Chapter 11
Noah had visited Mrs. Packer for a Ski Bum to keep him motivated and then locked himself in the office. Lily brought lunch, but I made the decision not to bother Noah. He’s a grown ass man, and he’s probably deep in his work. He’ll eat when he’s ready.
“How’s the author?” Lily asks as we open the containers of salad she brought for lunch in the back room while Julia works the front counter.
“Moody. Nice. Handy. Broken,” I say in rapid succession.
Lily stabs her fork into the lettuce and then pauses with her fork right at her lips. “So, you’ve gotten to know one another pretty well?”
I snort out a laugh. “He fixed my office door and then we went out for dinner. It was fine. He told me a little about his wife and I told him about Sean.”
Lily chews her bite slowly, studying me. “You never talk about Sean.”
“We were just exchanging pasts.”
“And when you do that, you still usually leave Sean out of the conversation.”
I think about that as I take a bite of my salad, dissecting the conversation we’d had last night and the sogginess of the lettuce in my mouth.
Swallowing hard, I set down my fork, pick up my water bottle, and take a long sip.
“It just came up,” I say, setting down the bottle and wondering what I’m going to eat, because that salad isn’t going to be it. “He did apologize for the way he treated me when he canceled at my aunt’s store for his signing all those years ago.”
Her eyes go wide. “Are you kidding me?”
I shake my head. “He remembered my name from the emails. It appears we were in Chelsea at the same time when he finished college and you and I were there. Then we got to talking about the store, and he remembered me.”
“I’m surprised.”
“So was I.”
“So why was he such an asshat?”
I chew on my bottom lip and then look out to the store to make sure the door to the office is still closed. “It was the day they took his wife in for surgery after she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.”
“Shit.”
“She died five years later.”
“That diffuses your grudge, huh?”
I shrug. It was never so much a grudge as it was unpleasant in the moment. But I think for Noah, it was so much more. Why would he remember it if it hadn’t rattled him for years?
Julia’s voice grabs my attention. She’s talking to Noah, who has emerged from the office.
I’m suddenly not sure how I feel about the door not making noise.
I didn’t realize just how much of a signal that was.
Then again, it was a signal to everyone else that I was coming.
How many conversations did I interrupt when I pulled open the door and they stopped talking?
Looking out into the store, I see him walking toward the back room through the shelves of books.
“Hey,” he says as he walks to the door, his stride easy. He only stiffens when he sees Lily, and then greets her too.
“Hey,” I say, as if I wasn’t just gossiping about him—well, was it really gossip?
“I’m going to head back to the hotel for a bit; get some lunch,” he says as he looks over our soggy salads.
Was he coming to look for a lunch companion? Nah.
“No problem. I might use the office while you’re gone, if you don’t mind,” I say.
“It’s your office. You can always banish me back here or to the children’s section.”
I shake my head. “The kids that write in that section on their time off are much too advanced for you,” I say and he laughs, and it lights in his eyes.
“I really need to step up my game,” he says, the grin still in place. “I’ll be back later. You’re here later because of book club?”
“We’ll be here until nine. There will be wine and cheese,” I say in offer.
“Intriguing, as much so as the book.”
Noah turns and walks back to the office and I turn back to my salad, stick my fork in it, and raise it to my mouth before I remember I don’t want to eat it. That’s when I catch Lily staring at me with wide eyes.
“What?” I ask as I drop my fork and pick up my water.
“What’s going on between the two of you?”
I look out into the store and then back at her. “What do you mean?”
“You’re flirting.”
“I am not,” I say before sipping my water.
“You most certainly are. And he’s all in.”
I lick the water from my lips and set the bottle on the table, my hand still wrapped around it. “He was flirting, wasn’t he?”
“You both were,” she confirms. “Shit, I can’t remember the last time I saw you light up when a man walked into a room. And that one of all people. Could you get someone more pleasant?”
“I’m not getting him at all. We just talk.”
“You talk and it drips with sex.”
“We didn’t have sex,” I say as if she’s accusing and her face absolutely lights up with a humored expression.
“I didn’t say you were. Wow, Emma. You’re fucking all into this guy.”
I realize just how loud she’s being, but luckily I can hear him talking to Julia, so maybe he can’t hear these stupid accusations from the back of the store.
I lean into Lily and whisper, “He’s a nice guy, under that asshat.”
“He’s into you.”
“He’s lonely.”
“He’s here and so are you.”
“And so are you,” I remind her.
“I’m not single.”
“I’m not looking,” I fire back.
“You don’t have to be looking to have an affair with some broody writer.”
I shake my head at that. “I’m not looking to have an affair. I’m fifty-two years old. I can take care of anything that a man can, and yes, don’t look at me like that. I mean everything,” I say as she perks up and I know what’s coming.
“He’s sweet on you,” she says.
“He doesn’t have a sweet bone in his body.”
“I think you should fuck him while he’s here and finish that romance novel you have stuck on your computer. It just might be the thing that breaks you out of your writing funk.”
I ease back in my chair. “I suck at writing. That’s the writing funk.”
“You do not. You just don’t believe in yourself. The book is good. It just needs some meat.”
I can’t imagine she even remembers the storyline. I’ve been writing that stupid book for so long, even I can’t remember what it’s really about.
Okay, it’s about love, new love, exploring love, falling in love.
Bleh, even I think that is sickening. I quit believing in love when my ex-husband’s girlfriend walked into the restaurant where we were eating one night and told him she was pregnant.
Right then and there, I didn’t believe in it anymore.
Well, not for myself. Had I really loved Sean, he wouldn’t have chosen someone else, and I would have been more hurt when he stood up, pulled her to him, and that was that.
Suddenly I was the other woman and I didn’t care enough to fight for him.
I moved back to Pine Haven two days later and never looked back. I never looked ahead either.
I watch as Noah walks out the front door of the store.
I wonder if he still believes in love after what happened to him. What happens when you actually love someone so much but they’re taken from you?