Chapter 20
The UPS delivery and the pile of Amazon packages behind the counter surprise me. Katie has sent more books for Noah’s signing. She’s sent another case of Sylvia St. Clare’s books too, and I hope she’s giving me the same deal as she did on Noah’s, especially if Sylvia signs all of these.
Lily wanders in around five and claps her hands together when she sees the Amazon packages piled up.
“Oh, goodie. Now we can decorate.”
“Decorate? What is all of this?” I ask.
“Katie gave us a budget to get things to decorate the store. We’re going to brighten up the romance section,” she says as she tears into the first box. “I think we should move things around a bit.”
“Why?”
“Well, right now the romance section is like the milk and eggs at the store.”
“Milk and eggs?”
“You have to walk through the whole store to get the most purchased items in the store. So, you pick up cookies and bread and shit you don’t need.”
“Romance is milk and eggs,” I chuckle following along.
“Right. So let’s put the less purchased things like poetry at the front, minus your end-caps and special tables.”
“And where do I go?” Noah asks from the doorway of the office where he’s leaned up against the door jamb, his ankles and arms crossed casually.
The circles under his eyes are even darker now and I wonder what this trip is doing to him physically.
“Oh, hell, you’ll always be in the window, a stack on the counter, and a dedicated table. But, your backlist will be at the back. They’ll have to go through the store to get the goods. More eggs,” she says, continuing her analogy.
“I’m the goods,” he says to me with a smile.
“Oh, she knows,” Lily says in a suggestive voice as she digs into her box.
When I turn my head to look at Noah, he’s grinning back at me. And when he winks, I just want to scoop him up and hold him while he naps.
“Twinkle lights!” Lily says as she pulls out a box. “You can’t have too many twinkle lights.”
I shake my head and laugh as Noah ducks back into the office and I go about opening the new boxes of books and entering them into inventory.
Lily and Julia have been flitting around the store all evening, sprucing up the place. Because I don’t have an eye for it, I let them rearrange the way they want and add twinkle lights to everything they touch.
Lily upped the display in the window to add more of Noah’s books as well as Sylvia St. Clare’s, and of the other authors who will be at the event. When we turn the sign to closed at eight o’clock, Lily and Julia pack up and head home and I gently knock on the office door and push it open.
Again, I find Noah sitting up in the chair, his arms crossed in front of him and he’s asleep.
I can’t help but wonder why he’s paying me for this space when he’s obviously not getting any work done.
He must sense me because his eyes flutter open and he smiles up at me. “Seems like you keep catching me like this,” he says.
“You need to sleep at night,” I say.
“That’s been my mantra since I was ten, but I’m a horrible sleeper,” he admits as he sits up and scrubs his hands over his face. “What time is it?”
“Just past eight.”
“I guess I’ve been here all day, huh?”
I move to the desk and lean against it. “Did you get some writing done?”
He shrugs, stretches, and stands from the chair and pulls me to him. “What are your dinner plans?”
Placing my hands on his chest, I study his face and wish I knew him better so I’d know what was going on behind those eyes.
“I was just going home to have some chili that’s in my slow cooker.”
He lets out a low hum. “What’s the view like from your house?”
That makes me laugh. “Right now? It’s dark. In a few hours, it’ll be pitch black.”
“So no view, but stars?”
“So close it appears that you walk out into a wall of them.”
Noah tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear and lingers his hand on my cheek. “I know it’s forward of me, but will you take me home with you?”
“You’re a fan of chili, huh?”
“I might be,” he says as he runs his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Don’t you think you should get some sleep?”
“I think I’d rather spend some time with you, if you don’t have other plans. I know I’m sucking up your alone time this week, but …”
“I don’t mind,” I say quickly, perhaps too quickly. Alone time is all I’ve had for years. Having someone want to spend it with me is a bonus I hadn’t seen coming.
The corner of his mouth ticks up. “I’ll drive myself and I promise to leave.”
Licking my bottom lip, I consider that. “You know, neither of us has to answer to anyone else.”
He watches me and processes that. “No. If anyone can claim to be adults, it’s us.”
A small laugh escapes me. “I’m trying not to be offended that we’re calling ourselves old.”
“Fifties are not old anymore. My grandmother still danced until she was ninety-eight. She only stopped when her boyfriend in the home died. He was one-hundred and three. She died at ninety-nine. Ten days before she’d have turned one hundred.”
“That would be my goal,” I admit. “Not to die in a home, but to be dancing well into my nineties.”
Slowly, Noah begins to sway us. “Do you dance now?”
“Almost never.”
“Then you have to start if you want to keep doing it until you actually are an old lady,” he says, taking my hand and twirling me in a circle and then back to him.
Pressed against him, I breathe him in.
I’ve spent more than a decade alone, without a man. Oh, a few have wandered in and out of my life, but I don’t need one. And I certainly don’t want to need this one—this one, who will leave me.
But I want him. And, fuck it, I’m plenty old enough to make some bad decisions and go on.
Placing both hands on Noah’s face, I draw him in and kiss him. “If you don’t know the road up to my house, it’s hard to navigate in the dark.”
He studies me for a moment. “So you don’t want me to follow you home?”
I shake my head. “It’s better if I drive,” I say and swallow hard. “And then you stay.”
The corner of his mouth ticks up again, and the darkness around his eyes seems to lift.
“I snore,” he says.
“So do I,” I say, and he laughs.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Noah brushes his lips against mine again. “There may be rumors,” he teases.
“We’ve already been caught sleeping on the floor of the romance section. I assume rumors have already started, and those are the rumors we’re about to fulfill.”
Now I watch his throat work as he swallows hard. “I don’t want to pressure you.”
“No pressure. I’m asking you to come home with me.”
“Maybe we should get some provisions,” he suggests as he clears his throat and I know he’s not telling me we need a bottle of wine.
“On our way out of town,” I tell him and he draws in a deep breath.
“I love chili,” he says.
“So do I. Maybe it’ll be as good for breakfast,” I say, not wanting to stop long enough to eat it tonight. Right now, I just want to get this man home.