Chapter 4
Flint
By noon, we’d checked out twenty customers and interviewed four applicants. My stomach was growling loud enough that Avery had started shooting glances at my belly during the last interview.
“I’m grabbing lunch,” I announced after they left, pushing back from the folding table we’d set up in the back room for the interviews. “I’ll be back in fifteen.”
I didn’t wait for her response before heading out into the cold mountain air.
The Hungry Rooster was two blocks down, and I ordered two of their signature burgers with fries. Avery needed to eat too, and I doubted she’d take a break on her own. She hadn’t yesterday.
When I got back, she was sitting exactly where I’d left her, reviewing her notes on the applicants we’d seen so far. Her blonde hair had slipped loose from behind her ear, and she tucked it back absently as I set the paper bag on the table.
Her eyes went wide when I pulled out her burger and fries and slid them across the table toward her. “I didn’t ask you to get me anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” I dropped into my chair and unwrapped my own food. “Eat.”
She hesitated for a moment, her lips pressing together in that way I was starting to recognize. This particular lip twitch meant she was fighting some internal battle.
Then she reached for the burger and unwrapped it carefully, like she was afraid it might bite her back.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, and I found myself watching her more than I should have. She took small, deliberate bites and wiped her fingers on her napkin after every few fries.
And she kept her eyes down, avoiding my gaze like she had all day.
She was so damn careful about everything.
“Bailey’s the best fit so far,” I said between bites.
Avery’s face crumpled, and I watched her try to smooth it back into something neutral.
“She’s energetic,” I said, ticking off the points on my fingers. “Cheerful. Outgoing. Charismatic. And she’s got previous retail experience, which none of the others had.”
Avery’s jaw tightened, and I realized with a sinking feeling that I’d just described the exact opposite of her. Energetic where she was measured. Cheerful where she was reserved. Outgoing, where she was clearly painfully introverted.
Her lower lip quivered, just slightly, and I felt like the biggest asshole in Arkansas. I’d spent so many years living alone in the woods that I’d forgotten how to talk to women without making them want to cry.
Shit.
“You’re good with customers,” I said quickly, trying to course-correct. “I’ve seen it. You know exactly which books to recommend, and you remember what people bought last time. But I can tell your natural state isn’t suited for constant interaction. You’re an introvert.”
Like me, I almost added, but I bit it back. That felt too personal. I wasn’t ready to admit we had something in common.
“And Bailey’s beautiful,” Avery said quietly, her voice tight. “And a perfect size six.”
I cocked my head, confused by the direction she’d taken.
Bailey was attractive enough, I supposed, in that generic way that young women who spent too much time on their appearance tended to be. But she hadn’t made my pulse kick up the way Avery did every time she got close enough for me to catch her scent.
Avery made me want to smooth-talk my way right in between her thighs.
I opened my mouth to tell her that she was way fucking hotter than Bailey could ever hope to be, but I caught myself just in time.
That wasn’t appropriate. She was my employee for the time being, and I had no business saying shit like that. It wouldn’t be right to seduce the woman who worked for me, even if it was just temporary.
But after Marlene gets back.
My cock jumped in my jeans. Well, Avery better watch out then.
Because that’s when I’d pursue her with dogged determination. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since the first moment I’d laid eyes on her.
“Bailey’s got the most retail experience out of everyone we’ve interviewed,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.
“At a clothing store. In the mall. All the way in Fernwood.” Avery’s lips twisted. “She doesn’t even read.”
I recognized the way she said that last part. She’d used the same tone with me yesterday, a quiet judgment that suggested not reading was a moral failing on par with kicking puppies.
I studied her while I finished my burger and fries. She picked at her food, clearly upset, and I found myself noticing things I shouldn’t.
Avery was a curvy sexpot if you were into shy, bookish types. I hadn’t known I was until I met her.
Her cardigan pulled slightly across her chest as she leaned away from the table, stretching the fabric tight over the curve of her breasts. I wanted to dive into her soft curves and explore every inch of her.
When I was done eating, I crumpled up my wrapper and tossed it in the trash. “I don’t think she’s hot,” I said gruffly. “And she said she reads.”
Avery’s lips twitched. “Did you ask what sub-genres she likes? That should be question number one.”
“Sub-genres?”
Avery sighed. “Yes. Let’s just review some of the genres in the romance section, since that’s where most of our sales come from.
You have contemporary, romantasy, small town, mafia, motorcycle, billionaire, and historical, just to name a few.
But our big seller is mountain man romance.
It’s pretty trendy here, probably on account of us living in the mountains. ”
“Mountain man?” he rumbled.
She looked me up and down. “You fit that sub-genre to a tee, straight down to the mud-spattered boots you wear every day and the way you scrub your hand through your beard every time you’re thinking hard.
Oh, and that red flannel you’re wearing that hardly fits on your oversized muscles? It makes you a walking cliché.”
Flint pulled his hand away from his beard. “I promise you one thing, Avery. I don’t fit in any of these romance novels.”
“Mm-hm, I already know that about you,” she said without missing a beat. “But try telling that to the customers. I fear for your safety when the Mountain Man Romance Book Club starts. The ladies are going to mob you.”
I blinked hard, trying to come up with a response to that. But in the end, all I did was grunt and wonder what exactly she meant.
“Anyway, then you get into more esoteric categories like paranormal, shifter, and monster fuckers,” she continued. “And let’s not even get started on tropes. Do you even know what a trope is, Flint?”
“Monster fucker?” A laugh burst past my lips.
She shrugged while pink tinged her cheeks. “It’s a thing.”
Avery was probably right.
I’d asked about availability and experience and if they liked people, but I hadn’t thought to ask what kind of books the applicants actually enjoyed. In a bookstore, that seemed like a pretty big oversight. I always thought a romance book was just a romance book.
Who knew there were categories for them?
My head had been spinning since yesterday as I tried to figure Bookish out. I’d be completely lost without Avery here.
“How about we do the interviews together?” I rumbled. “I get a question. Then you get a question. We take turns.”
Avery looked at me as if I’d just offered her a winning lottery ticket. Her eyes went wide and her lips parted slightly, and then she seemed to catch herself.
She pressed her mouth into a firm line and gave a small nod, but I could see the happiness she was trying to hide. The corners of her lips kept wanting to curve upward, and she had to work to keep them still.
I grinned at her, unable to help myself, my eyes settling comfortably on hers.
Hunger licked at the distance between us, and I had to fight off the urge to make my interest known.
But she must have sensed it because her eyes went wide again, and she looked away quickly. Then a scarlet flush crept up her neck and spread across her cheeks.
She stood up and started stammering, but I couldn’t make sense of her words. She was coming undone right in front of me.
I suddenly had the distinct feeling that Avery might be into me. This wasn’t a one-sided lust affair.
Her careful mask had slipped, and she’d turned into a cute bundle of nerves.
I stood up to get back to work, as we gathered our trash and straightened the chairs.
As Avery moved toward the backstock door, I found myself asking, “How do you know Bailey doesn’t read?”
She paused, turning back to face me. “She’s got a bookcase in her bedroom. I saw it in some of her photos on Instagram, but it’s full of candles and makeup supplies. No actual books.”
I raised an eyebrow, impressed despite myself.
“And when I told her that we all read the top sellers every month so we can recommend them to customers, she said that sounded great.” Avery’s lips did that expressive twist again.
“But her smile dimmed. Plus, I know that type of girl. She spends her days at the mall in Fernwood and her nights at the Bear Den chasing after men like you. There’s no time for reading in her life. ”
Men like me?
“I don’t go to the Bear Den. Or the mall.”
Avery blinked up at me, not sure if she believed me, but it was true. I preferred real bears over the Bear Den bar.
Give me a stretch of woods and no sign of human life for miles around, and I was at home.
Being inside the city limits of Red Oak Mountain right now was tough, and we only had a few thousand people here.
The only reason I was putting myself through all this humanity was for my aunt. After this month was up, I planned to run back off to the woods and not come out again for a few years.
Avery knew how to judge the applicants better than I did. She’d been doing this for six years, watching customers come and go, learning to read people the way she read the novels she loved.
I’d been arrogant to think I could make this hiring decision without her input.
“Your opinion matters,” I grunted out. “We’ll decide together who to hire. But I still get the final call.”
She blinked at me, surprised again, and I wondered how often people actually listened to her. Avery would be easy to dismiss because she was quiet and shy and didn’t push back.
As she turned to leave the back room, I stepped closer and put my hand on her lower back. The contact was brief, just a gentle pressure through her cardigan.
“For the record,” I rumbled into her ear. “You’re way hotter than her.”
She gasped and her lips twitched, fighting a smile. Another light flush spread across her cheeks as she ducked her head and hurried toward the front of the store.
I followed behind her, watching the sway of her hips in that flowy skirt, while I wondered what the hell I was getting myself into.