Chapter 48
Julia and Lily walk through the door at the same time. They are each loaded down with bags of all sorts.
“What is all of this?” I ask.
Lily sets her coffee down on the counter before dropping her bags. “We learned a little something last night. One, we get hungry when we’re having to handle so many people. So, snacks. And it gets hot in here when there are two hundred people standing around, so a change of clothes.”
I grin at her. “You did learn a lot, huh?”
“Yeah, and since you weren’t here, we brought you snacks and clothes too,” she says.
This is why she’s always been my ride or die. She’s just the best.
Julia looks around the currently quiet store. “Where is Noah?”
“Psyching himself up for today,” I say. “He’ll come with Dylan later.”
Lily wraps her hands around her coffee cup and leans in on the counter. “Is he okay? That Sylvia stuff was kind of a shit show.”
I know she’ll be truthful to me, though between Katie and Mrs. Packer, maybe I don’t want to know more.
“He’s okay. Was it really that bad?”
Lily shrugs. “When that woman asked the question and Sylvia played it up, it just got tongues wagging. I mean it was like watching a piece of paper on fire lift through the crowd. You want to know how a rumor starts, well that was it.”
“So everyone thought they were involved?”
She bats away the comment with her hand. “It got shut down pretty quick, but it was still a buzz. It was just that Sylvia played it up, you know? Why in this day and age, would any woman want to stake her reputation on some guy she may or may not have slept with? Aren’t we past that by now?”
I pull my lip through my teeth. “Why does this all make me feel like I’m sixteen again?”
“Because it’s just about as petty. But let me tell you, Sylvia shut down once Katie put Dorothy in that chair next to her.”
I can’t help but smile at that. “Was she mad?”
“More like confused. As if she didn’t realize what she’d even said when she answered that woman’s question, or the twenty more of them that came at her before she got to the signing table.
When Katie sat Dorothy at the table and introduced her to the masses as Noah’s mother-in-law, shit changed fast.”
I purse my lips. “But if they know she’s his mother-in-law, then I seem like the other woman too.”
Lily shakes her head. “No. She set all of that straight because she had an intimate conversation with every single person who bought one of Sylvia’s books.
Once Sylvia is done being mad about being sent home, she’ll realize Dorothy might have shut down rumors, but she sold a ton more of Sylvia’s books.
You don’t have any old copies left. You sold out of almost all of her books,” she says grinning proudly.
“That’s incredible.”
Then she reaches for a stapled stack of papers by the register and slides them my way. “And this is the beginning of your new mailing list. Rachel wants us to get it put into a spreadsheet and to send her a copy. People are wanting your book now too.”
“No one even knows what it’s about.”
She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. What they know is they like you. They like your store, and this tiny mountain town. That’s all they need to know.”
Lily picks up her coffee cup and the bags she’d dropped to the floor when she’d arrived and all but floats to the back of the store.
I’m going to owe her and Julia big time when this is all over. I guess that’s all I’ll have to focus on after tomorrow—after Noah leaves.
I’m at the back door. Can you let me in? The text comes from Noah around lunchtime and I can’t help but smile down at it.
I’m helping Julia with a sale, but she shoos me away when I look up at her and smile.
The shop is full, and I’m ecstatic. I will never have this many people through my store again, and I know it. I’m trying to remember how amazing this feeling is.
When I get to the back room, I open the back door. Noah is standing on the other side, his arms loaded up with trays of food.
I reach for some of the items. “What is this?”
“It’s lunch, for everyone. Dylan and Rachel are on their way. Katie is at Agnes’ right now getting everything set up for this afternoon and then she’ll be over.”
“You did this?” I ask, setting trays on the table and watching as Noah does the same.
“I did, but it’s no big deal. It’s the least I can do for everyone for everything you’ve all done for us to be here.”
Once his arms are empty, I pull him into me. “I signed on for this, you know.”
“I know, and still it’s a lot of work. Work you didn’t know was coming.”
I kiss him gently on the lips. “I’d do it all over again,” I say.
“Maybe next time you can be on the other side of it all. The spotlight side.”
“That’s a long ways away.”
“You never know,” he says, his hands sliding over my ass.
Three weeks, I think. Three weeks ago this man was nothing more than a name on a few snarky emails and now he’s changed my entire world.
“Rachel wants an hour of my time before your Q&A,” I say.
“Why don’t you work on it during my signing?”
I shake my head. “I think Katie would have an aneurysm. She wants me at the table.” I lean in closer to whisper in his ear. “She just knows I’m good for you.”
“I know you’re good for me,” he says matter-of-fact.
“Well, I don’t know if you’re good for me or not. I don’t know how I’ll go back to normal when you leave.”
“Emma,” my name is soft on his lips and I press my finger to them.
There is a tapping at the door and Katie pushes it open. “I knew you two were up to no good,” she says looking at us enveloped in one another’s arms, but she’s smiling. “Dylan and Rachel are here. Are we ready?”
Noah takes a step back, but captures my hand. “We’re ready.”