Chapter 12
Eiley tried to look away when he picked up the boxes. She really, really did. But he wasn’t wearing his coat, and his T-shirt was quite tight, and she was beginning to think one of her beloved romance authors had carved him from marble themself, because he didn’t so much as grunt under the weight.
No. No, she wasn’t this person, and she certainly shouldn’t have almost given in to him back there. Even if she’d wanted to. Quite a lot.
She retrieved his coat from the couch and draped it atop her much lighter box, following him out of the store and towards his van.
And if she almost walked into the road for staring at the bulging muscles of his back, nobody noticed – except Harper, who was fogging up the window as she watched them go.
This was ridiculous. She would not swoon.
Even if the things he’d done to her not an hour ago might warrant it.
She had a million and one responsibilities, and she was not on the market unless the interested party was a Bridgerton brother or maybe a werewolf, because she’d recently dipped her toe into shifter romance.
“I think this is the part where you open the boot before my arms drop off,” Warren said. She dropped the box of historical romances with a heavy, flustered slam, producing her car keys from the pocket of her tattered denim jacket.
“Right. Sorry.” She fumbled to open the boot, which had a habit of sticking.
Or maybe it was her. She was still unused to the novelty of owning a car after several failed tests and a lot of almost giving up.
She’d surprised herself, in the end, passing in the early summer.
A few weeks after, Fraser had pointed her in the direction of one of his mates, who’d been selling the white Renault Clio, and eventually Eiley had gained the confidence to drive the kids to school and Mum to her hospital appointments, taking some of the responsibilities from Fraser.
Now, it was the only accomplishment that the flood hadn’t stripped from her.
“I don’t know if these will fit,” Warren admitted upon eyeing the shallow storage space. “Why are you taking them home, anyway? Half of them are falling apart.”
“I’m not going to waste perfectly good books. Nobody will buy them, but I think I could rebind some of them. Besides, they’re still readable.”
He slammed the books down. “Hang on. So, while I was slaving away, you were sorting out which dirty wee books you were taking home to enjoy for yourself?”
And there it was. The reminder she’d needed that he wasn’t, in any capacity, good for her. “Why do you assume they’re dirty?”
“Because that lass is almost flashing her tits on the cover!” He pointed to a bodice ripper novel on top of the pile.
The historical couple’s pose wasn’t too dissimilar to the one Eiley and Warren had found themselves in earlier, the woman’s tanned bare leg wrapped around a man wearing a puffy shirt.
Really, that was the problem: men didn’t wear puffy shirts anymore.
She might have given Warren another chance if his clothes billowed.
Then again, she’d established he wasn’t Mr Darcy, so she certainly shouldn’t and wouldn’t imagine him emerging from a lake, white linen transparent over his thick torso …
Okay, she would swoon a bit. But that was over now, especially since his views on romance novels were archaic and belittling.
“Well, fine, yes, there is a bit of boobage!” sputtered Eiley. “But dirty is an awful, judgemental word. They’re steamy , and that doesn’t mean they’re not also meaningful and romantic and educational!”
“Oh, aye. And what have they educated you on, Eiley?” He stepped closer, just like he had in the stockroom, and she forgot, suddenly, why she’d been so angry. “Because I’m sure we could come up with other ways to teach you, if you’d like.”
His warm breath fanned her face, and she was tempted to lean close, remind herself what it felt like to be ravished just once more.
And then a lady stopped beside the van while her poodle urinated on the lamppost, providing a much-needed reminder that this was not a romance novel.
Even if seeing him read with Brook earlier had loosened that perpetual knot in her chest. Even if being wanted by him was exhilarating.
Even if every touch of his had been intentional and hungry, like she was all he’d ever wanted to learn.
“No. What happened before … it can’t. Not again.” She gulped, throat dry and scratchy. “I’m overwhelmed. I wasn’t thinking. I appreciate your help, and you handled my family’s chaos really well, but it was a mistake.”
She saw the moment his face shuttered, that openness she’d taken for granted until now receding as his lips thinned. “It didn’t feel like a mistake earlier.”
“Well, it won’t do for you. You can kiss a thousand women, and it won’t have any bearing on your life. You’re not a mother, and you’re probably not overwhelmed, and also you’re not a woman!”
He scratched his chin in confusion, and Eiley grimaced. She’d been reading all her life, yet she could barely string a coherent sentence together. Especially around him.
“Wait. Do you want me to be a woman? Christ, are you a lesbian as well?”
“No, I’m not a lesbian.” She stamped a despairing foot. “I’m just not interested in kissing. Anyone. Especially not you.”
“Wow.” He let out a humourless laugh.
Oh, fluff . She hadn’t meant it to be an insult this time. Just … “Look, you’re very attractive, and probably very lovely beneath all … that.” She motioned to his general torso area. “It’s me. I don’t have the time.”
“First compliment I get from you, and it’s because you’re pieing me off.”
“I’m not pieing you off.” Except she was, and not very skilfully.
“No, of course not. Just telling me to get lost.” He pulled his coat off the top of her box, dangerously close to the trickle of poodle pee. Her stomach roiled as he brushed past her, strutting away – and then turning back after a few steps. “You don’t have the time, and you’re not interested.”
She frowned. Was that what she’d said? She could barely even remember for all the aimless bumbling. “Aye. Yes. That’s true.”
A pulse thudded in her ears, a repetitive reminder of what she was about to lose. Something she’d never had, something she shouldn’t want, and yet when was the last time she’d felt so alive?
“But it still happened anyway,” Warren said. “If that’s true, why did it happen anyway? Because I don’t think I was the only one who wanted it. Was I?”
The world slowed around them. She opened her mouth to reply, but the answer was lost in this new in-between, with the streetlights flickering and rush-hour traffic lagging – as though everything, everyone, was waiting for the answer.
She couldn’t lie again. She also couldn’t tell him the truth: of course she’d wanted it, too. She could have stopped, but she’d been too wrapped up in him, too wrapped around him, to even think of it.
After what felt like an eternity, Warren gave an impassive nod. “Okay, Eiley. That’s fine.”
And then he became a small, distant dot in her life as he crossed the road and disappeared.
Just like she’d wanted.
Except she didn’t feel glad. As she returned to the bookstore, all that followed was more of the emptiness she’d been warring with on and off for years.
Eiley expected the onslaught of questions when she returned to the store, but it didn’t mean she was any better prepared to answer them.
Her brother leaned against the counter, waiting for her like a disappointed father whose child had broken their curfew.
She ignored him, picking up Saffron before her excitable hands tore apart one of the few books that were still in one piece.
“Harper, please tell your boyfriend to stop staring at me like that,” she said tersely.
“Believe me, I’ve tried.” Harper prodded Fraser’s stomach, which had grown much softer in recent months – from less time spent working and more time actually enjoying his life with Harper, which surely made him a hypocrite of the highest order. He could have romantic relations but Eiley couldn’t?
He yelped out an “Ow!” and batted Harper’s hand away, then resumed his glower. Harper rolled her eyes and reached out a hand to Brook. “C’mon, Brook. Let’s go and get ice cream while Uncle Fraser blows everything way out of proportion again.”
“Thanks a bunch,” Eiley muttered.
Eiley ruffled Brook’s hair and warned him to be good for his auntie.
He rushed out with another book about firefighters clutched in his hands while he asked Harper if he could take something home for Sky, too.
God, she hoped he wasn’t also bringing that book home.
Watching him and Warren read together had left her all …
jittery and full, insides seconds away from spilling through her ribs.
Most men would have been frightened off when two children appeared moments after he’d kissed their mother.
She’d expected him to scuttle away like a deer in headlights – Finlay certainly had, and they were his bloody children.
Instead, he’d patiently, openly, told Brook about having dyslexia, which made Eiley feel even worse for her comments in the pub.
She wondered what those low expectations said about her. Wondered what Warren exceeding them each time said about him .
“Out with it,” she ordered Fraser once the two had gone.
“He’s no good for you,” he stated immediately. “You said so yourself.”
“Yes, I did, which is why nothing happened.”
“That would be more convincing if you didn’t have a bloody hickey on your neck. Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“I think you’re acting like you were born about one hundred years ago, when women needed permission from their brothers to do literally anything.”