Chapter 2
MATTHEW
I locked the door and flipped the sign in the window to “Closed” before turning the light off and plunging my small bookstore into darkness.
I didn’t need the light to get around. I’d been taking the same route—front door to the back stairs—nearly every night for the last eleven years.
Though it had only been a little over a year that I’d been traveling that path alone.
Owning and running a bookstore had been my wife Allison’s dream, and we’d worked together side by side to make that dream a reality until she’d fallen ill with cancer two years ago, eventually succumbing to the disease ten months later.
Saying goodbye had been, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’d ever done, though every day since felt just as hard as the last. Whoever said time healed all wounds was full of shit.
Time stretched out endlessly, but it didn’t heal a damn thing.
In the dark weeks that followed Allison’s passing, I’d considered selling the shop.
There wasn’t a single inch of that store that wasn’t filled with her spirit, making it nearly impossible to breathe every time I set foot inside.
But it was for that very reason that I held on.
Letting go of the shop felt like letting go of her, and I wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
I clicked my tongue, signaling for Ernie to follow, and with a sigh that bore the weight of fourteen months of grief, I started up the stairs, but pulled up short at the sound of a commotion outside.
I paused, ears straining for some indication that I wasn’t hearing things, but when silence descended once again, I continued on my route, crediting the sound to a raccoon or some other wildlife outside.
At the top of the steps, I punched in the code unlocking the door to my apartment, and stepped inside.
At just under eight hundred square feet, it was a cozy space with one bedroom one bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a small living room.
It hadn’t looked like much when we’d moved in, but Ally had added homey touches that made it feel warm and inviting.
Not that anyone but me ever came up here.
Allison had been everyone’s best friend while I had become more reclusive than ever following her passing.
No one knew what to say to a forty-year-old grieving his wife anyway.
Ernie the cat, named after Ernest Hemingway, wound his way through my legs, begging for second dinner.
Sucker that I was, I poured out a few morsels of dry food into his bowl, then walked back into the bedroom to change into some sweats.
More comfortable, I picked up the book I was due to record off my nightstand and headed back out to the living room to read in my recliner.
The author’s PA had sent a digital file of the book yesterday, but for my first read-through I preferred to read the old-fashioned way, from a physical book.
This particular author was new to me, but I was acquainted with his PA, and when she’d reached out to me in a panic because the original narrator they’d booked had left them hanging, I’d reluctantly agreed to help them out.
Narrating had been all Allison’s idea. She’d always said I had a voice for it, and once she latched onto something it was hard getting her to let go.
As a joke, I’d made an amateur recording of her favorite romance novel using my iPhone, and had gifted it to her on her birthday.
Unbeknownst to me, she’d sent a sample off to a production company, and next thing I knew I’d been contracted for a four-book series.
We’d had words over that one, but I never had been able to tell her no, so I’d gone through with it and had discovered I actually enjoyed the work.
Once upon a time, I’d been one of those assholes who turned his nose up at romance novels, but after narrating that first series, I’d been hooked.
Falling in love was such a massive part of the human condition.
Everyone accepted music written about love, so why shouldn’t there be books written about it too?
And the fact that most romances included sex .
. . well, it was all connected, wasn’t it?
Plus, it had been a nice source of income during the years when we were getting the store up and running, and had been even more imperative when the medical bills had started rolling in.
I opened the book to chapter four, where I’d left off.
I’d only narrated one other book since Ally’s passing, and had barely been able to finish it.
Narrating a romance after losing the love of my life had been too hard, the grief too raw.
The only reason I’d agreed to do this one was because it was a gay male pairing.
I thought that might make it more bearable.
I’d be able to detach myself from the story since I didn’t identify that way.
So far my theory was correct, and I found I was actually enjoying myself.
I’d even laughed once or twice at the snarky banter between the two main characters.
I read one chapter, then another, but by the third, I found my eyes starting to cross.
I was debating whether to get up and head for bed when Ernie climbed into my lap, curled himself up, and went to sleep.
That settled it. Looked like I was sleeping in the chair tonight.