Chapter 9
9
DAX
I opened Happily Ever After Books right on time. Meaning I unlocked the door and flipped over the quaint Open/Closed sign. The interior of the store wasn’t as pink as the exterior, with white walls and the original wood floor refinished to a glossy shine. It made the thousands of books stand out, their covers bright and glossy and many covered with half naked men.
I swore a lot as I spent ten minutes trying to figure out the cash register system without much luck. Was it a sign I was doomed to fail at this? I glanced around at the estrogen-fueled store.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I muttered to myself.
I should just flip the sign back over and make a run for it. But this store was Hannah’s dream. She’d had to put it on hold because of a fucking brain tumor and medical bills.
Who hurt the feelings of a woman who’d had to deal with that?
Not me.
Plus, her man was a hitman. If she was sad, Jack took care of the reason, and I didn’t want it to be me. I didn’t want to end up on his FUCKERS OF COAL SPRINGS list.
So I was now in charge of running a romance bookstore until Elise healed and came back without her appendix.
Two women came through the door, chatting with each other about a tricky yoga pose. “Your left leg curves back and under while you prop yourself up with your–”
The explanation was cut off when they saw me, then froze.
“Holy mother of God,” one woman whispered, her eyes bugging out of her head like a cartoon character as she gripped the other woman’s arm.
They stared.
And stared.
And stared some fucking more. I felt exposed. I looked down, wondering if I forgot pants or something. Nope, just me in jeans and a plain white shirt.
“Ladies. Can I help you with something?”
Please say no!
They blushed like high school girls when the quarterback said hi in the hallway between classes. Then giggled. Actually giggled.
“We’re… um, just– ”
“Looking. We’re definitely looking.” This woman looked at me like she wanted to eat me alive. As if she wanted to curve her left leg around me .
I moved behind the counter where it would be harder for her to get to me. I now knew what women felt like at a bar when men approached and were objectified.
“I’m kind of new at this,” I admitted. “But… um, look around.” Wasn’t that what I was supposed to say? I’d never worked in retail before, but I bought shit.
“Where’s Hannah? And Elise?”
“Are you a new employee?”
They asked at the same time. They’d clearly been in before since they were on first name basis with the employees.
I guessed them to be mid-thirties, probably had kids in school and went to yoga after they dropped them off. Here to get a book or two to spice up their married sex life.
“Hannah’s on vacation and Elise is out sick,” I said. “I’m in charge now.”
A whimper came from one woman. The other’s mouth dropped open before she whispered, “I bet you are.”
Running a hand over the back of my neck, I murmured, “Let me know if you need anything.”
“ Anything ?”
Shit, they weren’t married women with kids, they were single women on the prowl. Or I hoped they weren’t married because it seemed I was the eye candy and they were thinking very dirty things about me .
When I didn’t say anything and only gave them a glare that usually scared the shadiest of men into pissing themselves–because I wasn’t interested in either of them in any way except as a customer of a bookstore I didn’t want to be running–they scurried around one of the rows of books out of sight.
I returned to trying to figure out the register. Pushed all the various buttons. Nothing. I could get people to do whatever I wanted–whatever anyone paid me wanted–but I couldn’t get this stupid machine to work. Grabbing my cell, I called in reinforcements.
“Yo.” Nitro answered on the first ring.
“I need you to teach me how to use a cash register,” I told him.
“A cash register? Are you trying to rob a store and can’t get to the money?”
I frowned. “Fuck, no.”
He sighed. “Good, I was worried there for a minute.”
“I’m running a romance bookstore.”
The silence lasted long enough where I pulled the cell from my ear to see if we’d been disconnected.
“Even worse. Did you fall and hit your head? Seeing things? Being delusional is a sign of a brain bleed.”
“No,” I said immediately, but then I looked up and saw the two women peeking over the bookshelf, eyeing me. When we made eye contact, they ducked down. Then there was giggling and chatter. “Maybe. I got wrangled into working at Hannah’s store.”
Now he laughed. “I’ve got to see this. ”
“Come on up,” I said, meaning drive up from Denver where he lived and worked in an old, converted warehouse.
I continued to push various buttons. Weird words came on the screen and a few symbols that looked an awful lot like HAZMAT warning signs. “I need you to get this register working because otherwise I’m going to have to take cash only for sales and put it in a box like a lemonade stand.”
“Describe it to me.”
“It’s the fancy computer kind coffee shops use that makes no sense.”
“Oh, a point of service.”
“Whatever,” I huffed. “I can’t fix it with my garden shears, so I’m stuck.”
A woman in black leggings and a snug t-shirt that said Powered By Yoga pushed through the door in a mad dash like she was escaping from a dangerous clown or something. When she saw me, her mouth dropped open.
“Hi. Welcome in,” I said, phone to my ear.
She licked her lips and nodded, then headed to the back where the other two women were.
“Is it turned on? Plugged in?” Nitro asked.
“Yes,” I muttered. “I can deactivate a bomb, remember.”
“Because I talked you through it over the phone, James Bond.”
Three more women came in. Looked at me, then spread out and scoped out the books on the various displays.
I didn’t stay alive as a fixer without knowing my surroundings. Two exits, front and back. Potential threats were now spread out around the store, all eyeing me in ways that made me confident none worked for the CIA. They were blatant… and giggly.
“Fine, then walk me through this,” I said, trying not to just tell the women to cover for me and make a run for it. I explained the reason to Nitro. “If I fuck up Hannah’s store, it’s going to be worse than the beat down I got in Ecuador from that band of paid street thugs.”
“Hit sale and–”
The bell jangled again, and I said “Welcome in” without looking up right away. When I did, it was another woman frozen in place and staring at me.
This time, it wasn’t in a way that silently told me—like the first ladies—that I could have a three-way with her and her friend. No.
It was the woman from the convenience store. Her.
My latest obsession.
I was instantly hard.