Chapter 3
THREE
JESSICA
Ifind Coastal Quill’s letter waiting in the brass mailbox the next morning.
I’m not supposed to open them. The whole point of the Letters to Local Authors program is anonymity—readers and writers connecting through the safety of pen names and PO boxes. I’m just the facilitator, the person who collects the letters and makes sure they reach their destinations.
But Coastal Quill’s letters have become the exception to every rule I’ve ever made for myself.
I carry the envelope to my apartment upstairs, Austen trailing behind me like he’s supervising a decision he knows I’m going to regret.
The morning light filters through my windows, making dust motes dance above my reading chair—the comfortable disaster of books stacked on every surface, mismatched furniture that I’ve collected over years of thrift store hunting, and the persistent smell of old paper that no amount of vanilla candles can quite cover.
This is my space. The place where I don’t have to be the cheerful bookstore owner or the responsible business woman or the woman who’s definitely not falling apart over a sixty-day eviction notice disguised as a rent increase.
Here, I can just be Jessica.
I curl up in my reading chair, Austen immediately claiming my lap, and open the envelope.
Dear Between the Lines,
I’ve been thinking about your question from our last exchange. You asked how someone knows which version of themselves is real when they’ve spent years performing different roles for different audiences.
I think the answer is: you are most yourself when you’re most afraid. When the masks slip and the walls crack and there’s nothing between you and the truth except your own cowardice.
You said scared hearts build walls. I’ve built so many I’m not sure I remember what I was protecting anymore. Maybe just the fear itself or the idea that if no one really sees me, they can’t find me wanting.
But then you said walls can come down. And I wonder: what if coming down means collapsing? What if the structure I’ve built is the only thing holding me upright?
What if the person I’m falling for could never forgive who I really am?
The author you mentioned—the one who lost his way—I think he’s terrified that being brave enough to write honestly means losing the one reader whose opinion matters most. That vulnerability isn’t strength. It’s just another way to get hurt.
How do you convince someone that the risk is worth it?
Yours in perpetual uncertainty (and maybe something like hope),
Coastal Quill
There’s something about the way he writes—raw and vulnerable and terrified—that makes me want to reach through the page and tell this stranger that he’s not alone.
That I understand building walls so high you forget the view from the top.
That I know what it feels like to perform a version of yourself until you’re not sure which parts are real anymore.
My heart aches for him. For this anonymous writer who’s falling for someone while hiding behind his own carefully constructed persona.
I wonder what she’s like, the woman he’s falling for. Does she know? And does she feels the same way?
“He’s in love,” I tell Austen, who responds with the feline equivalent of “obviously, and you’re an idiot for caring about someone else’s love life when your own is a disaster.”
Fair point.
I should let Caroline mail this letter and get back to the actual disaster of my life. I have a bookstore to save, inventory to organize, and approximately fifty-nine days to figure out how to either afford a forty percent rent increase or find a new location for The Fiction Nook.
Instead, I pull out my favorite stationery—the cream-colored cards with tiny books embossed in the corners that Michelle gave me last Christmas—and write the letter.
I stare at what I’ve written, feeling exposed. I just confessed things to a stranger I’ve barely admitted to myself. Things about Richard and feeling not enough and being scared of my own dreams.
But that’s the thing about Coastal Quill’s letters. They make me feel safe enough to be honest and to drop my own walls and admit the truth underneath.
I seal the envelope before I can second-guess myself and set it aside to drop in the outgoing mail.
My phone buzzes.
Michelle: Hey Bookaholics Anonymous. Let’s meet at Twin Waves Brewing Co. 2pm. Bring your crisis and your appetite for gossip.
I groan.
Michelle only calls extra book club meetings for three reasons: someone got engaged, someone’s having a baby, or someone needs an intervention.
Given that I’m the only current disaster in the group, I’m guessing it’s option three.
Twin Waves Brewing Company stirs with the chaos that happens when you put four opinionated women in a small space with excellent coffee and no filter.
Michelle has claimed our usual corner booth—the one with the slightly wobbly table and the perfect view of the waves crashing on the beach.
Amber Walker is already there, looking radiant in a sundress.
Hazel Sanders sits across from her, practical and put-together in jeans shorts and a loose, sleeveless blouse, reading something on her phone.
And then there’s Jo Lennox. She owns Driftwood and Dreams, the boutique next to Amber’s restaurant, and she has the kind of quiet resilience that comes from rebuilding your life brick by brick.
“Jessica!” Michelle waves me over with enthusiasm like she’s been plotting this intervention for days. “Sit. I ordered you a Bookaholic Special.”
“That’s ominous.”
“It’s delicious.” She slides a latte toward me, topped with foam art that looks suspiciously like a heart with an arrow through it. “Also, we need to talk.”
“Do we, though?”
“Oh, honey.” Amber’s expression is pure sympathy wrapped in expensive perfume. “Yes. We really do.”
I sink into the booth, accepting my fate. “Fine. What are we talking about?”
“Scott Avery,” all four of them say in unison.
“Absolutely not.”
“Too late.” Hazel sets her phone down, giving me her full attention. “Caroline texted the book club group chat this morning. Said you got a rent increase.”
I slump against the booth. “He wants to raise my rent forty percent or sell the building.”
The table goes quiet.
“That jerk,” Amber says finally, with feeling.
“I’m sorry, what?” Jo leans forward, her eyes sharp. “Scott Avery is trying to price you out of your own shop?”
“He says it’s a ‘market rate adjustment.’” I make air quotes with more aggression than strictly necessary. “Apparently my current rent is ‘substantially below market value for comparable retail space.’”
“That’s corporate speak for ‘I’m an big fat meanie,’” Hazel observes.
Michelle, however, is watching me like she’s about to say something I won’t like. “Did he seem upset when he told you?”
“What? No. He was perfectly calm. Professional. Maddeningly reasonable about destroying my entire life.”
“Interesting.”
“Michelle.”
“What? I’m just saying, Grayson mentioned that Scott’s been distracted lately. And you caught the bouquet at our wedding. And Scott was standing right there looking at you like—”
“Like I was his last meal and his first prayer? Yes, you’ve mentioned this.” I take a long drink of my latte, buying time. “That doesn’t change the fact that he’s my landlord, and he just gave me sixty days to either pay rent I can’t afford or lose my shop.”
“Or,” Amber says slowly, “he’s creating a reason to see you regularly for the next two months.”
I choke on my coffee. “That’s—no. That’s absurd. Scott Avery doesn’t create elaborate real estate schemes just to interact with women.”
“Does he date?” Jo asks.
We all look at each other.
“I’ve never seen him with anyone,” Michelle says thoughtfully. “Grayson says he works constantly. Goes to the gym early, heads to the office, stays late most nights. Claims he’s busy with projects, but Grayson thinks he’s hiding something.”
“Maybe he’s a serial killer,” I suggest.
“Or he’s into you,” Hazel counters.
“Those are not equivalent possibilities.”
“Aren’t they?” Amber grins. “I’ve seen the way that man looks at you, Jess. It’s the kind of look that should come with a warning label. ‘Contents under pressure. May explode if you smile at him.’”
“He does not—we don’t—I barely know him.”
“But you want to,” Michelle says gently.
The truth sits heavy in my chest.
Yes. I want to know him. Want to understand why he talks about my bookstore like it’s a line item on a balance sheet, what makes him go soft when he thinks no one’s looking.
Want to know if the flicker of pain I saw when he looked at my V.
Langley display meant something or if I’m imagining connections that don’t exist.
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I say finally. “He’s trying to evict me.”
“Technically, he’s giving you options,” Jo points out.
“Terrible ones.”
“Still valid.” She takes a sip of her tea, considering. “What if you actually talked to him, not just argued about rent? Asked him what’s really going on.”
“What’s really going on is that he values profit over people.”
“Does he? Or is that just what he wants you to think?”
I blink at her. “Those are the same thing.”
“Are they?” Jo leans back, and there’s something knowing in her expression. Something that speaks to years of reading people who hide behind walls. “Sometimes people build armor so thick they forget it’s not actually who they are. And sometimes that armor is protecting something worth protecting.”
“Like what?”
“Like a heart that’s been hurt before or dreams they’ve had to hide.” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “Like someone who’s afraid of being seen.”
I think about Coastal Quill’s letter and performing versions of yourself until the real you gets lost in the performance.
“This is ridiculous,” I say. “We’re talking about Scott Avery like he’s some misunderstood hero in a romance novel. The man owns half of Twin Waves. He probably has his feelings professionally managed by an executive assistant.”