Chapter 9 #2
“Hey,” Sam suddenly said, snapping him out of his thoughts as she pointed toward a book perched on the top shelf, “Can you grab that for me? I’m tall, but I don’t think I can reach it.”
He looked up to see the book she pointed at, up on one of the display shelves above the rest. It appeared to be one of the newer releases, a stack of identical copies propped beneath it.
He stretched over her to snag the spine of the closest copy to his reach between his fingers.
He pulled it out as gently as he could, so as to not disturb the display.
When he pulled back, Sam was staring up at him, a faraway look in her eyes that intrigued him, but then he immediately realized that he’d effectively pinned her body between him and the shelf.
“Sorry! Did I squish you there?” he asked, a bit concerned when she blankly stared at him before blinking a couple of times.
She cleared her throat. “No, I’m fine. Sorry. Was just lost in thought.”
The irresistible urge to tease her overtook him, seeing the flustered look plastered to her face. He lowered his head a fraction and grinned. “What were you thinking about?”
“N-nothing!” she stammered out, shifting her gaze to the side and avoiding his eyes.
Yeah, he was definitely going to have too much fun with this if it meant getting to see this side of her.
Sam snatched the book he held in his grasp and ducked underneath his arm. “Thank you for grabbing this!”
Suddenly turning on her heel, she reached into her bag and whipped her phone out, typing away on it as she started walking away and effectively leaving Charlie behind in the dust.
“Hey!” he called out, grabbing the forgotten basket of books and following after her. “Everything okay?”
She nodded, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Yes! Perfect! Sorry. I just came up with a great idea for a scene, so I wanted to jot it down before I forgot.”
“Uh-huh. Got everything you need, then?” he asked, lifting the basket up. “We should probably head out. It looks like they’ll be gearing up to close soon.”
A few more taps on the screen and she tucked her phone back into her bag. “Yeah, I think that should cover it for now.”
“Good. Let’s go,” he said, scooping her hand in his again before she could argue and pulling her toward the closest cashier. Any excuse to touch her at this point now felt like a gift Charlie was going to exploit as frequently as he could.
He handed the basket and his credit card to the cashier before she could fetch hers out of her wallet.
“Charlie! You don’t need to pay for those!” she protested.
He’d been planning on buying anything she put into that basket the moment they’d walked in, so he simply shrugged and leaned back against the counter.
The loud beep of the scanner punctuating each bar code.
“Oh, shut up. Let me do this. Besides, the dress you’ll have to get for that charity is probably going to be a hell of a lot more expensive than this, so don’t worry about it. ”
She groaned, biting her lip before folding her arms across her chest. Yep, he definitely would never tell her how much he loved it when she pretended to be angry like this, which she absolutely was with that mischievous gleam in her eyes.
It took everything in him not to lower his gaze to her lips.
“Is this what I have to look forward to being your fake girlfriend? Are you gonna spoil me and pay for everything?” she asked, trying and failing to sound innocent.
He chuckled. “I might. Is that all it takes to romance you? A shopping bag full of books?”
“Hey,” she defended, leaning back on her heels, “you’re fake dating a bookworm. That’s on you.”
He laughed again. “I suppose that’s true. Though, what should we call each other throughout this? Fake girlfriend and fake boyfriend feels a little clinical.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what other titles we would use.
Not everything is going to be super romantic, but I’ll see if I can think up something for us to call each other in the meantime.
Writing a book can be extremely tedious, so I’ll be jotting down a ton of notes most nights after we get done with our dates. ”
He hated how much hearing her use the word “date” in reference to him sent a little tingle up his spine.
“And it’s not clinical,” she continued. “It’s logical.”
He frowned. “You’re already making it very hard to want to romance you.”
She finally laughed then, the sound easing his nerves. Pure music to his ears.
As he turned, something happened to catch his attention out of the corner of his eye.
He stepped to the side, peering over Sam and the cashier to look out the window.
It was dark outside at that point, making it hard to really see, but it looked like it was…
someone standing there? Standing directly opposite the glass and just glaring inside, though most of him was shaded by the lack of street lamps in the area.
“You okay, Charlie?” Sam asked, leaning the same way he was as if to see what he was looking so intently at.
He turned back to the window, seeing that no one was standing there any longer.
Or maybe no one had been there? He wasn’t sure, blinking a few times as the exhaustion from the work day started catching up with him.
He craned his neck, trying to see if anyone was further down the street, but it looked as if no one was there. Odd.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry,” he reassured her, accepting his credit card back from the cashier. “You ready to walk home?”
Sam held her bag up excitedly, nodding enthusiastically. “I am now! Thank you!”
“You’re welcome. Now, come on. Let’s go,” he said, taking her hand once more in his and heading outside into the cool night air.