Chapter 52
I am fully hungover. Not from alcohol or infused brownies, but from the week coming to an end.
It’s eleven o’clock and the store is finally dark and empty. New York has left the building.
Somehow I’d pulled myself together enough to manage through the day.
The Q&As were awesome. The signings netted me a small fortune, thank goodness.
The questions about Noah were plentiful, but I think I handled them with grace, even if I am sitting on the floor in the romance section with one of Mrs. Packer’s brownies in my hand, still wrapped.
The shelves are bare, but they won’t be for long. The furniture is back in place, but not in its final place. The week coming up will offer me a chance to put things back to where they were and go on as normal—well, the normal before Noah Carter had walked into my life.
I feel the tears burning my throat, but I know I’ve cried them all out.
Before Katie left, she’d confirmed that Noah had made it back to New York, but there is no peace in that.
What I want is for him to be at my house when I get there.
I want the lights on. I want a fire started.
I want the things he was promising but I know will fade away as soon as he’s back in his own routine.
I’m only his muse to the next bestseller.
He was only my avenue to the dream of having my book published.
I look at my phone. It’s one o’clock in the morning in New York. If I were to text him would he be awake?
No, I won’t do that. I made it fairly clear he needed to just get back to his life.
Rachel has sent me emails every morning for the past three weeks. Notes on my manuscript. Names of editors she’s considering pitching to. Names of editors she’s talked to in brief conversation who weren’t interested.
But in the weeks that Noah has been gone, I’ve been working through Rachel’s notes. I’ve started taking off Wednesday fully, not just in the morning, and I’ve started a new story.
The one thing about a true romance is that it will have a happily ever after—or a happily for now. I guess it’s just my way of writing the story Noah and I should have had—could have had if I wasn’t so worried that one of us would lose ourselves in it.
Julia caught me checking flights to New York, and she must have said something to Lily, because she’s made mention of it many times.
“Go, Em. Just go,” she’ll say from time to time when I’m just managing through my day.
“My life is here. His is there.”
She shakes her head and goes on, but isn’t that how it is? Long distance doesn’t work, not for the happily ever after I want. My happily ever after is still my store.
I always wondered how those authors that put out six or seven books a year can write so fast. How do they come up with the stories that captivate millions? Now I know. They’ve been in love. They’ve touched it. They’ve tasted it. They’ve kept it. They’ve lost it.
It’s been two months since the literary event blew into town. Mrs. Packer has her grandson doing more at the coffee shop with hopes that maybe, someday, he’ll take over. For the first time in all the years I’ve known her, I’ve heard her throw around the word retirement.
Julia and Lily have swapped schedules to better accommodate Julia’s new lab schedule at school. And I’ve written a new novel and a short story. I guess Noah Carter was my muse too.
Julia insists that we keep his books on the front table with his author photo, and I try not to look at it.
The man in that picture was broken, it shows in the circles under his eyes.
But to look at him breaks me. Admittedly, when no one is around and the store is dark, I linger there and gaze into his eyes.
Book sales of his latest book haven’t stopped. We get new shipments of it at least once a week, and we ship out as many books as we have in store.
Rachel and I are finishing the work on my manuscript, and she’s optimistic. “Emma, this is going to sell. I just know it. Noah is positive of it too,” she says when we meet on Zoom to work out the details of the last chapter.
I try not to appear as surprised by his name as I am. “You’ve talked to Noah?”
Rachel blinks a few times. “Haven’t you?”
“No. What we had was temporary. We both knew that.”
I’m not sure what happens in that moment. The sheer look of confusion clouds her face as if she didn’t know he went home and I went on.
“Oh,” she says obviously trying to clear her thoughts. “He was here the other day and I just …” she waves her hands in the air as if she’s wiping away anything that might have clouded her mind. “He just has such nice things to say about you, I just figured …”
Does he miss me? I mean I miss the hell out of him, but neither of us have contacted the other. I won’t do it because, well, I sent him away. I guess he isn’t going to do it either, probably because he knows I was right. It was temporary and now we need to both go on with our lives.
And again, why would you want to contact someone who basically sent you home and said, let’s forget this ever happened.
When Julia comes in for her shift she holds out her phone to me. “Did you see who they’ve signed to play the lead in Caught in the Crossfire ?” she mentions the movie of Noah’s newest book.
I look at the phone and see that Gregory Bishop has signed to play the lead.
Though handsome enough for the leading man of an action film, I don’t see it.
Gregory Bishop’s last few films were sci-fi adaptations of Kent Black’s books, and Noah’s character is far from that.
Then again, what do I know about casting movies?
All I know is that when I read that book now, and I’ve read it three times since Noah left, I only see Noah’s face as the main character.
It’s Noah that hunts down the murderer. It’s Noah that defends the woman, whom I see as me, and takes her to bed and keeps her safe. It’s Noah that’s the hero.