Chapter 1 #2
I light up. Poor Yorick Books was my parents’ baby. There’s nothing I love more than strategizing how to bring more customers through the front doors.
"So I've been thinking about starting a romance novel book club. Once a month to start, in the evenings? It wouldn't cost a thing, but it might pull in some foot traffic on a dead night."
What I don’t say is that it would give me somewhere to be on a Tuesday. We might even get some repeat customers. Maybe some friendships could blossom out of it. It’s a little embarrassing how quiet and frankly dull my life has been these past few years.
“Noemi.” Kathleen sets down her glass. "That’s such a boring idea. Who would even sign up? No one reads those trashy little books but you."
My cheeks heat. I don’t think that she’s right. I’ve seen other bookstores having successful romance novel events. But with my snooty aunt staring me down, all I can manage to say is, "It's just an idea."
She rolls her eyes.
"Strangers in the shop after dark? You alone with whoever drifts in off the street? With your nerves the way they are, Noemi, you'd land yourself back in the hospital inside a month. Honestly, I only say it because I love you."
And there it is. Her reasoning for shutting down any kind of group I might join or friendship I might make is always the same: if I push too hard or open myself up too much, I’ll end up right back in the hospital. It’ll be just like the months following the death of my parents.
Maybe she is right. I might be lonely, but at least I’m not having the constant panic attacks that landed me in a six-month long stint in the psychiatric unit.
“Right,” I say softly. “There is that.”
“Yes. We don’t want anything to happen to you, Noemi. It’s not worth another hospital stay over something as silly as a book club.” She pats my hand and then turns back to Marc.
The word silly sticks with me. I folded because I always do, but my idea wasn’t silly. It could work. I’ve stayed up late at night, watching TikToks of other bookstores running such events.
I sigh. Something needs to change. My life can’t go on being lonely and empty of pleasure.
The food comes and buys me twenty minutes of not talking, which is the most generous thing anyone's done for me all evening. Around the time Kathleen starts in on a cousin's divorce, I set down my fork.
"Going to find the restroom," I say. I slide out of the booth, but my aunt is too deep in her gossiping to even spare me a glance.
The hall to the restrooms runs behind a half-wall by the kitchen, close enough to our booth that voices carry when the people making them assume nobody's nearby. I take my time washing my hands, then play with my hair in the mirror. On my way back, my uncle’s voice carries from the booth.
"...haven't you done enough to that poor girl?" Marc hisses, low and pulled tight.
I stop with one hand flat on the half-wall.
Kathleen's answer comes out as an answering hiss. "It's this or something worse, Marc. Someone else has been watching her. Skulking around in the shadows. You want to sit on our hands and find out who gets to her first? At least this way we’ll get something out of it."
“You’re talking crazy, Kathleen,” Marc says. “You’re beginning to sound unhinged.”
“We should tell them where to find her. We get paid and we finally get what should've been ours. The building. The store–"
Marc cuts her off, leaning down and whispering while he grips her arm.
My pulse goes loud in my own ears. Who is her? Me? It has to be me, unless I'm the particular flavor of self-absorbed that hears her own name in every conversation she stumbles upon.
But what could they be talking about? Some kind of event, no doubt.
Stepping out, I pin Kathleen with my stare. She notices that I’m returning and smiles. "There you are. I was starting to wonder if you’d run off."
She laughs like it’s the biggest joke. Marc studies his bread plate like it owes him money.
Maybe I should run off. It would certainly shut her up for once.
"Here I am," I say. I drop back into the booth.
Dinner ends the way it always does with my family, fast and without ceremony the second Kathleen decides it's over. No check comes. Marc doesn't ask for one, Sherrie doesn't bring one. We started coming here a few months ago and I don’t think we’ve paid the bill once.
The burst of cold is immediate when I step outside. I tug my jacket closed, looking around. Half a block down, in the gap between the shuttered dry cleaner and the empty building next door, he stands.
My follower, blond and big and still as a held breath. My whole body tingles again.
Uncle Marc sees me staring and follows my gaze. “Do you know that man, Noemi?”
“No.” My lips curve up. “But he seems intriguing.”
“Noemi!” Kathleen hisses, her hand closing around my arm. "You will do no such thing. He could be a serial killer for all you know. You see him, you go the other way. You don't speak to him, you don't look at him, you cross the street."
"Funny." Heat climbs into my voice and surprises even me. "You spent a whole dinner telling me I'm too fragile to host a book club in my own store. You threatened me with the psychiatric unit. Now you’re saying that I should be afraid of every man I see on the street. What aren’t you telling me?”
Something moves across Kathleen's face in a way I’ve never seen before. The look she gives me is cold and calculating. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, little girl.”
I yank out of her grasp. “Or maybe you’re worried that I do know.”
Marc's hand lands on her shoulder. "Kathleen.
" Quiet, a warning of his own. He tips his chin past me, down the block, and when I follow it, the blond man is nearer than he has ever let himself come.
He's crossed from the dry cleaner to the lip of the streetlight's dead zone, close enough now that I could pick him out of a crowd.
His eyes are light, blue or green, and they’re fixed on me with such intensity that I shiver. He’s perhaps a few years older than me. And he’s so handsome that making eye contact with him knocks the breath from my lungs.
Kathleen releases my arm. The smile clicks back into place. "We worry, is all. Get home safe, Noemi. Text me the second you're through the door."
She kisses the air beside my cheek and steers Marc off toward their car. I stand on the freezing sidewalk wondering what the hell just happened. I’ve never seen my aunt lose interest in a fight like that.
What the hell is going on?
Distracted by watching my aunt and uncle disappear, I miss the moment when my follower melts back into the shadows. When I turn back and find him gone, I huff.
There goes my chance to stroll on over and ask him what he wants.
Hugging myself, I point myself toward my apartment and start walking. Somewhere in the first block two decisions settle in and refuse to be argued out.
I'm going to find out what my aunt and uncle were really saying back there.