Chapter 50
I find it endearing that Dorothy, Grace, and Amy are still at the store well past close. They’d made the trek to see Noah, and they supported him until the last book had been signed.
Dorothy has fallen asleep in my office chair, which Lily pushed out for her to sit in.
Grace has made a list of books she’d like me to send her.
She doesn’t want to carry them on the airplane, but she wants to support my store.
If that isn’t the nicest thing, I don’t know what is.
Of course, she’ll get them at wholesale.
Amy has been reading Noah’s newest book, and reading, and reading. I assume it’s a pastime for them all. She’s already three-quarters of the way through the book.
When the last guest walks out of the store, Julia locks the door, turns the sign, and leans against the door with a loud sigh.
“I have never seen so many people in one place at one time in my entire life,” she says.
“You really should travel more,” Lily tells her.
“I don’t think I could handle it.”
The scene made me think about my aunt’s store the day that people came for their Noah Carter books and he wasn’t there to sign them. Sure, he wasn’t who he is now, in regard to the literary world, but still, there were hundreds of mad people.
I wish I knew then what I know now, perhaps it would have been easier on all of us had I known his wife was sick.
Noah leans back in his chair and laces his fingers behind his head. He’s exhausted, and no doubt peopled out.
“I just walked through the thriller section,” Katie says. “The shelves are bare.”
The smile that slides over my face has to be enormous. I am so happy in this moment I could just burst.
“I’m glad I won’t have to call in any favors to send back books,” I say.
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Katie says with a wink and then she looks around the store. “What can I do to help get ready for tomorrow?”
Lily holds up a sheet. “These are our tasks before Olivia Edwards’ Q&A and signing tomorrow morning.”
“Let’s get to it,” Katie says and then turns to me. “You two get out of here and take his family with you. Take them to dinner at the hotel. I made a reservation for five people. You have twenty minutes to get there.”
I stand from my chair, walk to her, and pull her in for a hug. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure. I think he could use some down time.”
I look back at Noah who has closed his eyes. I think Katie is right.
Noah and I drive separately to the hotel so that I can leave earlier in the morning and he can choose whether or not he wants to even trek into the store. He has one more panel in the morning and then his obligations are over.
The thought puts a lump in my throat.
Tomorrow is it.
Tomorrow is my last day with him and I’ll be busy making sure the last of the authors have as successful a Q&A and book signing as Noah did.
I purse my lips so I won’t cry. I can’t cry. This was the only given. Noah would leave the Monday after the event.
I pull into the hotel parking lot behind Grace and her family. Noah has already parked and is headed toward Grace’s car to help Dorothy from the front seat.
This is where I take a moment and pull myself together. I have tomorrow with Noah, but this is my last night with Abby’s family.
As I gather my things and push open my door, Noah is standing there, his hand out to help me from my car.
I smile up at him.
He’s tired, but there is a joy that surrounds him.
I wonder for a moment if that happiness is the people that came to meet him and gush about his books, or that Abby’s family made the trip to see him, or if I bring out that happiness in his eyes.
Taking his hand, I let him ease me from the car and as he does, he pulls me into him. Quickly I wrap my arms around him for both stability and need.
“Thank you,” he whispers warm in my ear.
“For what?”
“The list is long,” he says. “Just, for everything.”
I ease back and look into his tired eyes. Yes, he’s tired, but the dark circles are gone and light from the streetlamps shimmer against the richness of his pupils.
“Thank you for selling more books at my store than I’ve ever sold—ever.”
His mouth ticks up on the side. “To be a bookseller’s dream,” he teases.
“In so many ways,” I say.
Noah brushes a kiss against my lips, then takes my hand, and as a collective group, we walk into the hotel.
The night is spent eating, drinking, and laughing—oh, so much laughing. They each have a story of Noah, and yes they include Abby, but I almost feel as if Abby is a long lost friend now.
It’s Amy that lets out the gem that has everyone but Noah holding our bellies in laughter.
“He’s afraid of dolls. You know, like the ones at antique stores,” she says on a laugh.
I turn to him, eyes wide. “So you took me to the antique store to look in the window? Did you think that Cabbage Patch Kid was going to come out get you?”
He lifts his brows. “Those things are horrifying.”
“They are a classic piece of eighties history.”
He nods. “And as horrifying now as they were then.”
I place my hand on his thigh. “I have like four of them in a box in my closet.”
“All the more reason you’re staying with me at the hotel and I’m not sleeping at your house. Had I known that all along, I wouldn’t have gone out to the dark woods to stay with someone so obviously demented.”
That has us laughing harder. And to think, I was worried that this man might snap and actually throw me over the side of my deck railing into the dark forest. Who knew I was the one who was disturbed?
Noah sobers as he drinks from his water glass. “My mother would have loved that doll in that window though,” he says, and again, I see a love and a happiness shimmer in his eyes that I couldn’t have imagined a week ago.
There are more laughs, and maybe a few tears, as we hug Abby’s family goodnight, and goodbye, at the elevators.
“We’re so proud of you,” Dorothy says as she pats his cheek.
“Thank you. And thank you for coming. It meant a lot.”
Dorothy smiles, pats his cheek again, and then moves to me and hugs me. “Don’t let him go. He needs you,” she whispers in my ear and then pulls back and pats my face in the same way she’d patted his.
There is a lump in my throat as I watch the three women climb into the elevator.
Don’t let him go, repeats in my head. What choice do I have?
When I turn back to Noah, he’s staring at the closed elevator door. Their visit was what his heart needed, I know this. But their departure hurts. I wonder if he’s missing Abby in this moment.
When he turns his attention to me, he smiles. “What do you say to a nightcap?”
I lift a brow. “Aren’t you dead on your feet?”
“Yes, and my social battery is drained,” he admits. “To be honest, I don’t even want alcohol. Maybe a dessert nightcap?”
I move into him and wrap myself around his arm. “They have a raspberry brownie cake here that’s to die for.”
“Let’s get that to go and eat it outside.”
“It’s freezing outside.”
“I know. We’ll get a coffee too,” he adds as if that’ll make his request better.
“It has to be decaf. I need to get to sleep.”
“Decaf it is,” he says before kissing the top of my head. “Anything for you.”