Chapter 10
The motion sensor chimes and I look up from the register. A man with a pressed collar walks up and sets an envelope on my counter.
"Ms. Laramie," he says. "I'm David Holt, representing Stein Properties. I believe you're expecting this."
I'm not expecting it. No one called ahead. I file that detail without commenting on it and reach for the envelope.
He watches me take it with the particular patience of a man paid very well to wait out stubborn people. Hands folded, posture easy, giving me all the time in the world because time isn't the resource he's worried about.
"Is there anything you'd like to discuss?" he asks.
"No," I say. "Thank you for coming."
He offers me a card I don't take. He doesn't push. Instead, he crosses the floor and lets himself out, and the sensor chimes again on his way through.
I stand behind the register and tell myself the tightness across my chest is irritation.
My hands find the spines in the display of Escape Reality, We Support It books next to the register, because that's something to do that isn't opening the envelope.
The harbor light comes through the front glass at a flat morning angle, catching dust motes and the gold lettering on a fantasy title I stocked three weeks ago when hope was still something I budgeted for.
I straighten the title and the one next to it. I've been alone since I unlocked at eight, and I hadn't registered that as a meaningful fact until David Holt from Stein Properties walked in and made it one.
He knew the store opens at eight and knew I'd be here alone, which means somebody has been watching me. That detail settles into the back of my mind the way splinters do.
I'm not going to sell. That part has never been complicated. But I open the envelope anyway knowing I'd have to do it eventually.
The offer inside is clean, specific, and obscenely generous.
Fifty grand higher than Stein's previous one and forty percent above what I paid to buy back my father's store.
A number precise enough that someone did their research.
A number that would zero out my debt and leave a margin I can't afford to feel contemptuous about.
I read it again and put it back inside the envelope.
This new number shows that someone sat down with my financials and my purchase price and the exact contours of what it would take to make me reconsider the thing I haven't been considering.
They got it right to within a rounding error, and they sent a man with smooth hands to deliver it on a Wednesday morning when I was alone.
I pull my phone from the drawer beneath the register and type Callum’s name before I can talk myself out of it.
Me: Are you planning on stopping by the pop-up today?
The reply comes through before I can lock the screen.
Callum: Just parked.
I stay where I am and watch the front glass.
Pancake walks in first, circles twice and settles under the counter, chin on her paws like she's decided this is a waiting situation.
The door chimes a few seconds later, and Callum steps in, the morning light cutting across his shoulders. He takes in the room in a single pass and then looks at me.
"Good morning. Did you need me for something?"
I hold the envelope out without preamble.
He takes it and reads the offer. The only visible change is a slow tightening along the edge of his jaw. He hands it back.
"It arrived twenty minutes ago," I say. "I was alone."
Something moves through his expression that isn't quite anger. It's the deliberate, controlled precursor to it. "I'll handle it."
I hear the shape of that sentence, the kind that closes conversations instead of opening them, and I do not let it settle.
"Don't handle it," I say, looking at him. "I'm trying something new where I ask before making a terrible decision."
His mouth shifts. "That explains why you texted me."
He looks at me with the particular stillness I've been cataloguing for two weeks. It's a pause where he measures what he can say against what he's decided he's permitted to say.
I put my hand flat on the counter and hold his gaze. I've waited through worse silences than this and I know how long I can hold one.
What he tells me is careful, edited, and structured in the way of a man who has been briefed on the shape of a disclosure and is working within its edges.
The Stein acquisition pattern, I already knew. He'd shown me the property map the first day in his Esplanade office, spread across his worktable like evidence.
The new thing is the weight underneath it.
He tells me Stein is under active investigation by the county arson unit and that another Surfside Drive warehouse fire last month is being treated as connected to a string of prior incidents, one of which I recognize as Kellerman because he told me about Danny Ruiz and Cora Mbeki.
"How do you know all this?"
"I can't go into detail," he says. "Just know that I've been doing my own research on Stein."
He doesn't look away when he says it.
I tap the corner of the envelope against the counter once, then again. "So what am I supposed to do with this?"
He glances at the number on the offer before looking back at me.
"If you sell, that's your choice," he says. "It's a generous offer. You could buy another building outright and still have plenty left over in the bank."
He looks around the pop-up. "Financially? Great plan."
His eyes come back to me.
"Emotionally, you'd become unbearable."
I fold my arms tighter across myself. "Interesting use of support."
I stare at him for a second. "And if I don't?"
"Then you don't." His voice stays even. "That building has been in your family for twenty-nine years and it matters to you. I know that."
He rests one hand against the counter. "I think Stein wants the building badly enough that he's applying pressure from every direction he can. But if he's under scrutiny, he's probably also being careful."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning it might not hurt to wait him out a little before making a decision." He watches me for a second. "You don't sound like someone who wants to leave that building behind anyway."
Something in my chest loosens at that, not because he solved anything, but because he answered me honestly.
"Whatever you decide," he says, "I'll support it."
I still don't know everything he's not telling me. But for the first time since Callum Thorpe walked back into my life, that feels different from not knowing who he is.
I sit with it while the weight of it lands alongside everything else I've been quietly carrying.
At some point customers must've walked in without me noticing. Someone near Fiction laughs quietly. Pancake snores once from under the counter like she has no idea my entire nervous system just shifted sideways.
Mrs. Okafor waves a paperback at me from across the room.
"Where's Shane?"
"Not here yet."
"Well that's inconvenient. He always knows what I should read next."
"I can also recommend books."
Mrs. Okafor considers that.
"Sure. But Shane's usually right."
I point at the Romance section. "You're on thin ice, Mrs. Okafor."
Two more customers wander in, the motion sensor chiming this time loud enough to pull me back into the room.
"Good morning," I call automatically, catching the woman's attention for half a second. "Let me know if you need anything or want a coffee."
She smiles and lifts a hand before disappearing toward Romance.
I look back at Callum and realize the rest of the store almost kept going without me noticing.
I smooth my thumb along the edge of the envelope. "We probably should've had this conversation before the second time we had sex."
"That's fair feedback," he says.
"I'm just saying there's usually paperwork."
"You're suggesting a relationship intake form?"
"Minimum three references."
"I can get Jonah to write one."
I look at him. "That is the worst possible example you could've picked."
"Fair."
"Jonah is going to kill both of us," I say, pointing at him.
He thinks about it for a second, then says, "He'll kill me."
"You'll just get a disappointed speech." I stare at him at him a second then add, "That is somehow worse."
He gives a small nod like that settles it. "Exactly."
I let out a breath that feels suspiciously close to a laugh.
"We've been acting like we're not already in something," I say. "And I don't actually know what we're doing."
His gaze stays on mine, steady enough that I stop pretending this conversation isn't making my pulse climb.
"I know what I'm doing," he says quietly.
I wait.
His eyes leave mine for a second and land somewhere over my shoulder. "Which is annoying."
That lands somewhere beneath my ribs.
He reaches for a pen on the counter, turns it once between his fingers, then sets it back down.
"I like you, Avery."
He exhales through his nose and looks briefly toward the front windows before coming back to me.
"More than was strategically responsible considering everything happening around us."
I stare at him. "You talk like it's a hostile acquisition."
His expression shifts. "You started the billionaire jokes."
The room suddenly feels too small, and I become aware of how carefully I'm trying to breathe.
"Callum—"
"I kept telling myself I was just helping with the lease, the remediation, and looking into Stein."
Heat climbs into my face before I can stop it.
I lean one hip against the counter.
"That's annoyingly specific," I mutter.
"You're the first person I look for when I walk into a room." His expression softens, almost imperceptibly.
I look at him. "That feels unhealthy."
His eyes stay on mine. "That's the reaction I was hoping for."
I look down at the counter for a second, buying myself time I don't actually use.
The front door chimes and Shane walks in carrying a bag of bagels, wearing that smile he carries so easily.
"Morning," he says, shrugging out of his jacket. "How are we doing?"
He joins me behind the counter like he’s done hundreds of times and stuffs a water bottle on a shelf.