Chapter 16
Fredrik
Isaw the lights in broad daylight before I even parked my car. I was used to my store looking the way it did, a slice of sanity nestled within the obnoxious display of holiday cheer. A safe space for anyone who wanted to skip the season, like me.
And now it was ruined.
I’d noticed Noelle and Kailee whispering in the afternoons.
They’d become very buddy-buddy since that crochet meeting.
My niece had begun hanging out at Noelle’s store instead of mine.
I wasn’t sure how Noelle had energy for her.
I was watching a steady stream of customers pass my door on the way to hers all day long.
My store had seen a grand total of five customers since Monday, all looking for Christmas presents for people they didn’t seem to know at all, and mostly buying nothing because I didn’t have that one bestseller they thought was a safe bet.
On Friday morning, a day ahead of her usual schedule, Felicity had arrived for her weekly cleaning. She’d ordered another book for their book club titled His Runaway Bride and asked me three times if I was being nice to Noelle.
She was concerned about the stranger I was allowing to live in my store, rent-free. How much nicer could I be?
I stayed out of Noelle’s way, arriving in the morning after she’d left and leaving before she returned so our paths didn’t cross. I wanted her to have a home. A safe space she could return to after a long day at work without having to deal with another person.
It was a win-win, really, since I also needed to avoid temptation.
If I was going to honor my promise and keep my hands off her, I couldn’t be around her in a closed bookstore after dark.
I was already allowing this woman to infiltrate my thoughts on a regular basis.
She was the star of my fantasies. Every time I touched myself, I undressed her.
Touched her. I couldn’t stop imagining things I wanted to do to her.
The nicest thing I could do was to keep my distance.
To make sure she felt at home, I’d cleared away my personal clutter and brought in all the linen I’d inherited from Uncle Glenn so she could choose her own. I wasn’t hugely surprised when she chose the most colorful option, featuring red poppies.
And now, apparently, I was also allowing her to make my store window look like a beacon guiding sailors through stormy seas. So yes, my niceness knew no bounds.
I stopped in front of the window, squinting at the scene.
They’d warned me, very gently, of the big reveal, but I hadn’t prepared myself for the sheer opulence of it.
Red baubles and glowing stars hung from a huge Christmas tree made of stacked green books.
Traditional Christmas lights framed the window, and the entire ceiling was covered in fairy lights, creating a backdrop reminiscent of an Indian wedding.
As I stepped inside, a bell above the door jingled. What had happened to my doorbell buzzer?
There were also customers. Plural. They walked between the shelves, browsed back covers, sat in my armchairs, and chatted.
Any sane business owner would have been ecstatic, but I couldn’t summon any excitement, no matter how hard I tried. In its place was panic, like I’d walked in on burglars cleaning out my home.
Noelle stood behind the counter, ringing up someone’s purchase as Kailee slipped the book into a paper bag and handed it over with a smile.
I spotted my sister in one of the armchairs, enjoying a coffee and some flaky pastry that stuck to her black pants and the chair.
“Happy Holidays!” Noelle called after the lady squeezing past me at the door.
It closed with that jingling sound again.
“What’s that noise?” I asked.
“It’s your new doorbell!” Noelle grinned, stepping out from behind the counter.
She wore a short pink skirt and orange leg warmers with a reindeer sweater and some sort of homemade Santa hat, like she was filming an aerobics video in the North Pole. “Wait, there’s more!”
She clicked on a remote, and “Jingle Bells” blasted at full volume from a pair of speakers installed above the door.
“I said nothing that plays music!”
“I thought you meant decorations that play music.”
“So you thought speakers were a safe bet?”
She turned off the music, looking a little hurt. “I haven’t put together a proper playlist yet. I’ll find something better.”
God, no. I wanted no Christmas music. None.
Fighting nausea, I backed into the only empty corner I could find, behind the counter. “Why do I need a new doorbell?”
“For holiday cheer!” Kailee answered, joining the conversation. “It sounds a lot nicer than that buzzer you had before.”
“It made me think of losing a game of Operation,” Felicity added, dropping her empty pastry bag into my trash. “Every time I opened the door, it was like Errr! You nicked an artery. You’ll never be a surgeon!”
They stood around me like a gang of school bullies, unified in their low opinion of me and my store.
I glared at Noelle. “Your store sells doorbells? And speakers?”
Christmas decorations were supposed to be temporary. She’d changed my damn doorbell.
Noelle blushed. “I had to go a bit further for the speakers. And your old doorbell is still there. We didn’t break it or anything. It’s just silenced.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who silenced it?”
Noelle and Felicity exchanged a look.
“Jackson,” Noelle said. “He installed the speakers, too.”
At least they got a professional for the job. I let my eyes wander across the transformed space. It didn’t look like my business. It wasn’t mine at all.
I didn’t know where to go or what to do. On Saturdays, I usually hid out at my store just to avoid being invited anywhere else. Everyone knew my store was struggling, so it made sense to keep it open as much as possible.
Noelle’s store, on the other hand, wasn’t open on weekends, possibly because her employer didn’t want to pay for more hours. She’d been busy all week and sold cheap plastic at hefty markups, so the owner must have already made a killing.
“So what do you think?” Noelle asked, her eyes hesitant, like she was afraid of the truth.
Before I even opened my mouth, I knew I was going to hurt her feelings, but there was nothing I could do. I felt cornered. Figuratively and literally. My chest was so tight I could barely breathe.
“It’s different,” I said.
“Good… different?” She blinked.
I looked around me, and an involuntary shudder ran through me.
“Come on.” Felicity yanked me out of my seat, pulled me around a shelf, and pinned me with a look that said remember what we talked about.
“You have customers! You have enough Christmas lights to get everyone off your back. Whether you personally like it or not is irrelevant. Noelle has done all the work, and nobody is asking anything of you. Other than, maybe don’t be an asshole. ”
“I’m not being an asshole,” I hissed back. “I let her live here. I let her decorate. I’ll learn to live with a new doorbell. What more do you want from me?”
“How about a thank you? The poor girl was up all night building that silly book tree! She and Kailee spent two nights picking the books and color-coding them, so the tree has that gradient. Did you notice that?”
“What gradient?”
“Exactly! You didn’t even look! I understand that this is a challenging time of year for you, but she doesn’t know that, and it’s not her fault. And if you can’t act like a human being, maybe tell her why. Because I’m not sure I even know.”
I frowned, a heavy weight crushing my chest. “You know what happened.”
My sister folded her arms. “Clearly, I don’t. Because when Grandma died, Grandpa Charles fell apart, but then he pulled himself together, and somehow, he wasn’t an asshole two years later. It wasn’t permanent.”
But Grandpa Neil had been an asshole all his life. And I was equally related to him.
“That’s because…” The words stuck in my throat and burned like acid.
Felicity patted my arm. “That’s okay. Don’t tell me. But tell someone. Talk to someone. I’m saying this with all the love I can muster. You’re becoming unbearable.”
With that, she told Noelle farewell, gathered her coat and purse, and headed out, motioning for Kailee to follow.
Noelle waved at them, then looked at me with a mix of hope and nerves, like she was still expecting an answer to her earlier question.
How could she hold on to hope with someone like me? It would have been easier if she’d stormed out like my sister. Fighting was easier. Anything was easier than this.
Noelle took a tentative step closer, eyebrows raised. “What are you thinking?” The lights gave her dark hair a coppery halo.
She was so pretty I felt ill. Like I was failing. I wanted to be a better version of myself. Someone who could have acted the way Noelle expected. The way she deserved.
But I was the real, damaged version and overwhelmed by discomfort.
I scanned the room, looking for anywhere to retreat to. Anywhere I could sit and wile away the day pretending Christmas hadn’t invaded my safe space. There was none. Not a square inch of my store was left unlit or untouched by her hurricane of seasonal magic.
I took a breath. “Are there any decorations left in your store? Are they all here?”
She let out a nervous laugh. “I got a new shipment yesterday. Mr. Young was over the moon that we’d sold out of so much that he closed another store and put all his eggs, or baubles, in one basket.”
“You’re quite the salesperson.” I meant it as praise, or at least as neutral commentary, but it came out like an accusation.
She visibly recoiled. “It’s easier to sell something people are looking for. If you stocked some popular titles—”
“Then I wouldn’t be called Hard to Find, would I?” I shot back, exasperated. “I mean… the store wouldn’t be called—”
“I get it. You carry collectibles. But maybe you could do a bit of both. Get people in the door. Then they might find the rare books, too.”
“How did you get these people in the door?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder. “I don’t have any popular titles.”
She bit her lip, looking out the window. “I’ve been telling everyone to come by on Saturday to see the lights.”
“So they’re here for the lights, not the books?”
Her eyes flicked to an older lady who was browsing the Russian classics. She gave a subtle nod and lowered her voice. “But they’re staying for the books.”
Not waiting for a response, she turned around and approached the lady. “Can I help you with anything?”
I wandered across the floor and slumped into a vacant armchair. I should have been the one offering help. I’d read most of the books, and I doubted Miss Popular Titles knew much about them. But I felt defeated and out of place.
I watched Noelle gesture and smile like she’d known the woman all her life.
After a moment, the lady nodded, and they moved to the counter.
Noelle turned the book in her hands, looking for something.
After a moment, she raised it at me, shouting across the floor.
“Hey Fredrik, how much is this? I can’t find the price. ”
Was she actually going to sell something? I forced myself up from the chair and joined them, glancing at the gold-foiled copy of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment she’d brought down from the high shelf. “This is the first English edition,” I explained to the lady. “It’s… invaluable.”
“No,” Noelle countered. “It’s valuable. Which means it has a price. Right?”
If someone bought it, my collection would be incomplete. There’d be a gap on my shelf, and things would change. My store would change.
“This is a bookstore, and these books are for sale, right?” she pressed, tilting her head.
I took a breath, my chest tight. “Twelve thousand dollars.”
“Twelve thousand?” the old lady repeated, clutching her pearls. “I… I was only thinking of something pretty for my coffee table.”
“It’s an investment,” Noelle said firmly, without missing a beat. “A statement piece. Nobody else will have anything like this. The beloved story of…” She looked up at me, waiting for me to fill in.
“…a murderer who’s plagued by guilt and the prostitute who redeems him,” I said grimly.
Noelle winced at my phrasing, but the old lady’s eyes lit up. “That sounds like a gripping read.”
Then buy the fiftieth edition, not the first, I screamed silently. But I forced myself to nod. “It is. Very poignant. Percipient.”
The lady hovered, her wrinkled fingers skating across the string of pearls. Then she exhaled with sudden resolve. “Alright. I’ll take it. I’ll read it as it was meant to be read, when they first printed it.”
I stood frozen while Noelle ran her credit card. She wrapped the book in brown paper and string—where had she even found those?—and handed it over like a prize.
The lady beamed, thanked us, and swept out into the snow.
The door jingled shut.
Noelle turned to me, wide-eyed, her mouth half open. “Did you just sell a twelve-thousand-dollar book?”
I could only stare. “No, you did.”
“You gave the price,” she fired back. “I just helped her see the value.”
“I was bluffing!” My voice cracked. “I found that copy for two thousand. I know it’s worth a lot more, but... nobody buys at that price!”
“Apparently somebody does,” she said, her smile equal parts astonishment and triumph.
“Excuse me?”
We turned to find another customer, a younger woman in a white puffer jacket, holding a romance book. “How much is this one?”
Noelle smiled. “I know that one! Fifteen dollars.”
She charged her, and we waited for her to leave, followed by two others. I walked through the store to confirm no more strangers were hiding between the shelves. Once I knew we were alone, I marched back to the counter, my chest about to burst.
“Okay, that’s enough. You’ve done enough.” I lunged at the door and flipped the sign on it to CLOSED. “Can we turn some of these off since we’re not open?” I gestured to the lights. “Do you have like a sleep setting?” I searched for a switch or a plug but found nothing.
Suddenly, the room went dark.
“Better?” Noelle asked from the far end of the room.
“Yeah,” I grumbled, then grabbed my jacket and left.
My heart pounded as I walked to my car. I sat inside, freezing, windows fogging, for a long time. I could have started the engine and warmed up, but I didn’t deserve comfort.
She’d done this amazing thing. She’d made more money for my business than I’d made in months. And I’d turned off her lights.
I sucked.