35. Nothing You Expected #2
“He’s kind.” I hear the defensiveness in my voice and hate it immediately. “He remembers customers’ names. He helped Mrs. Donovan carry a grandfather clock to her car last winter when her arthritis was bad. He volunteers at the library. He—”
“Piper.” Crew holds up a hand. “You don’t have to sell me on Montgomery Hamilton. I believe you. He’s a prince among men. The question is: does Montgomery Hamilton have a crush on you?”
The heat in my neck reaches my cheeks. I am thirty seconds away from full-blown mortification, and Crew is watching it happen with the calm interest of a man observing weather patterns.
“I don’t know.” My voice has gone thin. “He’s never... he doesn’t...”
“He doesn’t notice you.”
The words land like stones. Not cruel stones. Honest ones. Crew says them the way he’d report a navigational fact: the channel runs east, the water is eight fathoms deep, Montgomery Hamilton does not notice you.
“No.” I pick up a bookmark and put it down again. “He doesn’t.”
“Has he ever been in here? The bookstore?”
“Once. Last Christmas. He bought a book on maritime antiques and asked if we carried anything on shipbuilding techniques from the 1890s.”
“Romantic.”
“It was for research.”
“Everything’s for research with that guy.
” Crew leans his hip against the counter.
His expression has shifted—the teasing edge softened into something more thoughtful.
“So what’s the plan? Wait for him to spontaneously develop night vision and notice the brilliant, hot bookstore owner three doors down from his shop?
Because I gotta tell you, Pip, men like Montgomery operate on a different frequency.
You could set yourself on fire and he’d ask if you had any first editions. ”
The nickname catches me off guard. Pip. Nobody calls me Pip except Colter, and even then only when he’s feeling particularly twin-ish. Coming from Crew, it sounds different—warmer, like something that belongs.
“There is no plan.” I cross my arms. “That’s the problem. I’ve read approximately seven thousand romance novels, and not one of them contains a chapter called ‘How to Make a Dependable Man Notice You When You’ve Been Invisible to Him for Three Years.’”
Crew goes quiet. The quiet is different from his usual pauses—those are performative, timed for comedic effect. This is genuine. He’s thinking. His brow furrows. His thumb taps once, twice against the edge of the counter.
Then he looks at me. Really looks. His eyes find mine behind my glasses, and whatever he sees there makes his expression shift again—something tender breaking through the easy charm, something that looks almost like recognition.
“You want to know how to make a man like Montgomery notice you?”
The question hangs between us. I should say no. I should thank him for the shelf, usher him toward the door, and return to my safely fictional love stories where the heroines are brave and the heroes are inevitable and nobody has to ask for help because the plot delivers it on a silver platter.
Instead, I hear myself say: “Yes.”
Crew nods. Once. Decisive. “I can help with that.”
“You?”
“Me.” He doesn’t smile. That’s the strangest part.
Crew Morrison, who has never had a serious conversation in his life if he could make a joke instead, is looking at me with absolute sincerity.
“Every woman deserves to feel confident. Every woman deserves to walk into a room knowing exactly how fucking spectacular she is, and have everyone else know it too. If what you want is for Montgomery Hamilton to see you—really see you—then yeah. I can help.”
“This feels like a terrible idea.”
“It is a terrible idea.” He grins then, and the charm floods back in, but it’s warmer now, tempered by something that might be respect.
“I’m your brother’s best friend. I’m grounded from the Coast Guard for launching a helicopter without authorization.
I have a dating history that would make your romance novels blush.
Taking advice from me is objectively the worst decision you could make. ”
“Then why are you offering?”
“Because you asked.” He says it like it’s that simple. Like the fact that I asked is reason enough. “And because watching Dean and Scarlett almost die made me realize I’ve been wasting a lot of time on things that don’t matter. Helping you matters. So. You in?”
I should say no. I should thank him for the shelf and change the subject and go back to being Piper Haven, quiet bookstore owner, supporting character in everyone else’s story.
Instead, I hear myself say: “I’m in.”
“Excellent.” Crew pushes off the counter. He grabs his toolbox. “First lesson: tomorrow. My place. Four o’clock. Wear something that isn’t a cardigan.”
“I don’t own anything that isn’t a cardigan.”
“Then wear the cardigan that makes you feel the least like a librarian.”
“I am a librarian.”
“You’re a bookstore owner. There’s a difference.
” He heads for the door. At the threshold, he pauses.
Looks back. The afternoon light catches his profile, turns his sun-bleached hair gold at the edges.
“This stays between us. Zade cannot know. If Zade finds out I’m giving his little sister dating advice, he will drown me in the harbor, and nobody will find the body. ”
The bell jingles as he leaves. I stand behind the counter, surrounded by seven thousand romance novels about brave women who take chances, and listen to the sound of his boots on the sidewalk fading toward the harbor.
What the hell did I just agree to?