Chapter 15
“And are you?”
“Am I what?” he asked, quietly thanking the server as she topped his coffee off.
“A dick?”
A grin stretched across his lips as he quirked an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you—” His cheeks tinted red.
“Was that another flirt attempt, Barlowe?” I tried not to laugh, tried to keep myself calm and collected.
He mumbled an apology, eyes glued to the table. “Any chance you’d believe me if I said I’m just naturally charismatic?”
I laughed that time. “You do remember the whole ‘childhood crush’ thing, right?” I kept my gaze trained on him, watching.
“Unless you’re a totally different man then when you filmed that godawful direct-to-streaming movie?
” He choked on his coffee. “You made three different reporters cry. So forgive me if I don’t quite fall for the ‘naturally charismatic’ act. ”
He coughed, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and gave me a look of utter betrayal. “That movie won two digital fan awards.”
“Oh, my mistake,” I said flatly. “Truly, you’re in the pantheon.”
Ansel groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I swear I’m not like that anymore.”
“That’s what all reformed child stars say.”
“Okay, Ms. Low Blow.”
I sipped my tea, enjoying this more than I should have. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m trying. Trying not to be… him.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
Something about the way he said it — not defensive, not bitter, maybe even a little… honest — made my stomach twist.
It was easier when we were sniping. Teasing. Holding each other at arm’s length.
He glanced up, and his voice was gentler this time. “I’m still a work in progress. But you should know, I haven’t made anyone cry in like… eight months.”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Restart that clock, cowboy.”
His smile faltered.
I didn’t look at him when I said it. I just traced the rim of my mug with one finger and kept my voice light. Offhand. Like it was just another jab. Another joke.
But the silence that followed was heavier than I meant it to be.
He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even argue. Just sat there, mouth parted like he wanted to say something and couldn’t find the words.
Good, I thought. Let him sit with it. Let him feel it.
But then, like the idiot I am, I looked up.
And there was something in his eyes I didn’t expect — not guilt, or anger. I expected a snap back. A fight. But instead… I just got this quiet kind of sadness. Like he knew exactly what I meant. Like he’d been carrying it too.
The worst part was… maybe I believed him.
That he hadn’t meant to. That he hated he had.
But that didn’t mean I was going to let him off the hook.
“Juniper I’m—”
“Please don’t apologize, Barlowe.”
“No, but you deserve an apology. What I said… It was out of line.” He drug his hand down his face with a groan. “I know you’re more than a footnote in some half-baked star’s story.”
“Half-baked—”
He held up a hand, interrupting me. “No, let me finish. I’d like to get to know you, Juniper Haddock. As friends, as more.”
“Stop.” It was my turn to interrupt. I had to interrupt him. There wasn’t room for that train of thought, not like this. Not with him.
Not with anyone.
“There is no more… I’m not looking for more, Ansel.” I said after taking a measured breath. “Not after everything. After Joel and the divorce and the — god, the pain. I can’t do that to myself again. I won’t do that to myself again.”
I’d been avoiding his gaze for several minutes, feeling all too inadequate to be here, with him, and telling this celebrity hot-shot that I wasn’t interested in more.
There were so many people that would kill to be in my shoes.
There was a version of me that would kill to be in my shoes.
“June?” A soft touch to my wrist pulled me from my spiral. His fingers barely brushed mine. Just enough to be felt. Just enough to make me look at him.
“I heard you,” he said. Quiet. Sincere. “I won’t ask for more.
Not now. I just…” He shook his head, tongue running over his bottom lip.
“I want to sit across from you and drink this shitty coffee. I want to ask about your favorite books and your worst jobs and how the hell you know how to rebind a first edition. I want to… exist near you. Whatever that might look like.”
I stared at him. At the way he looked at me like I was some kind of miracle instead of a walking pile of broken pieces.
It would have been easier if he’d scoffed. Rolled his eyes. Gotten up and left. Instead, he smiled. Small. Sad. A little hopeful.
“I’ll take what you give me,” he said, “and I’ll be damn grateful for it.”
God, it hurt.
Because I wanted to give him something. But I didn’t know what I had left. Didn’t know if I even had anything left.
So I reached across the table. Hooked my pinky through his.
That was all I had right now.
He glanced down at our hands, then back up at me — and for once, didn’t say anything stupid. For one blissful, quiet moment, he just let it be.
But then —
“I’m gonna remember this,” he said, soft as anything. “This exact moment. Your sleeves pulled over your hands. The little line between your eyebrows. I’m gonna remember all of it.”
I blinked. “What?”
His eyes widened slightly. “What?”
“You said—”
“Did I?” He coughed into his mug, grimacing like he’d burnt his tongue on the coffee. “No, I don’t — I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re gonna remember the little line between my eyebrows?” I hated how my heart skipped the tiniest beat at his words, even as I tried to tamp it down. He wasn’t the one for me. This was a short-term friendship after an awkward bout of longing.
That I regret.
That hurt me.
He interrupted my spiral. “I meant in like, a purely platonic — archival — non-weird way.”
“That’s worse.”
“I blacked out. What did I say?”
I shook my head, laughing despite myself. Despite everything. “Nothing. You’re fine. You’re—” I waved a hand vaguely at him. “A menace.”
“I really didn’t mean to say it out loud.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” I stifled a laugh. “Still a weird thing to just think quietly in your head, Barlowe.”
He didn’t answer. So we sat in it — the awkward warmth, the ridiculous weight of him looking at me like that, like I was already a story he’d tell someone years from now.
Like I wasn’t just a delivery girl with messy hair and a hell of a lot of baggage.
Like I was more.
I didn’t want to be more. Not to anyone. Not to him.
So why did my stomach do a little flip at the intensity of his stare? I sipped my coffee, trying to push down whatever this feeling that threatened in my chest was. “You really don’t know how to be normal, do you?”
He smiled, sheepish. “Not around you.” And then — my phone buzzed. Loud and insistent, vibrating across the table like it was trying to escape. I glanced down.
Shit.
RAYMOND, it read in all caps.
“Shit,” I muttered out loud, grabbing it.
Ansel perked up. “Everything okay?”
“My boss,” I hissed, and answered. “Hey, sorry, I—”
“You’re still not back? Juniper, what the hell? You were supposed to return the van an hour ago. The store’s backed up, I’ve got three pickups waiting, and if this is another ‘sorry, the celebrity was hot’ excuse—”
“I didn’t say that last time—”
“—you’re benched for a week.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but I wasn’t speaking, there were no words coming from me.
So Ansel beat me to it.
He reached across the table, plucked the phone out of my hand like a criminal, and said, with full Ansel Barlowe confidence, “Hi. Yes. This is the celebrity in question.”
My soul left my body.
“I’d like to personally apologize for the delay,” he said, chipper. “And to make up for it, I’d love to donate…” He looked at me. “What’s a normal bookstore donation amount? Five grand? Ten?”
“Ansel.” I hissed, reaching for the phone. He dodged me.
“Ten thousand dollars to Figments,” he declared. “No strings attached. Unless you count keeping Juniper here for another twenty minutes.”
There was a long pause on the other end. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest.
Or I was just going to throw up all the shitty coffee I’d had in the last twenty minutes.
Then I heard Raymond say, “Who the hell is this, really?”
“Still Ansel Barlowe,” he said. “Big fan of independent bookstores. Bigger fan of Juniper Haddock.”
Raymond was silent on the other end. Then, eventually “I’m texting the store’s Venmo to Haddock.”
Ansel grinned and handed the phone back to me. “See? Fixed.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed. “You’re—”
“Giving?” he offered. “A brave champion of the fine arts?”
“Deranged,” I corrected. “Full of yourself.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re getting up to leave though, does it?”
I stuck my tongue out at him before I remembered I was a thirty-three-year-old adult, and not some petulant child.
Graciously, he ignored it, sipping on his coffee in his ridiculous excuse for an outfit. The Crocs really tied the whole thing together.
“Hey,” he said, breaking through the comfortable silence we’d lapsed into. “I just realized I don’t have your number.”
I blinked. “You’ve been in my DMs for over a week.”
“Yeah, but that’s the perfectly curated, Bookstagrammer, Figments employee Juniper Haddock.” An almost wicked grin crossed his features. “I want to talk to this Juniper.”
I narrowed my eyes. “This isn’t a bit, is it?”
“No bit.” He held out his phone. “Just me, trying to text a friend.”
A beat passed.
I took the phone from him — the case was cracked, the lock screen was a blurry photo of what looked like a raccoon and a hotdog bun, and of course it was on 7% battery.
I typed in my number. Gave it back.
He grinned when it popped up on the screen.
“Juniper Haddock,” he read aloud. “Look at us, being grown-ups.”
I sipped my coffee, trying not to smile.
“Don’t make it weird,” I said.