Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“I can’t believe you took all of the books from Finders.” Stephanie thumped books on the shelf in front of her, all pretense of dusting them forgotten.
“Why not? You didn’t think I’d let them just trash them all.” Steven glared at his sister’s back, not sure why her anger should spark his, other than their twin bond being tweaked uncomfortably.
“We decided this a long time ago,” she said to the shelf. “No more huge purchases until we get Dad’s junk pile sorted out.”
“I didn’t pay for them. They were tossing them.
All I did was let them toss them into the Labyrinth.
No cash exchanged hands. They were grateful they didn’t have to pay to bring them to the recycling.
And Dad’s boxes aren’t junk. Besides, what do you care?
You’ll be moving out soon. Jake’s already gone.
We decided I was going to run the bookshop, remember? So if I want to—”
Stephanie growled. The cover of the romance novel she held began to pucker in her grip. “Jake isn’t ‘gone.’ He lives across the yard. We discussed that too. Remember?”
Steven sighed. “Yes. I remember.” As soon as Tris had moved out of the small apartment to live with Ozzy, Jake had moved into it with his girlfriend, Lucy.
It was good for everyone to have him move out of the main house, but not too far.
His autism meant he’d need their support occasionally, but he was ready for more independence than living with his siblings would have allowed. “I get it.”
“I really, really hope you do, because if I move to the new house, I’ll be farther away. Jake will be down to you.”
“We spent a lot of time setting him up to succeed, Steph. We have to believe he can do it. He has Lucy. She wouldn’t have moved in with him if she didn’t think she could handle it.
You need this as much as he does. You’re his sister, not his mother.
You did your job. Time for you now, right? Before it’s too late.”
“Dude. We’re not even thirty yet.” She turned back to place the book, with exaggerated care, onto the shelf, then carefully brush some dust from the surface.
“I am not out of time, and I am definitely not old. And that”—she pointed at the book she’d just shelved as she turned to him—“was Happy with Either, by the way.”
“I didn’t say you were old. Author?”
“Ruth Clemence.”
Steven typed as she poked through the box for the next book.
“It’s just that Jake’s only twenty-one and that’s so young to be playing house.” This time she wiped the book she’d chosen with her dusting cloth before shelving it.
“Hey.” He looked up from the screen. “They are not playing house. Lucy has been with him for almost three years now, and she loves him. She’s good at everything Jake.”
She picked up another book. “I hate to admit it, but she was right about giving him more space.” She glanced at the cover of the book in her hand. “The Gold of Noon by Essie Summers.”
“Spelled like the season?”
“Yeah.” She put the book on the shelf and picked up another, which she held in both hands in front of herself, almost like a shield. “Listen. About the shop. You have to be realistic. Dad never was.”
“It worked for him. Why do you think it won’t work for me?”
“Dad wasn’t fighting eBooks the way you are. You can’t keep every book you find in the street.”
He chuckled. “I’m not that bad.”
“Free books because they were going to toss them out?”
He made a face. “Okay, pretty bad. But in my defense, they had some really salable titles. They just aren’t a bookshop. They weren’t set up to make it easy to find what people were looking for. I can do that.”
“Just promise me you’ll be reasonable when you go through it all. I don’t want to leave you here buried under an avalanche of dead trees.”
“You aren’t leaving me here. You’re going to look at a new house you’ve wanted to live in your entire life.
And I’m choosing to stay because I love you, but we need our own lives.
You especially. I like it here. We always knew I was taking over the shop some day.
Dad and I talked about it all the time, and that’s never changed just because they died. ”
“I still worry. You never go anywhere.”
“I do.”
“When?”
He frowned at the screen and tabbed the cursor to a new line.
“Stevie, you literally never go anywhere. It isn’t—”
“I’m fine. I like it here.”
“And is this about Becca?”
“Is what about Becca?”
“You becoming a hermit.”
“Nothing to do with her.”
Stephanie snorted.
“The house didn’t like her. It scared her off.”
For a few minutes, the only words that passed between them were romance titles and authors as the shelf slowly filled with seventies and eighties Harlequin paperbacks.
“You do know it wasn’t the house or the bookshop she wasn’t good enough for, right? If the house was bitchy to her, it was only because she agreed with me that Becca wasn’t good enough for you.”
“Since when do I need approval from a house about who I date?”
“Even Jake didn’t think she was a great fit.”
“I also don’t need either of your permission, as it happens. Any more than Jake needed ours.”
“Of course not.” She left the box of books to sit on the arm of the chair across from him. “But you shouldn’t have to fold yourself into origami to please a girl. You’ve made yourself so much smaller to make room for her, and that isn’t right.”
Steven leaned his head on his backrest. “Jake said something like that, too.”
“He did?”
“He said I wasn’t me anymore. That she took up too much of my space.
” He smiled, remembering. “Of course he compared it to Lucy, because with him, everything is about Lucy. Apparently, she lets him be as big as he needs to be and it’s never too much, but she doesn’t crowd him when he feels like curling up. ”
“Like I do.”
“Well, he didn’t say that.”
“Out loud.”
“Steph, you’re the only mom he really remembers. You’ve tried to protect him.”
“Well.”
“It’s hard to let go, but it’s time, and for what it’s worth, I think you should pull the trigger on that house. You deserve something nice of your own.”
“What about you, though?”
He sighed and sat up. “I like it here. I like the shop. I like this life.” He stood up, dumped the few books that were left in the box onto the table and hefted it. “Want to help me pack up Becca’s stuff?”
“Fuck yes.” She jumped to her feet. “Can we burn it?”
“No. But you can bring it by her work tomorrow for me when you drop off the deposit. I thought I’d want to do it, for closure, but you know what? I’m done with letting her take up any more of my life. She doesn’t want what I want, and never did. Took me too long to see that.”
“Thank fuck,” Stephanie muttered.
Steven grinned as he followed her towards the stairs leading up to their private living space. “Gee, tell me how you really feel.”
It was a little shocking to discover he’d need more than one box to pack up all of Becca’s things. Stephanie and Jake weren’t exaggerating when they’d said—more than once—that she was taking over his life. And he hadn’t noticed.
“This is crazy,” He opened yet another dresser drawer to discover it more than half full of her leggings and cropped T-shirts that she wore around the house. “How does she even have any clothes at home?”
Stephanie muttered something that might have been “told you so” under her breath, but she turned from where she was lining K-pop CDs along the side of the box they’d brought up. “Put her clothes in some garbage bags.”
“That sends such a mean message, though.” Instead, he handed her the pile of shirts to stack alongside the CDs.
“She texted you a pic of her dirty dancing with two of the guys she works with.”
“That didn’t happen until after we decided to take a break.”
Steph stood and faced him, hands on her hips. “She texted you a photo of her dirty dancing with two guys. If that wasn’t a message of some kind, I don’t know what is.”
“But it doesn’t mean I have to stoop to her level. You should go across the street and ask Kreed. He always has boxes.”
“Suit yourself. This box is full.” She glanced at her phone and squeaked. “I’m going to be late.”
“For?”
“Um.” Sliding the phone back into her skirt pocket, she shrugged. “I might have booked another glimpse of the house.”
Steven chuckled. “Shocker. Go.”
“But the boxes.”
“I’ll finish cataloguing those romances for now. If I call Jake, he’ll bring some by after his shift.”
“You know you could always go over there yourself.”
He frowned into the box of CDs and crop tops. “No. I don’t think so. I don’t need them this second. I can wait for Jake to drop them off.”
“Steven—”
“Please don’t.”
“It’s just across the street.”
“Steph, please.”
“Okay.” She rubbed at his arm, muttered a curse, then threw herself at him to hug him tight and kiss his cheek. “Maybe tomorrow. We can take a walk.”
“Maybe.”
They both knew it wouldn’t happen, but she left without saying so, and he dropped onto the corner of the bed with a sigh.
He resisted the urge to look at the picture Becca had texted.
He didn’t need to see her grin as she danced with her friends.
That’s all they were, he knew. It hadn’t been about the men, it had been about the dancing.
Whether or not that was any less mean-spirited, he didn’t really know.
But it was a reason, and he didn’t think it a terribly selfish one on her part.
She wanted dancing, and he wanted his books.
She wanted to go clubbing, and he only managed to talk himself into walking across the street for a cup of coffee on a very good day.
Maybe the house was cranky towards her, but Steven couldn’t blame her for not staying, even discounting the house offering its own unasked-for two cents on the matter.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Alicia. I know you aren’t the one who drove her away.” He rubbed a stocking foot over the worn hardwood of his bedroom floor.
The blinds at the window thunked against the sill, then snapped up with a whirr and slap of old vinyl.