Chapter 6
chapter six
Crew and Willow weren’t the easiest shopping partners I’d ever hung out with, but they were definitely the funniest. They bickered like siblings—which I guess made sense seeing as they’d been friends for so long.
I wasn’t expecting a message from him asking if I wanted to come along with them on a day out.
I’d been to Crew’s house for their Christmas dinner, which was my first time meeting everyone, but we hadn’t really talked outside of that.
He said he’d wanted to get to know me since I was one of Callum and Tobi’s friends.
He wanted to “bring me into the OG circle,” he’d said. Whatever that meant.
It honestly scared me a little because I didn’t know what it meant, and uncertainties scared me more than anything else. They’d even offered to pick me up in Crew’s car, though I’d politely declined.
There was a little strip with different shops and a boba tea place. Willow had bought a few clothes, and Crew had bought his husband a new orange button-up shirt, whereas I was content with the boba tea in my hand and nothing else. I hadn’t really seen anything that caught my attention.
“You’re bein’ such a fun killer, C!” Willow admonished beside me.
Crew scowled and kept walking, leading us to some bookstore he wanted to check out. “I am not goin’ to a mall that doesn’t have stairs or an elevator. You’re being mean. You know how I am with escalators.”
It was still kind of odd to hear so many Southern accents in New York, of all places.
Crew, Willow, and Tobi were all from around the same area, though Tobi’s was the thickest of the three.
I’d met plenty of Southern people when I still lived in California, oddly enough. Here, though, it was mostly unheard of.
I finally chimed in as we waited to cross the busy street. “How are you with escalators?”
“I am terrified of them. Shakin’ in my boots at the thought of them. There is no fucking way I will ever get on one.”
I raised an eyebrow at Willow, who was smiling. “The last time I tried to get him on one, he couldn’t stop physically shaking. It was kind of funny.”
“No, you’re just an asshole. Why are we still friends again?” He quipped.
“‘Cause you love me and we’ve been friends this long, why change things now?”
“Price would never make fun of me for my fear.”
“Well, he’s your husband, and he wasn’t invited. This is a significant other free hangout.”
The indicator turned green for us to walk across, Crew and Willow still kind of bickering back and forth to each other.
I could see a building on the other side of the street, a bit further down the sidewalk.
It looked colorful, with a pink exterior and a large sign above it. “Hey, is that where we’re going?”
Crew nodded. “Yup. Pride and Pages. It’s a queer-owned bookstore; they sell queer books or books written by queer authors. I saw someone post about it online and thought it’d be good to check out.”
“Oh, I forgot to mention. David told me about that place. They said it has a lot of variety and that the owner is really nice. They said they only carry indie author works right now, which I thought was interesting.”
I sipped on my boba, chewing a few of the pearls as we stopped in front of the doors. It looked small but inviting from what I could see through the windows. I waited for Crew and Willow to go in first, taking my time to look around.
The decorations and furniture were a bit different from what I’d expected. There were chairs of all types and even a couple of couches spaced out around the area. There were also a lot of bookshelves. A lot more than I was expecting for a smaller bookstore.
“Welcome in!” A man at the front smiled at us. “Let us know if you need anything.”
He had bright purple hair with eyebrows to match.
There was also a subtle shimmer of something on his lips, making them shine a little in the light.
I flashed him a tight smile and followed the others to one of the sections on the left.
Everything had signs hanging above the larger sections, along with labels on the shelves for specific genres.
“Wow.” Crew scanned the aisle. “This is big.”
“They really do have a lot of books.” I reached out and touched one of the placards, feeling the plastic.
Willow patted me on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go explore. Y’all have fun.”
I turned to Crew. I didn’t even read, if I was being honest. He said he read every now and then but wanted to get into it more, and this seemed like the best place to start.
“If you want to go explore as well, I’ll be fine.
I’ll just look around and find a couch or chair or…
a beanbag to sit on when I’m done.” They really had every type of seating possible.
“Sounds good. Don’t get lost!”
There was plenty of stuff I could wander around and look at, even if I didn’t think I’d be too interested. Some of the books were facing outward like they were on a specific display, and they all had really interesting covers.
I found my way down an aisle that had two beanbag chairs right in the center.
There was a book right in the middle, sitting on the top shelf, that caught my attention—it looked hand-drawn, the characters standing beside each other, each with their own personality in their poses.
I picked it up, turning the book around to stare at the back of it.
The description on the back seemed interesting. It was a romance book about two dudes who played football and a painter who was reluctant to accept their love for the football players.
Humming to myself, I sank into one of the beanbag chairs, setting my boba on the floor beside me. I turned to the first page of the book and read the first few words. Was I seriously reading a book in a bookstore? I hadn’t picked one up in literal decades. I guess I did judge books by the cover.
I got lost in the book, genuinely enjoying how the main characters felt so realistic and relatable. Honestly, all three of them were downright adorable.
“Oh, whoa.”
The voice startled me, making me drop the book on the floor. When I looked up, I damn near lost it. “Forrest? What the hell are you doing here?”
He blinked at me for a second, his mouth opening and shutting a couple of times before he finally spoke. “Uh, I own that.”
I looked down at the book on the floor, leaning to pick it up. “This book?”
“No, no. Well, kind of? Sorry. I own this store. I don’t know why I said that.”
I hadn’t seen him this flustered before. His cheeks were going pink, and his dark eyes had gone wide as he looked down at me. And he was wearing glasses—which was honestly the hottest fucking thing I’d seen from him yet. I narrowed my eyes at him, a bit confused. “You own this store?”
“I do. Opened a couple years ago.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
I shook my head, shifting on the beanbag. “I never took you for a bookstore kind of guy.”
He walked around, plopping onto the beanbag beside me. “I read a lot. I always have. This is kind of my dream.”
At least he got to follow his dream. I wondered how fulfilling that must’ve felt. “Opening a queer bookstore, or opening a bookstore in general?”
He sounded a lot quieter, his tone much less confident than I was used to.
Was I making him nervous? He pushed his glasses up his nose, looking up at the bookshelf in front of us.
“At first, it was to be a librarian. But… Do you know how difficult it was for me to find books like these? I mean, all the movies with gay couples when I was growing up ended in tragedies. A lot of books followed the same theme.” He shook his head.
“I couldn’t find any good love stories with characters like me.
Not easily, anyway. Now, I know where to look, but I don’t see enough of them in bookstores or libraries.
I wanted an entire store dedicated to books with queer characters or books written by queer authors.
So, I made one. And I focus a lot on BIPOC representation and authors as well, because that was another thing I could never find. ”
I’d never paid much attention when I was younger, seeing as I was more interested in swimming than watching movies or reading books. I’d train and compete, train and compete, never deviating from my strict regimen. I barely even hung out with anyone outside of practice.
I always knew I wasn’t like other kids. Maybe I was too obsessive, or maybe I just didn’t care enough about anything else in my life. I didn’t know, and I never would because now, there was something else different about me. Something wrong with me.
Clearing my throat, I shifted until I could face him. “That’s really fucking awesome. It must feel good knowing that you’re bringing attention to the stuff you always wished you’d had growing up. I bet this area is a really good one for it, too.”
“Yeah.” He smiled, tilting his head enough for the light to gleam off his glasses. “Why did you open up Driftwood?”
What a loaded fucking question. Forrest wouldn’t know that, though.
Actually, nobody would. In that moment, I started to wish that I could have more control over the conversation.
Over everything—even down to how the heat was running in the store.
It was almost enough to make me take my jacket off, and I didn’t want to take my jacket off.
When things got deep, I sought control in even the smallest, most impossible things.
Something was horribly, terribly wrong with me.
I sighed, crossing my arms and leaning back in the beanbag, letting the small beads engulf me whole.
I wanted to control those, too. Make them meld just right.
Make them settle more around my waist rather than my shoulder blades.
How much did I want to divulge? How much did I want Forrest to see into my soul? I could give him the basic, easily accepted answer of simply having a fascination with alcohol. I could lie through my teeth, and he’d be none the wiser.
Or I could bare my soul to him in hopes we’d never see each other again. Though, with the way we’d somehow kept running into one another, that seemed the most unlikely.
There were no good choices and no good answers to something like this.
“I had a dream once. A stupid one, as it turned out. So, later in life, I realized I needed a hobby. Something to pass my time. In between working retail jobs, I dabbled in the world of mixology and the history of all things alcohol. Instead of drowning myself in it, I learned how to make it. Collect it.” I shifted, looking away from him.
“I like making new shit, but I’m more content with bartending.
Owning a bar sounded fun, honestly. Making my own little hangout area.
I thought it’d be something to make money and pass the time.
But being around drunk people all the time?
” I let out a low whistle. “You learn a lot. You truly never know what someone else is going through, and if I can harbor some sort of safe haven where people aren’t judged like they normally would be? That’s fine with me.”
“I can only imagine the shit you see there.”
“You’d be unpleasantly surprised. I don’t know.
I have to cut people off, watch them kill themselves, and call the cops on a regular basis, but…
I don’t know. Sometimes, I see people say they’ll get sober, and they never come back.
Sometimes, I can talk sense into them. Sometimes, I can listen to their problems and lead them in the right direction, and months or years down the line, they’ll come back a whole new person to thank me.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about what I do, but the small miracles are why I keep doing it. ”
“The small miracles.” Forrest chuckled. “I like that. I think every book that’s sold here to someone who needs it is a small miracle in itself. Like a piece of magic.”
I smiled, mostly to myself. All I could think about was how I’d somehow talked some sense into Tobi, and now he was sober and giving my best friend the love he’d always deserved. I had helped so many people, and I’d watched the downfall of twice as many.
The ones I’ve seen thrive have made the rest of it worth it, and if that wasn’t the oddest thing in the world, I didn’t know what was.
I ran my hand over the book sitting in my lap, taking in the matte texture. “How do we keep running into each other, Forrest?”
He didn’t say anything for a second, letting a beat of silence rest between us. “Magic?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I laughed.
“It feels like magic when I’m around you, though. I don’t know how else to explain it. I just really want to get to know you.”
The way I’d slept so peacefully in his bed was definitely like magic. I had to give him at least that. I didn’t think I’d made it a consecutive three hours since that night. I was running on fumes and caffeine, and I refused to let myself think too deeply about any of it.
“Good to know you’re still a flirt.” I said it as if I’d known him far longer than I had. As if I knew exactly how he acted on any given day.
I didn’t.
I wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to, because if I did, that meant giving him a part of me no one else was allowed to have. Not even myself.
Forrest had started to say something, but Crew and Willow decided to walk down the aisle just as I’d started. Crew was smiling, holding three books in his arms. “We found you! I thought you really had gotten lost for a minute there.”
I shook my head and slowly got up from the beanbag. My legs didn’t want to cooperate with me, making it take more effort than it probably should’ve. “Nope. I’m ready to check out if you guys are.”
Willow pointed behind me. “Hey, you’re the owner, aren’t you?”
I turned to look at Forrest, who looked about two shades paler than before. He stuttered, trying to get some words out. “Y-yes. Um. Uh-huh. Oh, my god. Jack, you didn’t tell me you had Crew fucking Iverson in my store.”
Crew’s eyebrows rose comically. “Please don’t tell me you know I exist. I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Sorry. I’ve seen you and Price online. You’re, like, famous. Or something. Oh, wow.” Could he get any more tempting? “Uh, but I should definitely probably get back to work. Um, wow. Okay. I’ll see you again sometime, Jack.”
I shook my head. “Hopefully not, Forrest. No offense.”
“Magic,” he whispered, keeping his voice low.
I chose to pretend like I hadn’t heard him, but I had. I did. I heard him, and it haunted me the entire way to the front desk. There was no magic in my life. Magic in others, sure. All that followed me was misfortune.
There was no room for Forrest inside of my battered heart. Not while it was buried twelve feet deep beneath the murkiest of waters.