasn’t sure she was ready for him to know about her love of kinky historicals.
“A romance novel,”
she said, tilting the cover towards him. “It’s one of my favorites.”
His eyes went wide, but only for a fraction of a second before they pulled low over his brow. He cleared his throat. “You’ve read it before?” he asked.
“Mmhmm. I’ve listened to the audiobook at least four times, but—”
Ethan dropped his stack of children’s books, cursing under his breath, and bent down to gather them back up. He kept his eyes trained on the books on the floor. She knelt down beside him and helped gather the books, passing him a hardcover collection of Curious George stories. He mumbled his thanks but still didn’t look at her.
“Are you going to be weird about this?”
“I’m not being weird,”
he said as he got to his feet.
She sighed. “You are. I didn’t take you for one of those guys who can’t handle a woman reading a romance novel.”
“What?”
His eyes flew to hers, but only for a moment before he looked away again. “I’m not.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
“I’m—”
He paused, his nostrils flaring, and then deliberately turned to look her in the eye. “Didn’t know you were an audiobook reader, that’s all.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you think listening to audiobooks doesn’t count as reading.”
“Fuck no. Of course, it counts.”
“Then what is this reaction?”
She waved her hand in his direction.
“No reaction,”
he said, catching her hand in his. “Get the book.”
“Not if you’re going to be weird about it.”
“Get the book, city girl,”
he repeated slowly, his voice low. And good lord, that tone did something to her.
“You should get one too,”
she said, inching closer to him.
“I’ve already read them.”
“You’ve read all the books?”
she teased.
His lips lifted in a smirk. “All of her books,”
he said, inclining his head towards the book in Hannah’s hand.
“You’ve read AK Wild?”
she asked in disbelief.
Ethan stepped closer, backing her up against the bookshelf behind her and leaning down until his lips ghosted over her ear. “Every one.”
A shiver ran down her spine at the gravel in his tone, the heat of his breath on her throat. “Which one is your favorite?”
“That one,”
he answered, indicating The Lady’s Knights.
Hannah scanned his face for any hint of a lie, but she knew better—Ethan didn’t lie. His gaze fell to her lips, his presence crowding her against the bookshelf. He dropped her hand and wrapped an arm around her lower back, angling her hips towards him as he somehow moved closer.
“Get the book, Hannah.”
She set the book down on a little side table and tilted her chin up towards him, her body practically begging for him to kiss her. “Maybe you’ll read it with me later.”
His brow furrowed for a moment, his eyes darting between her own. “Maybe.”
Then his lips were on hers, soft but insistent, searching, seeking. As though this was their first kiss. In a way, she supposed, it was—their first kiss since they’d begun sharing parts of themselves with each other that couldn’t be revealed by undressing. Their first kiss that wasn’t about how many orgasms they could wring from each other before time ran out.
At least, she hoped that wasn’t what they were doing this time.
Because she could no longer keep the Ethan she knew from Boston, the one who made her come harder than anyone had made her come before, separate from this new Ethan who picked out picture books for his granddaughter and couldn’t cook himself dinner. And she was tired of pretending she wanted to.
He parted her lips with a sweep of his tongue, licking into her mouth, and she opened for him, lifting her hips to meet his. The books he’d been holding fell to the ground at their feet as he slid a hand into her hair, his knee slipping between her legs. She reached her arms around him to urge him closer. He kissed her senseless, his muscular thigh pressing deliciously against the desperate ache between her legs, and she ground against him, whimpering.
“I found a few more—woah,”
the bookseller cut off, turning away as he came upon them in the aisle.
Ethan and Hannah broke apart, panting. He dropped to his knees, sweeping up the pile of books as Hannah pressed a hand to her mouth, embarrassment mixing with the arousal still flooding her system.
“Sorry to interrupt,”
the bookseller chuckled. “Just thought you might be interested in this one for Julie.”
Ethan grabbed the book, adding it to the stack. “Sorry, Mac.”
The man shook his head, smiling. “No apology necessary. In fact, I think it’s safe to say those authors would very much approve of what you two were getting up to,”
he said, indicating the shelf of romance novels.
Hannah groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“I think we’re ready to check out,”
Ethan said, gesturing towards the register at the front of the store.
Hannah hung back as Ethan paid for the books, including The Lady’s Knights, before following him out of the store into the too-bright sunshine. “I’m mortified,”
she said as soon as the door closed behind them. “I don’t think I’ve been caught making out with someone like that since I was a teenager.”
Ethan pressed his lips together in a—mostly failed—attempt to smother his laugh.
“It’s not funny!”
That only made him laugh harder. And the harder he laughed, the more Hannah pouted, until he caught her around the waist and pressed another kiss to her lips, hard and fast. “Come on. I believe soup was next on the agenda.”
A few doors down from the bookstore was a tiny café with oversized window boxes and a cobblestone path leading from the sidewalk to the bright yellow front door. It looked like it had once been a rather narrow house, and the door was barely tall enough for Ethan to fit through without ducking. Inside, the room opened into a small waiting area with a pastry counter. One entire wall had been turned into a chalkboard with beautifully rendered chalk flowers and butterflies highlighting daily specials like The Marcy (a grilled chicken sandwich with pesto aioli) and The Nana (a Thanksgiving-style turkey sandwich on a house-made roll).
A short woman with a septum piercing and purple ombre hair fading to gray at the tips appeared behind the counter. “What can I get you folks?”
“Did Maria make her caldo verde today?”
Ethan asked.
“You know it,”
the woman said.
“We’ll take two bowls,” he said.
The woman tapped their order into the register. “Anything else?”
Ethan looked to Hannah expectantly. Her eyes had fixed on a plate of magic bars in the pastry case, the curls of coconut on top seeming to beckon her closer. She scanned the offerings, assessing the lemon squares and shortbread cookies the way her therapist had taught her to. She could have any of them—all of them, really, if she wanted to. The point was to make an intentional choice, a decision about what she wanted, not what her off-kilter sense of stability was whispering for her to have.
Did she want anything else?
“Hannah?”
Ethan asked.
“I’ll take a magic bar,”
she said, an unexpected burst of pride blooming in her chest and making her stand up straighter.
“Make that two,”
Ethan said, oblivious to the years of mental gymnastics that had gone into Hannah’s ability to place that simple order.
“That’ll be right up,”
the woman said, handing Ethan a small plastic zebra figurine.
“What’s that for?”
Hannah asked as he led her to the outdoor seating area.
He held up the zebra. “It’s their own way of signaling to the servers which table is which. Some restaurants use numbers. This place uses plastic zoo animals.”
Hannah shook her head. “And they say city people are weird. Small towns are wild.”
Ethan barked out a laugh and took her hand again, guiding her to a black metal dining set at the edge of the covered patio, away from the couple with the three dogs at their feet. Once they were seated, the zebra prominently placed in the center of the table next to the bottles of ketchup and malt vinegar, Ethan asked, “Have you always lived in a city?”
“For the most part. I grew up in Philadelphia, but I couldn’t wait to move to New York.”
He scrunched up his nose. “Why?”
“I always wanted to be involved with making live theatre, so I’m sure that was part of it. There are only so many cities where a girl can make a living in live theater.”
“There’s live theater all over. We have a few professional companies across the state.”
“But there’s only one Broadway,”
she countered.
He seemed to consider this for a moment. “Was it just about Broadway?”
Hannah shrugged. “Mostly. I mean, there is something magical about being able to order take out at any hour of the day or night, and there’s always something to do. You never have to be bored.”
“Being bored can be a good thing sometimes. How else do you hear yourself think?”
Hannah adjusted the placement of the zebra, moving it slightly closer to the malt vinegar, as she considered this. “I guess you don’t,”
she said at last. “That might have been part of the appeal.”
He looked like he wanted to ask more, and she knew she would tell him. Anything he asked. He’d laid himself bare to her in the museum and she was surprised to find she was ready to do the same. Eager, even, to have him understand this part of her, the part so few people knew.
“Oh my God! Are you her?”
Hannah whipped around to find the source of the high-pitched voice. Ethan was already on his feet, moving between Hannah and the dark-haired young woman, her phone held out in front of her.
“You are, aren’t you?”
she continued. “Jackson Hayes’ ex-girlfriend!”
“She has a name,”
Ethan growled.
“Ethan! Why didn’t you tell me you knew Jackson Hayes’ ex-girlfriend?”
Hannah winced at the rapid-fire electronic shutter sound of the woman’s phone and turned away, hoping she would get the hint and leave her alone. Why had she allowed herself to get so comfortable that she forgot someone here might recognize her? She’d been so preoccupied with escaping the paparazzi, she hadn’t paused to consider there might be other people—regular, everyday people who consumed celebrity gossip like candy—who would want to catch her off guard and take her picture.
“Tisha,”
Ethan said with the kind of calm that contradicted the tense set of his jaw and the stiffness in his shoulders, “we’re having a low-key lunch, yeah?”
“Totally,”
Tisha said to Ethan over the sound of a few more photos being taken. “I can’t believe we have a real-life celebrity in Aster Bay. Cool shit like this never happens here.”
“What are you talking about? They filmed a whole reality show here,”
Ethan said.
Tisha rolled her eyes. “With Gavin. That hardly counts.”
She leaned around Ethan to get a better look at Hannah. “You are so much prettier than your picture.”
“Thank you?”
Was that a compliment? Hannah wasn’t sure.
Tisha barreled ahead, pushing past Ethan and approaching the table. Hannah recoiled against the wall of the building behind her, but Tisha didn’t seem to notice. “What was it like to date a member of Midnight Storm? You have to tell me everything!”
“She doesn’t actually,”
Ethan said, catching Tisha by the upper arm and turning her around, using her own momentum to lead her off the covered patio and back out to the sidewalk, out of earshot.
Hannah watched as Ethan delivered what appeared to be a very stern lecture, at least from what she could tell without being able to hear him. Tisha, pouting and rolling her eyes the whole time, tapped busily at her phone before flipping the screen around to show Ethan and stomping off down the street with one last hopeful glance over her shoulder at Hannah.
When Ethan returned to the table, he looked like he might crack a tooth from how hard he was clenching his teeth. “Sorry about that. She won’t bother you again.”
Hannah nodded, the adrenaline coursing through her system making her feel nauseous and suddenly lightheaded. She focused on the zebra, sliding it back towards the ketchup and letting her fingers play with its tiny plastic legs.
“She deleted the pictures,”
he continued. “All of them.”
“Thank you,”
she whispered.
Ethan reached for her hand, but she pulled away, dropping her hand in her lap and looking around, like another would-be paparazzo might pop out of the bushes at the edge of the patio at any second. His nostrils flared again, but he let his hand fall to the tabletop, his fingers drumming restlessly on the metal.
A server appeared, some teenager with a stained apron tied around their waist below a faded t-shirt for a band they had probably never actually listened to. They set bowls of steaming soup in front of Hannah and Ethan, placed a plate with two magic bars on the table, and whisked away the plastic zebra.
Ethan sighed, scrubbing a hand over his mouth, and reached for his spoon. “Eat, before it gets cold.”
She hardly tasted a bite.