Chapter Five
By the time they pulled up outside the bookshop, Vi’s ponytail was a sweaty mess against the helmet. Her skirt stuck to her knees. She was squeezing Nick so hard, he sounded out of breath as he shoved the kickstand into place.
“See?” Nick said. “Not that bad.”
“I think I’ll stick to my bicycle.” Vi untwisted her clammy arms from around his thick waist and told herself she was not embarrassed to leave sweat prints. He worked with cars all day; he was used to a bit of sweat.
The thought triggered a flow of images that made Vi’s cheeks heat. She knew it was a bad idea to ride with him. It was impossible not to think of her riding something else of his.
Vi clambered off the motorcycle seat in a rush and reached for her helmet. A cool breeze washed over her neck and she sighed gratefully, eyes slipping closed.
“Your choice,” Nick said. “But if you ever want to go past retro and into . . .”
He trailed off.
Vi opened her eyes. Nick was standing in front of her, lips parted in surprise.
“What?” She patted her hair down, grimacing when she felt the damp ribbon. She waited for him to smirk. But he just stood there, one hand still gripping his motorcycle handle like an afterthought.
“Nothing,” he said. He took the helmet out of her hands and loped toward the bookshop, those solid legs on full display in his tight jeans. “Let’s go.”
Vi sighed. “If I have a spider in my hair or something—”
“No spiders.” He twirled the helmet like it was a basketball, almost dropping it on the ramp into the store. “Shit. I promise, no spiders. Show me how to run a book club.”
He tossed her a giant smile, oddly eager.
He’d been like that ever since Chester fell down, so Vi would have to roll with it.
She’d expected him to sprint out the door and leave her with the tourists, maybe flick her a salute as he went.
But he’d stayed. He’d stayed, and he did a pretty good job distracting Chester, and now he was offering to run the book club while Chester healed.
And he wasn’t even joking. Vi was almost sure. Ninety percent, at least.
People could change. Vi always believed that. Maybe the same was true of Nick Wicker.
Vi tapped the Open/Closed sign as she unlocked the door. It was a habit of Chester’s, and had become one of hers after the first few months spent working here. She glanced behind her, but Nick didn’t comment. Even when he tapped the sign after her and followed her into the brightly lit shop.
Vi took a flyer from under the counter. “The Sweethelm book club meets every Thursday, over there. We move the music and the biography sections and drag the fold-out chairs from the storage space. I’ll help you set up beforehand, but the head person is supposed to bring food. Can you do that?”
“I’ll manage,” Nick said, taking the poster.
He pinched it by the edges, like it was a photo he was worried about smearing and not a creased poster Vi should’ve thrown out years ago.
The rest of his fingers flared, dramatic as always, and Vi was struck—not for the first time—by the fact that she was witnessing a one-man play.
She often felt like that when it came to Nick.
She’d brought it up once to Chester and received a bemused look in return.
Everyone hams it up sometimes, he’d replied, and threw in a judgmental eyebrow. Some more than others, I suppose.
“We’ll need to pick books for the next sessions,” Vi said. “But I can do that.”
“I can do it,” Nick said, looking over the flyer.
“No, it’s fine,” Vi tried, but he was already shaking his head.
“I said I can run it. Not half run it.” Nick saw her expression and grinned. “Calm down. I’ll run any book choices by you first. You can tell me if I picked the worst book of 1991 or whatever.”
Calm down. Vi couldn’t remember the last time anyone told her to calm down.
Nobody needed to. Vi was the calm one. Kind and polite and calm.
A cool head in a crisis—that was her thing.
Even if something was boiling desperately under the surface, even if she was annoyed or upset or wanted to retreat into a small, dark room and scream, she didn’t let it show. Except, apparently, with Nick Wicker.
“Okay,” she said, taking back the flyer. “Our main attendees all have different tastes in books, but we can get to that later. Here’s the book.”
She pulled a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion from the stack on the counter. She’d been about to restock the classics section before Chester had taken a spill.
“You can have this one on the house,” she told him, making a mental note to run it through the machine as a giveaway item later. “I know it’s a lot to ask for you to read this by Thursday—”
“I’ll read it,” he said, too fast. He took the copy she was holding and turned it over in his giant hands, pressing his blunt nails around the thin lettering.
It was the same thing she did when she found a book cover with textures, and Vi’s gaze lingered on the shockingly gentle press of his fingers for several long seconds before she could remind herself of what came next.
“Okay,” she said, crouching to grab a discussion sheet she’d been reading during quiet periods. “Here are the discussion questions. We usually follow a few and then the conversation devolves into total chaos.”
“Looking forward to it.” Nick took the paper like a normal person with no audience, no exaggerated pinching. The farther he got down the sheet, the flatter his mouth got.
“If you have any questions—”
“No,” he said. “I’m fine.”
He shot her another smile. It was still cocky, still the jokester she’d been avoiding since she’d met him two years ago, but there was a strange uncertainty behind it.
Like he was nervous. Before today, Vi hadn’t thought Nick could get nervous.
She assumed it was one of those human experiences he never bothered with, like sincerity or vulnerability.
That if he ever brushed up against it, he’d throw jokes at it and make a quick escape.
He wasn’t joking now. Just staring at the discussion sheet like he’d only just now realized how deep the hole he’d dug for himself was.
Vi sighed. If he really wasn’t screwing with her, if he wanted to get more involved in the community—that was actually very sweet.
“Hey,” she said cautiously. “What I said back there, before I got in the ambulance . . .”
Nick made a strange noise: half laugh, half raspberry “Oh shit. Don’t do that. I get it. People don’t get into emergency situations and think, man, you know who would be great right now? Nick Wicker.”
He nudged her, a fleeting touch that was so fast, Vi almost thought she’d imagined it.
“I’m better at parties,” Nick continued. “Or when your car breaks down.”
“Right,” Vi allowed. “I just . . .” The next words sounded ridiculous. She said them anyway. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings?”
He scoffed, loud and dismissive, bottom lip creasing hard around his protruding fangs.
He didn’t even look at her as the scoff tapered off into giggles, and Vi felt another wash of humiliation for assuming she could hurt him, even for a second.
“Can’t hurt me,” Nick said, still not looking at her.
He flexed his arm, the one with the panther tattoo. “I’m indestructible.”
Vi nodded, cheeks burning as she watched his muscles bulge.
For a moment, she thought he might call her baby again, like he’d done in the hospital hallway.
It sounded like his kind of line: I’m indestructible, baby.
She tensed in preparation, waiting for the mortifying heat to curl her stomach like it had in that bright hallway.
Her body never got the message: Nick was never actually interested in her.
Her—not her body or trying to get a reaction out of her.
If Nick was interested in anything, it was in finally making her snap.
Then he’d get to laugh at her, like he always wanted.
He never admitted it, but she could tell.
She’d been able to tell the very first time they talked at that backyard barbecue.
Nick reminded her so much of the horrible boys in high school who made her the butt of every joke, no matter how nice she was to them.
Maybe even because she was nice to them.
In all her years, Vi had never been anything but kind to the people—well, the men—who made her feel foolish for no reason. But Nick was testing her patience.
“Good,” she said, too sharply. She sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. That’s good. I won’t worry about it in the future, then.”
He clicked his tongue, stuffing the discussion notes into his pocket. He didn’t even fold them, paper crinkling audibly as he shifted from foot to foot.
“Anyway,” she said. She gestured around them at the empty shop, the Closed sign on the door. “I should get back to work.”
“Right, yeah.” He ducked his head in a weird half bow and turned on his heel, slinking toward the door. For a second, his shoulders were risen and he looked strangely small for a guy who towered over almost everybody. Then they dropped, and he was back to easy, breezy Nick Wicker again.
Vi watched him disappear across the street, breaking into a casual jog as he approached the garage.
The tall, thick line of his body was still stupidly satisfying.
She always told herself the satisfaction came from him leaving, but in truth, she just liked the loose sprawl of his bulky limbs as he walked away.
It made her wonder what it would be like to have shoulders that unburdened.
It also made her want to bite his dark green pecs, but she never entertained that thought for more than a split second before reminding herself of how humiliating any kind of .
. . tryst with Nick would be. She couldn’t let her guard down with a man who turned everything into a joke.
A harsh buzzing jolted her from her thoughts. She looked over. Sitting next to the stack of Persuasion books was . . . her phone. Right where she left it.
She picked it up. “Hi, Gabby.”
“Did I hear right? Chester broke a hip at the bookshop?”
“It wasn’t a hip. It was his leg.”
“Oh my god,” Gabriella said, caught between concerned about Chester and excited about the gossip. “He’s okay, right?”
“He’ll be fine.”
“Thank god. He’ll let you close early, right? You should come over. You can help me pick flowers for my next project.”
Vi picked her ponytail off the back of her neck. Sweat had dried the strands to her skin. She was so tired. She was always tired, and always pretending she wasn’t, and they only had two hours until closing time.
Vi sighed. “I’ll be there in ten.”