Chapter 13 Jack #2
I get to work, pointing out different things to her so she can understand them, even if some of the fittings need loosening or tightening, probably beyond what she could do herself. After a while, we fall into a comfortable silence, but I’m desperate to hear her talk some more.
“All these books—have you read them all?” I ask.
“What?”
“This room is full of books, your overstock, I guess?” When I look up, she nods. “Have you read them all?” A beat passes before a light laugh leaves her lips.
“God, no. I wish. It would take me a century to get through them. Plus, more books come out every day. It’s actually a nightmare of mine, dying before I read all of the books I want to.”
“I feel like that’s more of a reality than it is a nightmare.” She gives me an exaggerated gasp, and I smile, trying to lean into the heater to hide my smirk. “I’m just saying, you’re never going to be able to read a million books.”
“I can try. What if one I skip is secretly a book that will be my favorite for the rest of my life?”
“Well, you’d never know any better, so what would it matter?” She’s quiet for a moment, contemplative, before she sighs.
“I guess you have a good point.” Earlier, she was in here organizing and whatnot; now she’s just sitting on the floor a few feet from me, a book in her lap.
She’s tried to pick it up a few times, but each time she got distracted, asking me a question of some kind or another.
I wonder if she feels it, too, that urge to be near me because of the bond, or if it’s just because I’m the nonmagical one in this strange mess.
“What’s your favorite one?” I ask, and she looks at me with wide, panicked eyes.
“My favorite one?”
“Favorite book.”
“That’s like asking a mother who her favorite child is.”
“I’m an only child,” I say with a smile she returns.
“Well, for reference, your mother isn’t supposed to pick favorites, and I can’t either.”
“Favorite in each genre? Or trope?” Her eyes go wide and entertained, a smile lighting up her face.
“Oh, look at you knowing the lingo.”
I roll my eyes at her. “I’ve lived across from a romance bookstore for three years. I’m bound to pick up on some things.”
“So you’ve been watching me, huh?” I don’t want to admit how much of that is truth, so instead I just shrug and stay quiet. After a while, she starts speaking again, filling in the silence and telling me her favorite genres, as well as her favorite books within each one.
Over the next hour, I find out her favorite trope is grumpy sunshine, which makes me feel a bit warm, though I ignore it.
She likes paranormal stories occasionally, but they’re usually too far from the truth she knows, so she finds it hard to dive into them without judging.
That feels fair to me, and I find myself wondering if she would feel the same way playing one of my games.
“What do you like about them? Romances?” I ask after a while, and Rosie sighs.
“Besides the fact that my magic calls to it?” I nod.
“The… happily ever after of it all. The idea that there’s one person out there for you, even if they’re totally your opposite, who is meant to be with you.
I love it when they dislike each other at first and then warm up to each other.
I love it when one has some baggage and the other doesn’t just handle it, but helps them unpack it.
I love caretaking scenes, where one person takes care of the other—”
“Ironic for someone who has refused to accept my help,” I say without meaning to, and then I look over my shoulder at her; there’s a pretty blush on her cheeks.
“Yeah, I…” She takes in a deep breath. “I’m not good at that.” I shrug, trying to brush it off.
“We all have our strengths.” Silence takes over once more, but it’s not the comfortable kind that was there before, and I regret calling her out like that, so I continue my line of questioning. “What else? What else do you like?” She smiles then, like she’s remembering something sweet.
“The grand gestures. I love a grand gesture.”
“A grand gesture?”
“You know, some moment where he does something to show how much she means to him. When he shows up at her event when she thought he wouldn’t come, or when a billionaire buys an entire company for her, or something like that.”
“Buying a company is romantic?” I ask, reaching for a wrench to tighten a screw.
“Typically, the company means something to her.” I shake my head with a laugh.
“I guess anything can sound romantic if it has a big enough price tag.”
“No, no. The best ones are the small ones; those were just the easy ones to explain.”
“So what are your favorites?”
She genuinely ponders it before answering.
“I mean, I think every little girl who likes to read loves the moment where the Beast shows Belle the library. That’s kind of iconic.
But I like the smaller moments, the tiny things he notices and makes happen.
In this one book I read, he kept bumping into her, and they never hit it off.
So, when they finally got together, he began to recreate all the dates they missed, from college to the present.
It was sweet. Or in this single-dad-nanny book, she ghosted him after a one-night stand, only to find out he’d been keeping her coffee flavors for a while, just in case she came back into his life.
It’s just little things that scream I’ve been listening to you and I’m yours.
” She shrugs before another light blush burns on her cheeks.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s silly. Maybe the curse doesn’t even exist and I’m just single because I’m picky,” she says with a laugh, but there’s a glimmer of self-deprecation in her words. I pause what I’m doing then, turning to face her, seeing it written on her face as well.
“Don’t say that.”
“That the curse isn’t real?” I shake my head.
“The other part.” Her brow furrows, and she looks to me. “About you being too picky.”
“I just mean, maybe that’s a bit too much to expect out of a real-life man, rather than a fictional one, you know? Men can’t read your mind to know what you want.”
“I don’t know you all that well, Rosie, but even I know what you want.
People just have to listen, to pay attention.
It isn’t about grand gestures: you just said it yourself.
It’s about moments where someone proves that they know you, that they’ve been listening to you.
I don’t think that’s asking for too much.
” She stares at me for moments that feel like they go on forever, and then it’s my turn to blush under her intense scrutiny.
“You’re really something, aren’t you, Jack Haggerty?” A soft smile I’ve never seen before spreads over her lips, and she gives me the softest shake of her head. Unsure of what to do, I shrug and turn to the heater once more, hoping to hide the blush that slowly burns on my cheeks.
“Just saying it how I see it,” I say before we fall into a comfortable silence, Rosie reading while I finish up her heater, though a few times, I catch my grandfather floating by, looking at us with a pleased look.
“Hey,” Rosie says in a low voice two hours later when she walks into her stockroom in new pajamas just as I’m cleaning up. Her eyes shift and I realize with shock and discomfort that she’s nervous. It’s such an unnatural state for her, the sudden shyness written in every inch of her body.
I don’t like it.
I hate it, actually. I’m learning with mixed feelings that I hate anything that makes Rosie anything but the self-confident chaos queen she is.
“Hey,” I say, trying to make my smile as comfortable as I can make it.
She went upstairs to take a warm shower now that her heater works, and she’s in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, moving toward me nervously.
Her strawberry blond curls are in a pile on top of her head, not wet, so I’m assuming she just washed her body.
I have to quickly shake my head, forcing myself not to think about things like Rosie in the shower.
“So I did a bit of maintenance on the fittings, but we’ll have to order a new circuit board soon. This one’s on its last leg. I’ll install it once it comes in. Other than that, you’re all good.” Relief takes over her face.
“Thank you, Jack. I really can’t tell you how grateful I am that you did this.” I shake my head to tell her it’s no big deal, but she stops me. “I’m serious. I owe you big time. Do you…” She bites her lip in a way that I should not find cute.
She’s annoying, I remind myself. The most annoying person I’ve ever encountered, actually.
So annoying, I should—“Do you want to stay for dinner? As a thank you. I really… I would be really screwed if you hadn’t come over today.
” She bites her lip again, looking around the messy stockroom.
“I could cook, or we could order takeout or—”
“Yes,” I say too quickly, because the thought of turning around and leaving her makes those golden strands tug a bit.
That’s why I say yes.
Because of the bond.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.