Chapter Eight
Zoey
O h my God. Magnus lowers his mouth to mine, his lips, those gorgeous lips that must fuel a thousand female fantasies brush lightly on mine.
It’s a sweet, soft, fleeting kiss, a butterfly touch that makes my blood sing arias. His mouth is warm, everything I imagined and more.
I sway in against him, seeking, wanting…
I don’t care this is someone I just hired. I don’t care I just met him. It’s like magic, a light that whispers in my blood, and then, like a dream, it shatters into reality.
“Magnus?” The shout is shocked and the voice low and male.
“Shit.” He’s not kissing me anymore. Instead, his head jerks up and he glances over my head as the sounds of the city and the light from the door where we stepped through infiltrate my spinning, buzzing head.
I go to turn, but Magnus pulls me to him and looks at me and says, “Give me a minute.”
People have spilled out to the roof and with them in the warmish fall night is another tall man, one who seems to be as tall as Magnus. They’re backlit so I can’t see their faces, just the silhouettes of two fit, lean men. And they’re arguing. Pointing. I start going towards them, because I don’t know why. I just want to help. And I want to be close, and even though it’s wrong, I want to feel the magic of his touch, or even just his presence.
But when I reach him, he drags me off to the stairs and away from whoever he’s talking to. I’m hustled down first, Magnus at my back as the voice follows. “No, honest. Real nice talk, Mag. Loved it. Do it again soon?”
“Asshole,” he says.
We hit the kitchen and he takes my hand, pulling me past Suzanne who says, “Go girl!” And gives me the thumbs up.
It’s not until we’re on the street and cutting through the park that I get my mind back into reality. “Magnus.”
I pull free and stop.
He turns.
“What was that?”
A muscle in his jaw works and a thousand different expressions flit over his face. “Someone I didn’t want to see.”
“It sounded like he knew you.”
For a moment I don’t think he’s going to answer, but a buzzing sound comes from the back pocket of his jeans and he pulls out the latest smartphone that’s just hit the market. I know that’s what it is, because Suzanne has been coveting it since before the release of the quad digit device.
He grimaces and slides it away. “Leftover perk from my old job,” he says by way of explanation, and my cheeks go up in burning flames.
“I—I wasn’t judging. Or asking.”
“I should sell it.”
Then he gives me a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “That guy was someone I know, yeah. A pain in the ass.”
“Someone you worked for.” Oh, God. What if the man was the reason Magnus no longer has his money making job? What if it’s not just he quit, but he got forced out?
“Something like that. I’ll take you home, Zoey. I need to stop by my gran’s.”
“I’ve love to meet her.”
He starts off across the park, towards the Lower East Side end of it, and I hurry to catch him. After a moment he slows a little, and then when we hit the sidewalk, he hails a cab and I immediately scrounge in my pocket for my wallet because he’s got enough to deal with and I don’t pay him enough.
“No—”
“You work for me, I made you come out. So I’ll pay for it.” I can make the twenty plus bucks somehow work with my stretched budget.
We head to toward Delancey Street and the Williamsburg Bridge.
He doesn’t say much. Just sends some texts.
I glance at him then watch the stores and streets pass as we drive down Broadway and finally turn off onto my stretch. “Your gran’s pretty savvy with text.”
“She is.” And when we pull up, he looks at me, his gaze dropping to my mouth and deep down inside me things begin to tingle. “Thanks, Zoey, for taking me out. It was good. We should do it again.”
I lick my lips and he takes in that motion with dark onyx eyes and it’s only my sheer stubborn will that keeps me from launching myself into his arms and ravishing him there and then. Well, that and I’m his boss.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“No,” he says, “you’re probably right.”
“Goodnight, Magnus. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” I go to climb out and he says, “You know, maybe you should meet my gran at some point.”
“I’d love that.” And I rush up to the store and unlock the side door that takes me to my apartment. He stays until after I relock the door.
And it’s only when I hear the cab pull away that I give in to the shake in my knees and sink down to the floor in the tiny foyer.
What the hell was that kiss?
Awkwardness seems to have become my middle name the next day.
At first, I don’t think he’s turning up. It’s a little cool and the clouds are back and Tuesday Harry comes in, a big grin splitting his face. It’s not Tuesday, but sometimes he likes to shake things up, plus I think he’s got some secret inbuilt radar for when I make a spiced apple cinnamon sponge, and dark muscovado sugar cookies.
Those weren’t my plan, but at four am when I woke, I knew I couldn’t get back to sleep. I got up, drank hot chocolate mixed with fresh espresso because I like that sort of thing, and baked. Then I went over all the books, fretted about the payments for taxes and utilities, now I had a wage to pay. And then I fussed along the aisles. And waited for ten a.m.
It’s almost eleven now. And there’s no Magnus.
Maybe I’m a terrible kisser. Worse, maybe he somehow contacted Bronn and they both decided I’m a terrible kisser.
I’m being a maniac, I know that. I shove extra cookies and cake at Harry, who willingly eats them all up.
He shakes his plate in my direction, showering the floor with tiny crumbs. It’s a good excuse to get the vacuum out later. I do my best soul decimating when I’m cleaning. “You look different, Zoey. Are you having a baby?”
I give him a mock-severe look. “Are you calling me fat?”
“Now, now, don’t be like that. You know you’re my favorite book girl,” he says, winking.
“You think you’re being charming, but you’re not.”
He chuckles and sets down the plate, eyeing the cake, and so I cut him another piece and give it to him. And my gaze wanders to the door that stays closed and Magnus free.
“I only mean you’re glowing. And, I’m always charming.”
“I think that’s the accent.”
“It’s well known all Jamaicans are charming.”
“You’ve been in New York how long?”
Harry starts counting on one hand. “Fifty-three years.”
“You’ve been here since you were a kid.”
He chuckles again and straightens his tie. And I duck behind the counter to get some of the books I put aside for him.
“Oh, Zoey girl, what are we going to do?”
“I’m not selling.”
He sighs and I know what he’s not saying.
“There’s no way I’m going anywhere.”
The bell tinkles and a cool breeze swirls in along with a wash of noise from the world beyond my store. For a moment, every nerve ending sings and trembles, but it’s not Magnus. He’d say something, and he isn’t the type to be so late. At least, I think he’s not. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Harry leans over the counter and looks at me. “Did you meet a man?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the first question you should have asked.”
“Yes, Zoey,” says a rich, low voice, alive with warmth and humor, “did you?”
I surge to my feet, narrowly missing Harry and bashing my head on the side of the counter. For a moment, my ears ring and my heart goes wild.
“Magnus.”
“You did meet a man!” Harry looks at him. “Did you—”
“Harry!” I’m not having him ask Magnus if he got me pregnant. “This is my new assistant.”
“Magnus,” says Magnus and holds out his hand.
Harry studies that hand like it’s a fanged snake. “You sure he can handle this work? Have you seen those hands? I don’t think he’s done a day’s hard labor in his life.”
“You’re a retired accountant, so neither have you.”
Harry isn’t bothered. “I’ve thought about it.”
“This is a bookstore. The heaviest labor is shifting a box of books.”
“Well, what about when you two—”
“Harry! There’s a whole new shipment of knitting books.”
Harry sniffs. “I’ll have a look.”
“I didn’t think you were coming,” I say, my cheeks going nuclear hot the moment Harry lopes off toward the aisle with the knitting books.
“I should have called but…”
“Is it your gran?”
Harry is back. “Gran? Got a pic?”
I give him my best evil eye, but he just waves a hand in the air at me and returns to the aisle.
“Yeah. I’ll…um…organize the books for you.”
“They’re out.”
“I mean the ones we didn’t unbox.”
There are boxes of them that I’m not yet sure to do with on the third floor, but maybe if he does that, I can take care of things here and not have to redo whatever he does to my poor register. I smile brightly. Really, what I want to do is bury my face against his chest and breathe that scent of his down into my lungs. And maybe try the kissing that’s never happening again, again.
“Third floor.” I toss my keys to him. “You can’t miss the boxes. Just…organize them into groups until you can’t stand it anymore.”
For a moment he looks like he’s going to say something, but he just nods and turns and heads for the stairs.
And I tell myself I’m relieved.
“Tuesday Harry?” Magnus looks up at me from the aisle of books he’s walking down and my heart gives a little thrill. “Also, knitting?”
I wave my hands in the air. “He says it keeps arthritis at bay. He also says the romance novels he buys keeps his mind active, but I think he misses his wife. She died five years ago and he took over buying the things she did. Mostly he just comes in and doesn’t get books, but when he does, it’s those on the whole.”
“Gotcha.”
“He’ll occasionally pick up books he likes, too, racy thrillers and old school detective novels, but I think he really misses her. He asked more about your gran.”
Suddenly a wave of anxiety washes down over me. “Is she okay?”
“It was a bad night. I really should have called and—”
“You can take off all the time you need,” I say to him.
He hovers, then goes to make a coffee and I brace myself for calling in someone to fix it, but he makes two cups like a pro. He adds the sugar and the milk for me and gives me a piece of cake, even though I don’t ask for any.
And he looks down into his little cup. “I bet you didn’t charge him.”
“I did.”
But he laughs and shakes his head. “A dollar?”
My cheeks burn. “It’s my store.”
“You’ve a good heart, Zoey,” he says, sounding a little sad. Then he looks at me, and says, “About last night…”
Oh. God.