The Indie – Summer
THE INDIE
SUMMER
The Following Morning
Idropped a stack of Harlan Coben novels into a box before clocking out of the warehouse at six a.m.
Sliding into a waiting Uber, I calculated just how much I’d made overnight.
Three hundred and sixty bucks.
It was a start, but I would still need to make a few cuts to survive this month.
“Can you wake me up when we make it to Brooklyn?” I asked the driver. “I want to take a nap.”
“Depends.” He smiled at me. “Want me to pull over and nap with you first?”
“I’ll just stay awake, thanks.”
I kept my eyes wide open the entire drive, vowing to take a power nap at Slow Burn instead.
When he reached my block, my worst nightmare greeted me from across the street.
What the…
“Turning the Page in the Neighborhood Soon…
Welcome to Sinclair Street Books.”
People were posing in front of it, snapping pictures and smiling.
No, no, no…
I’d heard the rumors and sat through countless neighborhood meetings, but Sinclair Street wasn't supposed to open until next year.
We were supposed to have time.
Time to rally the neighborhood. Time to fight it. Time to make Adrian Sinclair regret every dollar he'd already sunk into the building.
“Oh wow!” the driver said. “I can’t wait for that to open. I love everything about those bookstores.”
You’re only getting four stars for this ride… I rolled my eyes and got out of his car.
I took one last look at Sinclair Street and unlocked the door to Slow Burn. Maybe I’d wake up from my nap and realize this wasn’t really happening.
Yes, this is all a dream…
I hit the lights to my office and groaned.
Empty yogurt packets, half-opened chocolate bars, and tons of bottle caps and chip bags were scattered all over my desk. A telltale sign that I wasn’t the only one here early.
“Jenny!” I yelled. “Jenny, get back here now!”
“Yeah?” She stepped into the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“For the umpteenth time, you can’t leave all your trash here,” I said. “It attracts rats and roaches.”
“I was literally seconds away from getting rid of everything,” she said. “And this is not ‘trash,’ Summer. These are my sweepstakes chances to make us millionaires, so you should be grateful I spend so much time trying to win.”
I bit my tongue as she pulled a bin closer and swiped off everything.
She and I had had this conversation one too many times, and it always ended the same way.
With her reminding me that her brand-new car came courtesy of a caramel popcorn contest, and that to this day, she received a free box of Pop-Tarts every month for entering a “Taste All the Fillings” game.
I checked my calendar to make sure that the McDonald’s Monopoly games were still months away so I could make sure I fumigated every week whenever they started.
I pulled out this month’s employee schedule—spotting the hours for Michael, Harriet, and Kelly. The three book lovers who’d been with me through thick and thin.
Picking up a red pencil, I tried to mentally calculate how I could cut three hours here and there to cover this month’s insurance.
I circled three of Michael's hours, then immediately scratched the circle out.
Fuck…
“Oh my god!” Jenny suddenly slammed my door shut. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Huh?”
“Have you been getting brain treatments every morning?” She narrowed her eyes. “Is that where you’ve been?”
“Jenny, I have no idea what you’re talking about…”
“Oh, I bet.” Her face reddened. “So, you got a secret diagnosis for short-term amnesia?”
“You’re starting to scare me,” I said. “Some context would be nice.”
“You hate Adrian Sinclair. How could you do this?”
“I…” I sighed, hating that she found out so soon. “It’s just a part-time job, and I’m only doing it for six months. I didn’t know he’d bought it until last week.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what you’re talking about, right? I got a night-shift job at the paperback printing warehouse and—”
“No.” She slammed a copy of The New York Post on my desk, and I was suddenly face-to-face with a photo of me and the cosplay billionaire from the other night.
His smile was just as perfect as I remembered, and there was a faint blush on my cheeks.
The headline read “Reading with the Enemy.” Underneath it, in small print, were the words, “Billionaire Adrian Sinclair Bares Fangs at Local Bookseller.”
My entire world stopped, and my mouth fell open.
So, he really wasn’t cosplaying a billionaire?
“I can’t believe you would speak to him!” Jenny fumed. “Look at you smiling and being all entranced and shit. Please tell me you told him to go fuck himself right after this was taken.”
“I had no idea who he was…” I was still trying to comprehend this. “I swear. How could I?”
“Wasn’t he wearing a name tag?”
“No.”
“Weren’t you?”
“I hadn’t put it on yet.”
She was still glaring at me, tapping her foot.
“I don’t think you would’ve recognized him either, Jenny,” I said. “It’s not like the man ever posts pictures, and he always sues when someone even tries to without his permission.”
Her expression softened, and she let out a breath.
“He showed up there to intimidate you,” she said. “That’s why he asked if you knew who the owner of Slow Burn was. He fucking knew it was you.”
I had a feeling he really didn’t, but I didn’t dare mention it.
“That’s why he pushed up his store announcement.” She nodded. “He’s threatened by you and all your success over here.”
“I…highly doubt that.”
“It’s true, Summer.” She started pacing the floor. “He’s going to start a full-on war with us. I can feel it.”
“Have you had your morning coffee yet?”
“I’m going to assemble the troops,” she said.
“What?”
“Me, Kelly, Michael, and Harriet are going to put together the most intensive promo plan you have ever seen,” she said. “We are going to get more readers in here than ever before, so we can show him that readers don’t need to buy romance from him in this neighborhood.”
“Jenny, look,” I said. “I hate him and his cheap, chain-store model more than words can say, but…”
“But what?”
I’ve been struggling to keep the lights on all year. I'm working eight hours overnight because we're running out of money. Say it. TELL HER.
“I think I need to focus my energy on other things,” I said instead. “It’s been a slow season, you know?”
“No, you need to focus on going to war with a greedy-ass billionaire who is trying to intimidate you.”
“Jenny—”
“War!” She cut me off. “Promise me you won’t just lay down and let him fuck you.”
I probably would... “I think you mean, fuck me over.”
“Exactly. Promise me you’ll give it your all for at least six months, and you’ll stop being so secretive and doomy-gloomy in the mornings.”
“Okay.” I smiled, stunned that we had the same timeline. “I will give my all for the next six months.”
“Good!” She clapped and headed to the door. “I’ll handle the rest. Just trust me.”
I pulled a pillow from my drawer and positioned it on my desk.
“Oh, wait,” Jenny said, looking over her shoulder. “What were you saying about a part-time night job?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged. “I’m just helping out an old friend…I’m getting paid for it, though.”
“You could’ve just told me that without being a weirdo.” She blew me a kiss. “Sweet dreams until we open. Rest up for the war!”
I collapsed onto my pillow the moment she shut the door.