Chapter Twelve
The actions were the same:
Rolling the music and biography shelves out of the way. Setting up the chairs and table and lemonade. Stacking the champagne flutes. Turning away stray tourists who somehow always picked closing time to take an interest in the local bookshop or to pat the ever-popular winged cat.
And yet, Vi was even more anxious than last time.
Last week, her anxiety was tinged with annoyance.
Dreading Nick’s arrival, waiting for him to inevitably screw it up.
There was no annoyance this time. Her nervousness was pure and powerful, and for some reason, pointed inward.
Which was ridiculous. She couldn’t screw anything up.
Especially when she was only staying for a few minutes before she had to leave to meet with Gabriella for dinner.
She had never been more solid in her decision not to tell Gabriella she had slept with Nick. She could imagine her sister’s voice now: Well, Vi, he did see you come, and then you fell asleep naked in his arms. That might have something to do with the nerves. Just saying.
Rosie spoke up from the circle of chairs, jerking Vi back into the moment. “Is he still coming, or did you scare him off?”
“Vi is pretty scary,” Joshua agreed brightly. “We just didn’t know until the last book club.”
Lydia snorted, straightening one of the many bows in her hair. She didn’t have her cane tonight, which hopefully meant her old injury wasn’t acting up again.
“Come on, guys,” Lydia said. “Vi isn’t scary! She just had a bad day.”
“We all have bad days,” agreed Suze with the dry tone of a dragon who had done some serious roaring on those bad days.
The bell rang over the door. Vi turned, her stomach somersaulting as she saw Nick for the first time since she’d left his house.
Nick jogged to a stop. “Had to finish some paperwork,” he said, hiding something bulky in his jacket. His grin was small, less bright than usual. “Hi.”
“Good to see you,” Vi said automatically, drawing from the not-so-bottomless well of customer-service energy.
Then she remembered that Nick could apparently see right through that, and her smile wavered.
Polite, distant friendliness had been her go-to her entire life.
What else was she supposed to do, just stand there and stare at him?
Pretend she wasn’t remembering how his fangs felt as he kissed her neck?
Nick patted his chest. “Am I forgetting something? Is there a mascot costume and nobody told me about it?”
Vi realized that, thanks to her smiling crisis, she had, in fact, been standing there and staring at him.
“No mascot,” Rosie called. She waved her bone-tipped cane at him. “Get over here! Show us the goods!”
A nervous laugh went around the circle as Nick came over. He pulled a battered container out of his jacket and set it down on the table, taking the lid off to reveal two rows of small silver cupcakes.
The circle let out a wave of appreciative gasps.
“These look lovely,” Suze said, sliding a cupcake out of the container. “Thank you, Nick. Where did you get them?”
“Ahhh, just some bakery out of town,” Nick replied, scruffing his messy hair.
“They do look great,” Vi said. She could smell them from where she was standing in the stacks: sweet vanilla and chocolate. “You don’t need to drive out of town, you know. Chester usually just makes a cake.”
“Oh,” Nick said, voice weirdly high. “I can’t bake for shit. Where’s my favorite cat?”
Vi turned to check. Mosey was sitting on the counter, wings flared, tail swishing lazily.
Nick clasped his wide chest and started toward the counter. “There he is. Come here, you.”
Rosie shoved her cane in his path. Nick almost stumbled over it, having to steady himself on the back of Rosie’s chair, which creaked worryingly under his weight.
“I heard you’ve been looking to get involved in your community,” Rosie said calmly, like she hadn’t almost made Nick trip over her cane.
“Right,” Nick said. “That’s me. Community guy.”
Rosie twisted to look at him properly. “Do you want to come grocery shopping with me? My wings aren’t what they used to be, and I need a strapping young orc to reach things off tall shelves.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “Uhhh . . .”
Vi bristled, opening her mouth to change the subject—she didn’t want him to shoot her down too hard—but before she could say anything, Nick laughed.
“I mean . . . Hell yeah!” Nick said, rolling up onto his tiptoes. “What else are we strapping young orcs good for? I’ll reach all the food for you, ma’am.”
Vi felt her shoulders relax. She waved at Nick, gesturing for him to join her over by the stacks.
He jogged over, pausing to scoop Mosey up from the counter. Vi prepared to watch Mosey squirm out of his arms immediately—he wasn’t a cat who tolerated being picked up—but to her surprise, Mosey just rolled over in his arms to be petted.
“What’s up?” Nick asked as he arrived in front of her with his arms full of Mosey. “Don’t tell me there is actually a mascot costume.”
She shook her head. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah. Shit, one second.” He wrestled Mosey into one arm, holding him close as he rummaged through his jacket pocket.
“I wrote notes,” he explained as he came out with a crumpled discussion sheet. It was less crumpled than his last one. Underneath every question, Nick had scribbled a few short lines, his handwriting so cramped and spidery Vi had to squint to read it.
“These are . . . good,” she admitted. “You must’ve watched a lot of tutorials.”
“Oh yeah. Ripped off all their shit.” He stuffed the paper back into his pocket and went back to cradling Mosey in both arms. Mosey, who, for some unknown reason, was putting up with this: wings flat, nose rubbing into Nick’s elbow. It was impossibly sweet.
“That’s a good start,” Vi told him. “But this isn’t high school. We come here to discuss our actual thoughts on the book, not what someone else said. What did you think?”
He blinked at her. For a moment, she worried she’d been too forceful. This isn’t high school? Where had that come from?
“It was good,” Nick said before she could follow it up with something softer. “Once I understood what the hell they were talking about.”
Vi nodded, abashed. Austen could be difficult if you weren’t a reader. She should’ve remembered that before she screamed at him in front of everyone.
He hesitated. Then, rolling his eyes like he was trying to stave off her making fun of him: “I liked the letter scene.”
“You did?”
He shrugged. “Who doesn’t love a big romantic gesture?”
Lydia laughed good-naturedly from the circle of chairs, holding a hand in front of her mouth to cover the cupcake she was chewing.
“Not Vi,” she called, muffled. “She hates them.”
Joshua nodded, looking at Vi apologetically. “She cringes all the way through those scenes.”
Nick stared at Vi, affronted. “You don’t like big romantic gestures?”
“I don’t like anything public,” Vi corrected. “They always do it at a basketball game, or a family dinner. It’s awful.”
Rosie tapped her cane against the chair. “For someone who loves romance books, our girl isn’t much for real-life romance.”
Ouch. Vi forced a polite smile. “I should go,” she said meekly, and turned toward the back room.
Nick fell into step beside her. “Hey, uh . . .”
He twisted to check no one was listening in, and Vi’s heart skipped a beat.
“I just wanted to say,” he told her as they headed into the back room, “I, uh . . . I had a really good time. I don’t know if I said that before you left.”
“I did, too,” Vi rushed to say. She grabbed her handbag, clutching it to her chest. Then she decided that looked too nervous and let it hang casually from her hand.
“It was fun. You were fun.” She looked behind him at the open door. She could hear the group’s laughter, but barely. No one was close enough to listen in. “I actually wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Yeah?” Nick said, staring at her with a strange intensity. “What about?”
She blinked, taken aback. “I’m not going to ask you out, don’t worry. I was going to ask if you wanted to . . . do it again. As, like, an ongoing thing. As friends.”
Nick stared at her.
Vi’s heart sank. She ducked her head, telling herself not to be embarrassed. “Or not. That’s fine, I just—”
“No, no, no, no,” Nick said, eyes wide. He pulled up a smile. For a second, it looked weird, almost fake, then it relaxed and became his usual loose grin. “Okay! Yeah, that would be . . . That’d be great! Hell yeah.”
He raised his hand like he was going for a high five, then changed his mind and ran it through his hair.
Vi told herself she wasn’t charmed. “You seem surprised.”
“You’re a surprising person,” Nick drawled. It had the same sarcastic tone she was used to, the kind that used to make her bristle. But then it softened. “I thought you were a strictly dating kind of girl.”
What could she tell him? That she didn’t want to open up her heart and see the guy turn tail and run? That their night together had been the low-stress, high-fun that she’d been missing her whole life?
She shrugged, trying to look coy. “Maybe I’m looking for a change.”
She expected him to say something glib, like, works for me. Or whatever means I get to touch your boobs. Something typical from the guy who once dived into a pool table to impress a girl.
But Nick just stared at her, his smile going strange again before smoothing out. “Cool,” he said. “So . . . how do you want to do this?”
Vi thought about it. “We don’t sleep over. No PDA. And no telling people. If we tell a few people, then everyone will know within the day. Claw Haven’s a small place.”
Nick blinked. “I meant, when do you want to come over, but okay.”
“Oh! Is after book club okay?”
“Sure.”
“Great. See you then.” Vi turned to leave.
A hand on her elbow stopped her. Vi turned back, questioning.
Nick let her go. He looked . . . strange. He was still smiling, but it was oddly strained. Like he wanted to say something, but was nervous about it.
Vi frowned. “What is it?”
“Nothing! Just . . . We already broke rule one.”
Vi relaxed. “We didn’t have that rule when that happened. We won’t do it again.”
“Right.” Nick clicked his tongue. “Awesome. Cool cool cool. Friends?”
He held out a hand.
Vi shook it. He did it just the way she taught him: slow, gentle, simple.
“Friends,” she whispered.
He stared down at her. He hadn’t let her go, his thumb rubbing absently over her wrist. He still looked like he wanted to say something, and not for the first time, Vi was seized with an incredible urge to kiss him.
But unlike that first time, it didn’t feel like it came from some strange force outside her. This was all Vi.
She leaned up . . .
Then laughter drifted from the main room, and they both blinked like they’d been jolted out of a dream.
“Anyway,” Vi said, pulling her hand away, “have fun discussing those grocery plans with Rosie. You don’t have to go, you know. She’s too pushy sometimes.”
“No, I might as well. What use is there in being tall if you don’t grab shit off shelves every once in a while?”
He mimed grabbing something off a shelf above her head. How did she not realize how dorky he was? He’d pulled stupid stuff like this before, and she’d assumed it was to make fun of her. She hadn’t realized he was just like that.
“Anyway,” he continued, thumbing over his shoulder. “Groceries. Book club. Mosey.”
“Mosey,” she agreed. “See you.”
“Soon,” he agreed.
She watched the long line of his back as he walked off. Her mouth hurt, she realized. She hadn’t smiled so hard it hurt in a long time.