Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
JESSICA
I’m on my third cup of coffee, and it’s not even eleven.
Caroline noticed the moment she walked in.
Didn’t say anything, just raised her eyebrows at the dark circles under my eyes and the fact that I’m wearing the same cardigan I wore yesterday.
I could lie and say I got up early. But we both know I was up until one in the morning reading a seven-book series I’ve already read twice.
Nothing like burying yourself in other people’s love stories to avoid thinking about your own.
Austen is sprawled across the counter next to the register, watching me with deep disappointment. Every time I reach for the paperback I brought down from my apartment—book four, the one where the hero finally stops lying to the heroine—he puts his paw on it.
“Cut it out,” I tell him.
He slow-blinks at me. Doesn’t move his paw.
“I’m allowed to read.”
Another slow-blink. Somehow more judgmental than the first.
“It’s research. I own a bookstore. Reading is literally my job.”
He yawns, showing all his teeth, then deliberately pushes the book off the counter. It lands on the floor with a thwack.
“You’re a punk.”
He grooms his paw like he hasn’t just committed book violence.
Caroline appears from the back room. “Did Austen knock another book off the counter?”
“He hates it when I read so much.”
“Smart cat.” She picks up the book, glances at the cover. “Ooh, is this the one where the duke is secretly her pen pal the whole time, and she doesn’t figure it out until chapter twenty even though it’s incredibly obvious?”
“It’s a classic.”
“It’s you not dealing with your feelings by reading about fictional people not dealing with their feelings.” She sets the book on a high shelf, out of Austen’s reach. “Also, Mrs. Robinson is coming in at noon. She wants something ‘light and fun’ for her trip to see her grandkids.”
“I can handle Mrs. Robinson.”
“Can you? Because yesterday you recommended a secret baby book to Mr. James. He wanted a thriller.”
“The baby was a secret. There was...thrilling tension.”
Caroline just looks at me.
“I’ll do better today,” I mutter.
I do not do better today.
Customer number one is a young woman in her early twenties, looking for a beach read.
“Something easy,” she says. “Nothing too complicated. I just want to turn my brain off.”
I should give her a cozy mystery. A lighthearted rom-com. Something with a dog on the cover.
Instead, my hand reaches for a book about a woman who exchanges anonymous letters with a man she doesn’t realize she already knows.
“This one’s great,” I hear myself saying. “The twist is so satisfying. She figures out who he really is about halfway through, and the second half is all about whether she can forgive him for hiding the truth.”
The customer takes it, looking pleased. “Sounds perfect!”
She leaves. I stare at the door.
Caroline’s head pops out from the historical fiction section. “Did you just recommend another secret identity romance?”
“No.”
“I heard you say ‘anonymous letters’ and ‘hiding the truth.’”
“It’s a popular trope.”
She disappears, then returns with a Post-it note and a pen. Writes something. Sticks it to the register.
Secret Identity Recs: I
“That’s not necessary.”
“I think it is.”
Customer number two arrives at twelve-thirty. Middle-aged man who looks vaguely uncomfortable being in a bookstore at all.
“My wife sent me,” he says. “She wants a cozy mystery. Something with a cat?”
A cat mystery. Simple. I have an entire shelf of cat mysteries.
I walk him over to the section, pull out a reliable favorite, and start describing it.
“So the protagonist inherits this old bookshop from her aunt, and there’s this man in town who seems cold at first but actually has a secret past, and she starts getting these mysterious notes, and—”
I stop.
That’s not a cat mystery. That’s a romance. There’s no feline. Why did I even pull this book?
The man is staring at me.
“You know what, let me find you something else.” I shove the book back on the shelf and grab an actual cozy mystery—one with a tabby on the cover and a punny title about cat-astrophic murders. “This one. Your wife will love it.”
He leaves, looking relieved to escape.
Caroline updates the Post-it.
Secret Identity Recs: II
“That one didn’t count. I caught myself.”
“You described a secret identity romance for forty-five seconds before catching yourself. It counts.”
Customer number three is the worst.
She’s a regular—comes in every few weeks, always knows exactly what she wants. Today she marches up to the counter with purpose.
“I need a palate cleanser,” she announces. “I just finished a book where the hero lied to the heroine for three hundred pages, and I wanted to throw it across the room. I need something where the guy is honest from the start. No secrets. No hidden identities. Just a straightforward love story.”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
My brain is shuffling through every romance novel I’ve ever read, and I cannot think of a single one where the hero doesn’t have at least one secret. A hidden fortune. A mysterious past. An identity he’s concealing. A reason he can’t tell her the truth.
“Um,” I say.
The customer waits.
“I’m sure there’s... something...”
“You run a romance bookstore, and you can’t think of one honest hero?”
“They’re all honest eventually!”
“But not from the start?”
I picture Scott, and the letters. Three different men who turned out to be one man who’d been hiding from me the entire time.
“No,” I say quietly. “Not from the start.”
The customer sighs. “Fine. Give me another liar. At least make him grovel properly at the end.”
I find her a book with excellent groveling. She leaves satisfied.
Caroline updates the Post-it.
Secret Identity Recs: II (+ existential crisis)
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“You just stared into the void for thirty seconds when asked about honest heroes.”
“I was thinking.”
“You were spiraling.”
“Same thing.”
Mrs. Sanders arrives at two-fifteen, wearing a floral blouse and a tennis skirt, earrings that sparkle in the afternoon light, and an expression that says she’s here on a mission.
“Jessica, honey.” She breezes through the door like she owns the place. “I was in the neighborhood.”
She was not in the neighborhood. The hardware store is four blocks in the opposite direction, and Mrs. Sanders doesn’t go anywhere without a purpose.
“Can I help you find something?” I ask, even though we both know she’s not here for books.
“Just browsing.” She makes a show of examining the new releases table. “These covers get racier every year, don’t they? In my day, a shirtless man was scandalous. Now they’ve got tattoos and everything.”
“They’re popular with the readers.”
“I’m sure.” She picks up a book, squints at the back cover, sets it down. “You look tired, hon. You eating enough? I’ve got fig cake at home. I could bring you some.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Sanders.”
“Mmhmm.” She moves to the romance section, trailing her fingers along the spines. “I thought the committee meeting went well Thursday.”
Here it comes.
“We got a lot planned,” I say carefully.
“I’m sure you did. Couldn’t help but notice you and Scott Avery had some...tension.”
“There’s no tension.”
“Honey, I’ve been married for forty-seven years. I know tension when I see it.” She pulls out a book, examines it, puts it back. “You know, I’ve known that boy since he was eight years old.”
I go still. “What?”
“Scott. His grandmother lived here—Vera Avery, out on Marsh Road. Sweetest woman you ever met. Scott used to spend summers with her when he was young. Before his parents’ marriage fell apart.”
This is new information. I try to keep my face neutral. “I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t. He doesn’t talk about it.” Mrs. Sanders turns to face me, abandoning any pretense of browsing. “His daddy was a piece of work. Mean man. Said terrible things to his mama, and to Scott. He called her soft and foolish for believing in love.”
My chest tightens.
“Vera was the only one who let Scott be himself. He’d come down here every summer, spend three months reading on her porch, helping her garden, being a normal kid instead of whatever his daddy was trying to make him.
” She shakes her head. “When Vera passed, about fifteen years back, something in Scott closed up. He got hard. Started acting like feelings were weakness.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re looking at him like he’s one thing, and I’m telling you he’s something else underneath.
Something he’s been hiding for a long time.
” She fixes me with a knowing stare. “You’re a romance reader, Jessica.
You know how this works. The grumpy ones are always soft in the middle. They’re just scared.”
“This isn’t a romance novel, Mrs. Sanders.”
“Honey, everything’s a romance novel if you’re paying attention.” She pats my arm. “That boy’s been fixing things around your building, you know.”
I stay silent. Because I do know.
“The back door. That light in your stockroom. Mr. Sanders mentioned Scott put in an order for weatherstripping last week—said it was for a ‘boardwalk property.’” She raises her eyebrows. “Just something to think about.” Mrs. Sanders heads for the door. “Oh, and, Jessica?”
“Yes?”
“That heroine in your books—the one who won’t admit she’s in love until chapter twenty, even though it’s obvious to everyone else?” She smiles. “Don’t be her, hon. Real life doesn’t give you guaranteed happy endings. You’ve got to choose them.”
The bell chimes as she leaves.
I stand there, surrounded by books full of love stories, and my chest tightens.
Caroline leaves at six. I close up the shop, flip the sign, and head upstairs with Austen at my heels.
I start my normal evening routine of feeding the cat, changing into comfortable clothes, and then making tea.
And like I typically do, I pick up a book.
I try three different ones. A thriller I’ve been meaning to read. A literary fiction that won a bunch of awards. A comfort reread I’ve loved for years.
Nothing sticks.
I read the same paragraph four times and couldn’t tell you what it said. The words swim on the page, refusing to arrange themselves into anything meaningful.
Austen is watching me from the arm of the couch.
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
He doesn’t blink.
“I am.”
He jumps down and walks over to my laptop, sitting closed on the coffee table. Sits next to it. Stares at me.
“I’m not going to—”
He meows. Loud. Insistent.
“Reading is fine. Reading is—”
Another meow. He paws at the laptop.
“You’re a cat. You don’t even know what that is.”
He knows exactly what it is. He knows I’ve been avoiding it for years. He knows I wrote Coastal Quill—Scott—about how I was going to start writing again, and then I didn’t, because David’s voice in my head is always louder than my own.
Too impractical. Too romantic. Who do you think you are?
I set down the book I wasn’t reading.
Pick up the laptop.
Open it.
The blank document stares at me. Cursor blinking. Waiting.
I think about Scott, writing furious pages about whatever he’s writing about. I think about the letters, all that honesty pouring out of him in a way he couldn’t manage in person. I think about Mrs. Sanders saying he’s soft in the middle, scared, hiding.
I think about how I’ve been hiding too.
Different armor. Same fear.
I type a sentence. It’s terrible, so I delete it.
Type another one. Less terrible, and I leave it.
Austen jumps up and curls next to the laptop, purring. The vibration hums through the keyboard, into my hands.
I type another sentence. Then another.
It’s not good. It’s messy and rough, and I have no idea where it’s going.
But it’s mine.
For the first time in years, I’m not reading someone else’s story.
I’m writing my own.
My phone buzzes around nine. I’ve written three pages—three terrible, wonderful pages that don’t look like anything yet but feel like something.
It’s the group chat.
Michelle: Anyone up for brunch tomorrow? 10 am. My place?
Amber: I’ll bring Tally’s pastries from the restaurant.
Jo: What’s the occasion?
Michelle: Jessica.
Jo: Ah.
Grandma Hensley: I’ll bring hard truths.
Michelle: Grandma Hensley, please be gentle.
Grandma Hensley: I’m always gentle, and I’m always right.
I should be annoyed, feel ambushed. The book club staging an intervention about my love life is exactly the kind of meddling I normally resist.
But I’m tired of being alone in my own head and stress-reading my way through feelings I refuse to examine. Tired of being the stubborn heroine who won’t admit she’s in love until chapter twenty.
I text back:
Me: I’ll be there.
I set down my phone and look at Austen.
“They’re going to make me talk about it.”
He purrs.
“They’re going to have opinions.”
More purring.
“They’re going to tell me I’m being an idiot.”
He bumps his head against my hand, the closest he ever gets to affection.
“Fine. Maybe I need to hear it.”
I close the laptop, three pages saved, and feel something I haven’t felt in days.
Not happy, exactly. Not fixed.
But maybe ready to stop hiding and figure out what I actually want.
Write my own story, even if I don’t know the ending yet.
That’s something, at least.