7. All The Rage （Hattie）
ALL THE RAGE (HATTIE)
T oday might be the longest day in the history of the universe.
It’s moving like a sloth, and I’ve been moving like a zombie, shelving books and organizing orders and speaking to the occasional customer who comes in hankering for a new book.
Not that there are many this early in the week.
Sadly, brick and mortar bookstores are a dying breed, which makes my heart ache.
There’s so much wonder with books, so many instant escapes, especially when you can breathe the pages and touch them like pets.
I’ve fallen in love a thousand times by now, traveled to different continents and distant galaxies across time and space.
I’ve lived countless lives, all from the comfort of my couch or sunning myself on the beach.
The power of books is so freaking vast, I’m still mind-blown.
But I guess people are more interested in the instant convenience these days.
Instead of browsing a bookstore, they jump online and order up at the click of a button.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everybody has tons of shelf space or the money to burn on real pages.
If you find your next bookish true love off a viral TikTok or whenever a curated newsletter hits your Inbox with the latest hits, there’s no shame.
It’s just the old-school process I mourn.
Somewhere along the way forged by tech, we lost the magic that comes from being surrounded by real, live books.
That’s why I love this job so much, even if I wonder why I picked a career that’s about to go the way of video rental stores.
I’m in the back, shelving a big pile of children’s books, when the bell dings. I don my professional, customer-first smile as I head to the front.
Only, it’s not a customer.
“Hattie!” Mom trills my name so loudly my ears hurt.
I wince, wondering if I can get away with closing up early while she’s here. Probably not.
“Hi, Mom.”
She gets distracted from whatever her vendetta is today as soon as she looks at my summer dress. When I threw it on this morning, I thought it was cute, but her frown says otherwise.
“A little top heavy, don’t you think, dear?” She purses her lips. “I know you have great assets—you inherited them from me—but you don’t have to shove them in everyone’s faces.”
Oh my God.
I consider telling her how difficult it is to buy clothes that don’t show at least some cleavage when shopping for a dress my size is always a little unpredictable, but that would be wasted breath.
“I thought it was pretty.” I shrug.
“Well, the design, yes, but… you probably saw it on some Insta model, right? They just carry themselves differently.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to gab about your fashion choices.”
Heading behind the desk, I shake the mouse to wake up the ancient desktop, which whirrs its fan with annoyance.
“Right. Why are you here again?”
She takes a deep breath and leans over the counter, spooling up to drop a bombshell.
“Haven’t I always treated you right? Fed you and clothed you and put a roof over your head?”
Debatable.
But knowing there are worse mothers out there, I just smile and nod.
“And you trust me, Hattie? There’s no daylight between us, right?”
I nod again, this time slower.
“Where are you going with this, Mom?”
“Not where. Why,” she says dramatically. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were engaged ?”
Crap.
My hand stills.
Automatically, I look at the door, but there’s no escaping this and she has me cornered.
Where do I even start?
“Um, I don’t—”
“And to Ethan Blackthorn .” The way Mom says his name is pure reverence.
Terrifying.
The last thing I need is her idolizing my fake husband.
“Well, look—” My lips won’t work.
I still have nothing. The truth isn’t an option, but to try and claim we’re crazy in love also seems wildly inappropriate.
“Darling!” Arms open wide, she struts around the counter and comes in for a bear hug. The widest smile splits her face.
Honestly, I don’t think she’s ever looked this happy to see me since I was five.
I don’t have a second to react before she’s squeezing me so tight I can’t breathe.
Go ahead and laugh.
Until now, I never had a plan for dealing with Mom.
Obviously, she was going to find out I’m getting married sooner or later—it’s not the kind of thing you can keep from her forever. Especially when there’s a billionaire with princely looks and the personality of a poison toad involved.
So, logically, having her find out without having to sit her down and tell her should be a good thing.
It might be, if every muscle in my body would stop locking up as she sways me happily side to side.
“How did you find out?” I whisper.
“It’s everywhere, honey,” she gushes, finally pulling away and dismissing my shock at the news. “I can’t remember where I read it. At least three different articles online this morning. Some big charity thing? You couldn’t tell me about that either?”
Lovely.
That’s code for reading one of her cringe gossip sites.
She pretends she doesn’t follow them, but she does religiously.
Julia Sage doesn’t do sweets, so she consumes crazy amounts of salacious rumors instead.
The moment someone breaks up with their partner or old friends fall out or everybody’s favorite heartthrob becomes a wretched cheater, she knows.
Portland is a smaller city, but not so tiny it doesn’t have a spinning gossip mill. And when the Blackthorns are involved, the rags from Boston to New York strike first.
Oof.
It just never occurred to me that I would be the talk of the town after I’ve trotted out in public with Ethan Blackthorn.
That’s what happens after a whole evening together, announcing our engagement to glowy-eyed rich people.
And now the whole world knows it.
The only one who doesn’t at this point is Mr. Sneed, my boss, and that’s only because he wouldn’t know town gossip if it hit him in the head with a hardcover special edition of War and Peace .
I rub my eyes, suddenly exhausted.
My entire life just flipped at the speed of a car wreck.
“So?” Mom prompts, perched on the edge of the counter. “Tell me everything . Start at the beginning.”
“Mom, you can’t sit there. We’re still open.”
She looks around. “There are no signs saying I can’t.”
“Mom, I work here, and I’m the one telling you,” I hiss.
“Oh, Hattie.” She sighs—sometimes I feel like our roles are reversed and I’m the adult—but she slides off and gives me a dazzling smile. “There, now stop delaying. Dish.”
I wince.
Guess I really was that transparent.
“What do you want to know?”
“What don’t I want to know?” Her eyes are shiny and she’s wearing a matte red lipstick, making her look a little like a painted clay character. “How did you get together?”
“Well,” I say awkwardly, “we knew each other as kids.”
“Oh, I know that . But didn’t he go away? And he just came back?”
“Basically, yeah.” I feel like I’m reciting bullet points of Ethan’s vague personal history. “But we, uh—we kept in touch? Margot was an easy bridge. I think she always wanted to set us up.”
If he finds out I said that, I’m dead.
Here I am, making up a history on the fly even I won’t be able to keep straight.
“Wow. He’s been in love with you since you were teenagers? That many years ago?” Mom has whale eyes bigger than an excited puppy, clasping her hands together.
“ No . God no. We didn’t get along too well when we were young, if you remember.”
She nods. “Okay…”
“I don’t know. Things just changed. It was all very sudden.” I think about Ethan’s intense blue eyes and the way he forbid me from ever speaking to Cooper Daley again.
Almost like he was jealous .
I’m misreading signals, I’m sure, because Ethan Blackthorn doesn’t strike me as the jealous kind.
Certainly not when he’s only pretending to be into me.
Then again, how can I know for sure if I’ve never seen him into anyone else?
He used to be a serial dater, yeah, but that’s not the same. It’s not like I was there for that.
“There must be more. Tell me,” Mom demands.
“They said you looked very cozy with him in Kennebunkport.” She wags her eyebrows.
I want to scrub the image out of my brain with bleach.
“Was the proposal romantic? Are his parents still nice? How long have you been dating? My, I haven’t seen the Blackthorns in years… ”
The questions keep coming like machine gun fire.
“Um. Um!” I say. “We weren’t dating that long, but…” God, what do I say? My palms are slick. Whatever I say now, I’ll need to remember to tell Ethan later and suffer the consequences. “I haven’t reconnected with his parents yet. We’re having dinner soon.”
That is, if I can get the time off.
Mr. Sneed is a notorious tightwad when it comes to PTO. He doesn’t like to handle customers on his own, preferring to hole up in the back office.
I’m way better at customer service anyway than his wooden, grouchy face.
The ball of stress in my stomach snowballs.
“Oh, dinner?” Mom echoes. “That’s perfect. Make sure you let me know when and where. I’ll join you!”
“What?” My heart leaps up my throat. “Mom, I don’t think that’s—”
“Nonsense! We’re going to be one big happy family now and someone has to make sure you don’t blow this. The Blackthorns are high-class people. Practically New York royalty. You need to impress them and take it seriously, Hattie.”
I gawk at her. “Mom, you can’t come.”
“Of course I can, honey. I’m sure they’ll love you, but it’s Ethan Blackthorn we’re talking about.” She ghosts a kiss against my cheek. “You simply can’t let a man like that start to wonder and get cold feet, can you?”
My eyeball twitches.
So. Close. To. Smacking. Her.
A whole new humiliation opens under me like a portal to hell.
I didn’t know it was possible to dread an event more, but my mom pushes the limits.
If she shows up with kale juice, I will spontaneously combust.
The implication that I’ll lose Ethan without her help also stings, even though he’s not technically mine to lose.
“I shouldn’t distract you at work,” she says abruptly, flashing me the worst smile.