Chapter 4
HENRY MIGHT’VE HATED DRIVING, BUT HE insisted on picking me up later. With Brigitta back from the shop, I assured him that I was cool grabbing him instead, but he shook his head and said, “Audrey, you are my date.”
Oh, how I pretended to swoon.
“Do you feel like sushi?” he called into the house, boots clomping on the hardwood floor. “Because I made a reservation—”
I tried not to giggle when he walked into the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks.
“You look really nice,” I commented, as if nothing were amiss.
He wore one of my favorite Henry Chen outfits: Chelsea boots with tapered blue pants—sorry, trousers—and a cream sweater.
It might’ve felt like summer during the day, but the temperature slipped at night.
His hair was, per usual, artfully disheveled.
“Doolittle,” he finally said. “What am I looking at?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I played dumb, glancing around the kitchen. “Marble countertops? Subzero fridge? Porcelain farmhouse sink?”
Henry blinked thrice. “No, I mean…” He trailed off to gesture at me.
I kept up my charade. “My outfit?”
Tonight, I’d chosen an all-black ensemble: a turtleneck tank and jeans with my favorite mules whose gold buckles matched my earrings. (I might not have much interest in my hair, but clothes were a different story.)
“Holly.” Henry gave me a cut-the-bullshit look. “Your hair—what happened to your hair?”
“Cut it,” I quoted in a British accent. “Do you like it?”
He rolled his eyes. “Hallie Parker masquerading as Annie James. The Parent Trap, 1998.”
I smirked, then said: “I was a walk-in at the Hair Doctor terrified I’d made a serious mistake, my heart slid into my stomach. But after a couple of hours, the cut was growing on me. It felt cool and fresh—and my mother would absolutely despise it. While she loved the word highlights, she’d never said “dye.”
“What’s this?” Henry moved on to the other elephant in the room: the stolen bottle of wine sitting on the island.
“Oh, I took that from the cellar,” I said. “My parents shot down Blue Ridge again before they left, and I was super pissed.” I shrugged. “I guess I wanted to rebel.”
“By drinking an entire bottle of red wine?”
“Hey, it’s still corked, isn’t it?” I said, then nodded toward the mudroom. “You want me to drive?”
“Nope.” Henry gave me an almost painful smile. “I’m a gentleman.”
“Yes, from head to toe,” I agreed. “But not every gentleman can parallel park.”
All the public lots in town filled up by dinnertime on Fridays.
His smile wavered. “I’ll drive,” he said somberly. “You park.”
“Hey, look at us compromising!” I replied, laughing as I grabbed my jean jacket off the barstool. “Let’s roll, Hank.”
Grumbling, Henry followed me.
IT DIDN’T TAKE HENRY LONG TO ASK ABOUT Ellie.
Technically, he phrased it as How are the Hoppers doing?
but I knew what he meant as we drove toward town.
What did I tell him? Did I paraphrase or directly quote Tate?
“Ellie is happier than ever with Chase,” she’d said during today’s salon appointment. “But no one else in our family is…”
I played it cool. “Ellie wasn’t there.”
Henry snorted. “Nice to hear Chase hasn’t changed,” he said.
“He never spent any time with Pinks’s family.
When she and I started dating, everyone was shocked that I accepted their invitation to stay for dinner and board games.
” His hands shifted on the steering wheel.
“It’s mind-boggling that someone who loves her family so much can be with someone who doesn’t give a shit about getting to know them. ”
I didn’t respond. Tate, with all her seventh-grade wisdom, had said something similar.
“Chase is love-bombing Ellie,” she’d told me while snipping my hair, seemingly at random, “but Henry loves Ellie. Chase just texts her that he’s in the driveway.
” More hair fell to the floor. “And sometimes he’s not even in the driveway yet. She waits on the front stoop.”
“Chase is home from Davidson,” I told Henry as he stopped at a yellow light he totally could’ve made, “but only for a couple of weeks. He’s staying in an Airbnb in Boston before he starts his Bank of America internship.
Apparently, Ellie and her parents are arguing over how often she’ll visit him.
She wants to skip her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday bash. ”
“Okay, no way,” Henry said. “She’d never miss Adelaide’s party.”
“Tate told me Chase invited her to Maine that weekend.”
Henry wrinkled his nose. “That’s just so… not Pinks.”
“Well,” I ventured gently, “it doesn’t really sound like she’s ‘Pinks’ anymore, Henry.”
Henry thought for a beat, not noticing when the traffic light turned green. “No, it doesn’t,” he admitted after the car behind us honked. I fumbled for the safety handle when the Highlander lurched forward. “At least, not right now.”
My heart twisted. He so wanted Ellie to be his again.
Something told me we really needed to commit to this fauxmance.
After circling all the public lots, we did indeed need to parallel park. “Unbelievable,” Henry said when an opportunity opened up right outside the bookstore. It was if the parking gods were daring him to parallel park.
“Watch and learn,” I joked once Henry flipped on the hazard lights and we deployed from the Highlander, quickly switching seats.
I skillfully maneuvered the car between a Mercedes G-Wagon and what was undeniably Griff’s hideous orange Camaro.
It was Friday night. Was he grabbing pizza before heading to a party?
Maybe we’ll see him, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking.
Bedtime Stories was both our town’s beloved indie bookstore and a New England icon.
My mom worked there a few days a week, mostly coordinating author events and creating gorgeous window displays.
I loved the store’s midnight-blue facade and old-fashioned sign, hand-painted in gold block letters.
Inside was a maze of mahogany shelves with various nooks and crannies, not to mention a hidden café.
The bookshop was the perfect place to get lost on a rainy afternoon.
I’d never call myself a reader, but the store was so cozy that I felt inspired to become one.
“Henry, hi!” Mia called when he and I pushed through the door. At the sound of the jingling bell, a cat appeared and weaved between my legs.
“Hello there,” I cooed, and scooped up the gray and white Scottish fold to cuddle her close. Five cats freely wandered the store, but Poppet always rolled out the welcome wagon.
“Hey, Delphinus!” Henry called back, using Mia’s Constellation Catering code name. “Still working two jobs?”
We walked over to the staff recommendations section, where Mia was updating her shelf. It appeared she was a huge fan of hockey romances.
No thanks, I thought as her eyes widened at my bleached hair. Sports and spice aren’t my thing.
Mia told us about her plan to scale back her shifts at Bedtime Stories once Constellation Catering’s schedule picked up next month. “I love the bookstore,” she whispered, “but the cater-waiter money is way better. Like, the tip I got after Jack and Casey’s welcome party—”
“Jake and Cassie,” I corrected her in my best all-business Ellie Hopper voice.
“Oh, right.” Mia nodded, while Henry looked bemused. He offered me his hand, and I hesitated before carefully depositing Poppet on the floor so I could take it.
His fingers were warm.
“We’ll see you later, Mia,” Henry said as the blood pumping in my ears became practically audible. “I promised to buy my love interest a latte and as many books as she wants tonight.”
“With unlimited browsing time,” I added.
“Wait, love interest?” Mia asked. “Are you—”
“He’s a certified book boyfriend,” I chirped, but regretted it almost immediately. Why had Henry called me his love interest, and why had I followed up with boyfriend? Tonight was only a trial run! I swallowed hard. “What’s this week’s specialty latte?”
Ten minutes later, Henry took an artsy photo of me sipping an orange blossom oat milk latte while I read the back of a mystery novel that sounded like Downton Abbey meets Clue meets Groundhog Day.
He posted the photo on his Instagram story.
I reposted it on mine and wrote: Why’re you so obsessed with me?
Then I swore under my breath and quickly deleted it; there was no way I wanted my mom to see my new hairstyle yet. She would shriek all the way across the ocean.
“Okay, you’re not giving me much content,” Henry said after I’d gone from thoughtfully browsing to aimlessly browsing. I had one book; I was all good.
“No, you’re just missing it,” I shot back, because he put down his phone whenever a book caught his eye. Which was pretty much every five seconds.
“That’s not…” Henry started, but got sidetracked by a flashy cover.
Henry bought the book for me, and we agreed to reverse roles.
He browsed the store while I captured moments of him running a slow hand through his hair (if a book sounded good) or rolling his eyes (if a book came off as contrived) or wrinkling his nose (no, nope, no thanks).
He picked out four books: a dark academia novel, an absolute brick of a bestselling history book, something with dragons, and a collection of essays by his favorite comedian.
“Thank you,” he told me when Mia rang up his winners at the register. They were all hardcovers. “You’re the best book girlfriend ever.”
“I’m not sure that’s a thing,” I said, “but you’re welcome.”