Chapter 11 Now #2
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m still sitting on the business proposal for Fern.
I’m willingly going on vacation with Alex and our exes.
I keep having horny sex dreams about Alex, set in the bookstore of my dreams. I don’t think we need Sue to break this one down for me—I am stuck between what I have and what I want, personally and professionally, and I’m miserable. ”
Lauren’s quiet for a beat. “And until that changes, you’re probably going to stay miserable.”
I sigh heavily. “Yeah, probably.”
“So…” She glances my way. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” I point at Burgatory across the road. “But I think gulping down a milkshake the size of my head might help me figure it out.”
“Hell, yes.” Lauren says. “I missed the fuck out of those milkshakes.”
Lauren stirs her straw around her strawberry milkshake, watching me closely.
I swallow a cold peanut-butter-chocolate gulp of mine and say to her, “You flew across the country for me.”
She smiles. “Sure did.”
“You didn’t need to do that, Lo.”
“I know I didn’t.” Her smile fades as she stares at me. “But I wanted to. You’ve sounded so stressed lately.”
“I have been,” I admit.
“Talk to me about it,” she says. “Work, Alex. Whatever you need to get off your chest.”
I groan, stabbing my straw into my milkshake. “I’ve been sitting on the business proposal for Fern, because it never feels like the right time to give it to her. Lately, she’s been so scarce, I couldn’t give it to her even if it did feel right.”
“Hmm.” She sips her milkshake. “So she’s the owner and store manager, right?”
“Technically. After she promoted me, we’re comanagers.”
“Except she’s never there to comanage.”
“Not lately, no. It’s been a gradual ghosting, now that I think about it. She’s been showing up less and less.”
Lauren nods. “So is that why you were at work today, when you’d said you were going to take off?”
“I did take off, but then there was a crisis, so I had to go in.”
“What was the crisis?”
I tell her the CliffsNotes version, that this morning, Hailey received a new highly anticipated title releasing next week and put it out on the floor, which, for a lot of books, isn’t a big deal.
This title, however, is embargoed, meaning that if it’s put out for sale before its laydown date, the store risks losing future early-receiving privileges, and even being fined.
Lauren groans. “Shit.”
“Oh, it gets worse,” I tell her. “She not only put it on the floor—she also sent the email I’d drafted to notify customers who’d preordered it that it was available for pickup.
I had to take all the books off the floor, then contact everyone she’d emailed and say, ‘Hey, just kidding, that book we told you was ready for early pickup isn’t out for another five days, so please don’t come in and try to pick it up, because we can’t sell it to you. ’ ”
“That,” Lauren says, “sounds like a nightmare.”
“I had so many customers show up and ask for their book today, I was thinking of turning it into a drinking game.”
Lauren laughs.
A laugh jumps out of me, too.
Our laughter fades, and after a beat Lauren says, “Thea, can I ask you something?”
I nod as I suck down another gulp of peanut-butter-chocolate milkshake.
“You said you’ve been dreaming about banging the heck out of Hot Chef, owning and running a bookstore exactly how you want, and you told me that means you’re stuck.
” Lauren leans in, eyes holding mine. “What I’m wondering is, why do you feel stuck at work, and with Alex, when you have choices you could make that would change things? ”
The milkshake feels too thick as I swallow. I clear my throat. “Because I’m scared.”
“Of what.”
“That wanting more could cost me what I already have. Fern might reject my business proposal. She could be deeply offended by my ideas. She might fire me, and then I’d lose my job, that community, my happy place.”
Lauren stirs her milkshake with her straw, eyes still holding mine. “And Alex?”
I stare back at her, my throat tight. I’ve never told Lauren how much I love Alex, how hard I have to work to keep that love from tumbling over, spilling out, risking our friendship. Because to tell her, I’d have to face it myself, feel something I can manage only in my dreams.
But she knows, I think. She has to.
“I’m scared I’ll lose Alex,” I tell her, “if we become anything more than friends. If we tried being romantic and things fell apart, it’s not like we could go back to being best friends—”
Lauren clears her throat.
“Local best friends,” I amend.
“Thank you.”
A weary laugh jumps out of me. “You’re ridiculous.”
She grins. “You were saying, about your friends-to-lovers dilemma with Alex?”
Just the thought of it makes my chest ache. “If we fell apart romantically, I’d lose him, and Mia, and…” My eyes well. “I’d be devastated. That’s why I’m stuck. Because there’s no safe way to grow beyond where I am. It’s too risky.”
“Have you considered,” Lauren says quietly, “that you’re already losing, by staying where you are?”
My heart twists. “Yes. But then I tell myself to be grateful for what I have instead of pining for what I don’t.” It’s an easy and familiar response, what I grew up hearing when I wanted and dreamed and reached.
“Thea, I think that’s bullshit—you can be grateful for what you have and want more. Sure, at one point, you were happy with where you are, comanaging The Bookshop, just being friends with Alex, but you’re not there anymore, not here.
“You keep saying you can’t change things because of the risk.
But Thea, I think you know in your heart that change has already happened in you.
I think that’s why you’re miserable—because you’re fighting it.
It’s like trying to shove your feet into a pair of favorite shoes you already outgrew.
They used to fit you perfectly. They made you feel like a million bucks at one point.
But they don’t fit anymore, and no amount of shoving yourself into them is going to make them feel how they used to. It’s just going to hurt.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat. “You would use a shoe metaphor to talk about feelings.”
Lauren smiles wryly. “I got that from Frances, actually. She figured out that shoes are the way to my heart. Therapy now consists of a lot of shoe metaphors.”
I laugh. “She sounds like a great therapist.”
“She is. Not many therapists will do daily sessions, let alone speak my love language of shoes.”
“Daily?” I blurt.
“Daily,” Lauren says, before ducking her head to suck down a gulp of milkshake.
“Not all the time, just when I’m struggling to stay on track.
Because while I’m a strong, statuesque boss bitch on the outside, inside I’m a high-maintenance toddler who requires an enormous amount of positive reinforcement and frequent reminders not to ingest toxic substances. ”
I smile. “You are not. Inside, you’re a high-maintenance kindergartner.”
Lauren barks a laugh. “So that’s why Mia and I vibe so well.”
“That and your keen fashion sense.”
Her smile deepens, and our eyes hold. Lauren leans in. “I know you’re scared, Thea. But I also know you’re brave. And I know you’ve read enough stories to understand that being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared; it means, even though you’re scared, you fight for what’s right anyway.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, poking around my milkshake.
She takes a deep drink of hers. Then she frowns down at her glass. “Wait. Didn’t these used to be boozy?”
“They can be.” I slurp a mouthful and swallow. “You asked for the regular ones when we sat down, and I was fine following your lead. I figured, given what you’ve been working on with Frances, that was intentional.”
“Wow, that’s scary,” Lauren says, a little wide-eyed. “I didn’t even think about it.”
I smile. “Frances and her shoe metaphors must really be working.”
“A little too well.” Lauren scowls down at her milkshake. “Nonboozy milkshake. What’s even the point?”