Chapter 9
Fifth Week of Fair
Unknown
What’s your address?
Lilian squinted at the strange text from an unknown number. Behind her, the television blared with old reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She sipped her coffee slowly, considering if it was a scam or not.
Who is this?
Unknown
Hawk. Please tell me you didn’t just wake up.
The reply was instantaneous and clipped. Like its owner. Lilian glared at the offending message but typed back.
Of course not. You caught me in the shower.
Unknown
Shouldn’t you be managing that bookshop of yours?
She could hear the judgment in that sentence. It was nine o’clock on a Monday, and she wasn’t buried deep in numbers and receipts.
The store is closed on Mondays.
As she waited for a reply, she saved his contact in her phone. This time with a name: Tyrant Prince.
Tyrant Prince Perfect. Then today would be as good a day as any for us to get some work done.
Lilian stared at the text for a long time before she responded.
Today?
Tyrant Prince
Not really.
A pause of three dots and then:
Tyrant Prince
Are you?
Lilian looked down at her coffee mug and slippered feet. Mondays were usually her recovery day after working the faire. She’d planned on stopping by the shop, but not until much later in the afternoon. After a slow, lazy morning.
She sighed. This was her fault. She’d been the one to ask Hawk for help, and now here he was, willing and eager. Much to her surprise. It wouldn’t look good to bail on him when he was the one offering help.
No. She wrote back and sent him the address to her bookstore.
Tyrant Prince
You’re about thirty minutes away. Is it okay if we meet up around noon?
Considering it was already nine o’clock, noon sounded great. It was enough time to open the shop and try to organize a few things before he arrived.
Sounds great.
Then after a moment of thought, she added:
Thanks.
She wasn’t a total monster.
Tyrant Prince
See you soon.
Hawk showed up at exactly noon. His being punctual did not surprise her in the slightest. Seeing him in a purple K-State shirt and cargo pants did. Lilian took him in, half convinced it had to be a trick of the light.
“Can I come in?” he asked, meeting her stare.
“Oh, sorry. Yeah.”
She held the door open, and he stepped inside.
She’d done her best to spruce up the place, but there was only so much that could be done in two hours.
The chaotic atmosphere of the shop was something she’d come to accept as part of its essence.
And no amount of organization or cleaning would erase that.
Still, Lilian felt… anxious as Hawk took in the store.
With her faire cottage, it was expected to be a little rustic.
She’d had to work with what the faire gave her.
But this wasn’t the faire; this was a real bookstore.
Granted, it was one built on the bones of well-loved and used books.
Books that had gathered dust in people’s homes before collecting more in Tenison.
Hawk no doubt was regretting his decision to help her.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “Our records are back here.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, following her through the stacks. “I know what to expect when it comes to used bookstores.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “Clutter. Stacks of books. Absolutely no organization. This all tracks.” His brows dipped together as he added, “There was a used bookstore back in Texas that I would visit. Believe it or not, it had a lot more mess than this place.”
She hummed, taking his response as Midwestern politeness and returning it in kind with the expected follow up question. “When were you in Texas?”
“For my undergrad. I came back to Kansas for grad school.” He pointed at his shirt with an added, “Go Wildcats.”
“Let me guess, you majored in business.”
“Accounting, actually.” He smirked at her but then conceded, “and it was a master's in business.”
“Where did you study in Texas?”
“A&M.”
She didn’t know much about Texas, but she recognized the name from her father’s Saturday football games. “Did you like Texas?”
“Loved it,” he said. “But I also missed having four seasons. And Texans are… really into their colleges. Aggies are particularly obnoxious with their school spirit.”
Obnoxious, huh? Lilian bit back the comment and said, “And you didn’t like that?”
“Oh, no, I loved it.” He grinned. “I fit in pretty well down there.”
Her own smile tugged into place. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I know how I can be. My frat brothers let me know all the time. I was a lot, even for them sometimes.” The words sounded wistful, as if it were a warm memory.
“Why did you come back here?”
“Mom and Dad needed the help.”
“I get that,” Lilian said, waving a hand toward the surrounding shelves. “This place… well, it’s my way of helping my mom out.”
Hawk’s focus zeroed in on her. His eyes were so intense she could hardly meet them. “Where is your mom? You said this place is still in her name?”
At the mention of her mother, Lilian’s shoulders tensed. She’d gone to chemo on Friday and was still exhausted. But that was none of Hawk’s business. He was helping her, but she didn’t owe him any more of herself than that.
“She was feeling under the weather today.”
She watched the hard set of Hawk’s face. If he sensed there was more to the story, he didn’t pry.
When they arrived at her desk, three neat piles of folders, receipts, and inventory sat at the ready. They looked so small and insignificant, even though the folders held months of work. There were still files that were missing, but it was a start. “Should I get you some water? Or coffee?”
“Coffee would be great.” Hawk was already picking up the first file and flipping through it. “Do you have anything that's dark roast?”
“Dark roast is the only way to live,” Lilian said, grabbing two K-Cups from the box stashed in her desk drawer.
“Huh.” Hawk paused in his scrutiny of her paperwork to stare at her instead. “I would have pegged you as the type who liked her coffee sixty percent milk and sugar.”
“No way.” As the machine whirred to life, the smell of pure, dark roast coffee filled the air.
Lilian inhaled it greedily and sighed. “My parents always drank their coffee pitch black. It was the only thing we had in the house growing up. I always assumed it was the only option. When I went to college and people had these extravagant orders, it sounded like a foreign language to me. Coffee is coffee.” When it was done, she grabbed the two mugs and handed one to Hawk.
The big pink letters screaming “I like my coffee the same way I like my books… steamy” were hard to miss.
Hawk’s brows narrowed, either in annoyance or amusement, it was hard to tell, but it didn’t stop him from taking a sip.
They pored over the files for the next two hours as Lilian caught him up on the current state of her business. From what she could tell, they weren’t in dire trouble yet, but they were heading that way.
“Rent isn’t really the problem. Mom bought this place for a steal, so the space itself doesn't cost a thing. It's all the other utilities that are sucking us dry when we aren’t making a profit.”
Hawk nodded, gaze focused on the papers in front of him. “Do you have your utility bills?”
“Here.”
Hawk studied the sheet where she’d combined all their extra expenses: electricity, internet, water, taxes.
Then he looked at the profits they’d made over the last three months.
The grand total made Lilian’s heart sink.
It wasn’t even enough to cover rent for a college apartment.
Her mother had been paying the utilities out of pocket, but that couldn’t continue. Not with chemo added to the list.
After what felt like an eternity, Hawk put the folders down and grabbed a nearby pen.
He began marking things up left and right, like a general poring over battle plans.
“All right, first things first. The profits are a problem, but a fixable one. Your mother was practically giving books away here. Which is admirable but does not make a good business.”
“She really didn’t care about money,” Lilian admitted. “Neither of us did. We assumed running this shop would be fun. And it is, but…”
Hawk turned toward her. The weight of his stare hung between them as he waited for her to finish the sentence. She couldn’t, though. It had been foolish of them not to care about the money. This was a business. Only children thought like that.
His voice broke through the silence, the tone surprisingly gentle. “People should pursue businesses that are fun for them. A business is like another child. It takes nurturing and time and money. If you don’t love it, then you won’t do everything necessary to make it succeed.”
She looked up and found their eyes locked on one another. For a second, it almost sounded like he was trying to reassure her. The tension in her shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit.
“And do you love working at the faire?” Lilian wondered out loud. The man certainly didn’t seem happy when she saw him at the faire. She’d seen more of his smile here in two hours than in weeks at the faire.
“I love numbers and making businesses successful. No matter what they are. But the faire isn’t my only job. It’s something I do to help my parents out.”
“Oh, what do you do, then?”
“It’s boring really. I work from home, advising rich people on their accounting.”
She blinked at that. “You mean you do people’s accounting on top of working the faire?”
He shrugged. “It’s fun.”
Fun? What kind of devil man was this?
“It pays well,” Hawk continued. “Especially with the cost of living here. And it allows me to manage my own time, so I can help Mom when she needs it.”
“That’s really nice of you.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “It’s nice of you, too. To help your mom with this place.”