21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Ryan
“ W e are quietly seeing each other,” I announced to my friends at our usual table inside the bar.
“Should you be telling us this?” Preston asked.
My smile dropped, as I tentatively said, “I think I can. We just don’t want the whole town to know.”
“How the hell are you going to hide it from the town?” Levi asked with a chuckle.
“Well I imagine that since we’ll be working together to save the library, it will be our cover story. It should also be what you all say when asked for gossip,” I stated, giving each of them a hard look.
Preston stared back, Levi raised an eyebrow, and Trey grinned at me. These three were going to be the death of me.
The bell above the door rang, drawing my eyes as Meghan and Emily entered. Emily’s eyes met mine right away, and everyone else disappeared. How did she do that? Every time she walked into a building or room everything else disappeared and it was just the two of us.
As they walked over to us, Trey cleared his throat and the regular noises of the bar filtered back in.
“We’ve been working on an idea, and I need you to hear me out.” Emily spoke quickly as she and Meghan pulled chairs from a nearby table to our booth and sat.
“A con.” Emily pointed at me and then smiled like I had any idea what she was talking about.
“A what?” I questioned my brain immediately going to some sort of Ocean’s Eleven scenario.
“A book convention,” Emily clarified, much to my relief. “We sell tickets, get authors to come in to do signings, and have panels for the authors to answer questions. It’ll be great.”
“Don’t we need like a year to plan a convention?” Levi asked, leaning his elbows on the table.
“If this were a big city con, maybe, but this would be a smaller event. We can reach out to libraries surrounding us and ask to put up flyers advertising it. We’ll get people in from all over, right as tourist season is about to start,” Meghan stated.
“It’s how we get the entire town on board for saving the library. Everyone wins!” Emily stated, staring at me with hope in her eyes.
“Okay, but we would need to find authors to attend instead of only raising awareness.”
“We’ll still contact locally popular authors but now we are asking them to come here and help.”
“Plus, as an editor I have loads of connections to quite a few authors in different genres. Some of them might be willing to help, too,” Meghan nodded.
“I love the idea of a con. I don’t know if we have the time to pull it off.”
“We totally do, because these guys can help,” Emily gestured to my friends.
Glancing at them, the bemused looks on their faces dropped as they realized what they were being volunteered for. I grinned at each of them.
“Fuck … yeah. I guess I can free up some time,” Trey grumbled.
“Great, cause we are going to need a stage built.” Meghan smiled at her brother, to which he rolled his eyes.
“Where are we doing this?” Preston asked.
“The park surrounding the library is controlled by the library, we can use it for whatever we need. We can set up ticket sales at the parking lot entrance. Once the lot is filled, we can send people across the street to the school parking lot. We can set up signing booths along the pathway on either side, until we get to the gazebo where we can put up the stage and set it up Fourth of July style. People can bring their own blankets to lay out on the ground and can sit and watch the panels.”
As Emily was talking, I imagined all of it. We could have donation stands set up all around the park and along the path. If we managed to get quite a few authors, we might bring in enough from the ticket sales and donations to save the library. I wanted to jump up and pull Emily into a big hug for this idea, but I forced myself to stay in my seat.
“Will we need permits for the event?” I asked and everyone’s faces fell at the realization this might not be so easy.
“I think I have a way we can handle that,” Levi said with a mischievous grin while we all turned to him, “Dylan has a few connections. He can get us the permit.”
With hope that the event wouldn’t be thwarted by the council members or the mayor, a smile crept over my face as I said, “This could work.”
“It’ll definitely work,” Emily agreed.
Emily pulled a notebook from her bag to give us all a run down of what we would need to do. We needed to drum up support from the locals first. The bed-and-breakfasts and the nearest hotel had email lists we might be able to take advantage of while also kicking the tourist season off with a bang. Levi volunteered to talk to The Orchard Inn as well as a few other people to get them on board for accommodations.
We set a date for the convention for a couple weeks before the end of the quarter when funding would run out. Hopefully, it would give us enough time to plan and time to set the library up to keep its doors open.
The next afternoon, I met with Emily in the study room with the list of authors who received the most checkouts. The excitement over how this con could completely change the way we funded the library filled me.
Last night as I tried to sleep, I wondered if we could turn this event into a yearly festival to continue to provide extra funds to the library. It’d be a lot of work every year, and eventually, I’d need to bring in someone to handle the event planning. However, raising public awareness could also have the town start reaching out to our council people to demand we keep at least some of the public funds.
Our local politicians did a fantastic job about keeping this situation as quiet as possible. Hell, walking into the council meeting, I didn’t even know they were talking about removing the funding entirely, or how it would be removed so quickly.
Walking into the study room, Emily smiled brightly at me. Her hazel eyes sparkled, and I paused for a second at her radiance.
“Is that the list?” Emily asked, gesturing to the papers in my hand.
“Yes,” I said, finally moving from the door to sit down next to her.
She moved her laptop over, pulling up a new tab so we could research the best ways to contact the authors on the list. Taking the papers from me she began scanning the names on the list.
A gasp escaped her, and she dropped the papers on the table. Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes widened as she stared at the list like it had personally attacked her.
“What?” I asked, looking between the papers and her shocked expression.
“That can’t be right,” she muttered as she stood up quickly from the table and marched out of the study room.
Confused, I followed her in a rush until I was walking next to her. She determinedly strode toward the romance section. She began scanning the shelves and then jumped back, her eyes fearfully wide.
“How in the hell did these get here?” She whispered accusingly as she pointed to the shelf and practically glared at me.
Normally, I’d probably feel some amount of fear over a woman glaring at me like she was, but with her it was adorable. Her cheeks reddened, and, despite the glare, there was a softness in her gaze.
Turning my attention to the shelf, there was a mixture of green and blue spines. The titles were odd names and the author name, Donna Smith, was on the spine. There appeared to be duplicates of each book, but some were missing the second. I assumed they were checked out since Donna Smith was one of our more popular authors.
My eyes widened with shock when I suddenly understood what I was staring at. I turned to Emily who stared at the books in complete shock, and was that fear?
“Are those, you?” I whispered so low, I didn’t know if she would hear me.
“Yes,” she hissed, then glanced around the aisle before grabbing the sleeve of my arm and started pulling me back down the aisle.
She released me before we were out of the aisle but continued marching back to the study room. Her head turned back and forth as if she were scanning the library for anyone who might know she was Donna Smith. Once inside the study room, I closed the door and she spun to me.
“What are my books doing on your shelves?”
“They are the library shelves. I’m not the only one who handles the ordering of books. It’s probably a coincidence, especially because I just found out you’re Donna Smith,” I defended myself.
Her eyes softened, and she sighed, “I’m sorry. It caught me off guard. I didn’t think my books were even in this library, let alone popular enough to warrant duplicates.”
“How did you not know they were here?”
“I never browse the shelves because I mostly read eBooks or audiobooks and purchase the physical copies as trophies for my shelf.”
Emily began pacing the room as she tried to make sense of her books being popular in the town where she lived. Her fingers pushed through her hair. Looking down at the table, I spotted the list. She was concerned about revealing her pen name to the town if she were to choose to do the signing.
As helpful as it would be to have such a popular author appear at our signing, I didn’t want her doing anything she wasn’t comfortable with. Authors kept their identities a secret for many different reasons. Some were as small as not wanting their immediate or extended families to know, and others were because of their jobs or community. Hell, I’d known of others who hid their real names to avoid potential stalkers. It didn’t matter the reason, you never ever revealed a pen name's true identity until they were ready to share it.
Looking back at her, there was an argument taking place in her mind. Unsure how to proceed, I waited patiently for her to decide how she wanted to handle this. I wanted to reach out to her and pull her into a hug, but my eyes went to the window where a few people sat at a nearby table. I needed to respect her decision to keep this thing between us a secret for now.