Chapter Twenty-Two
“Just be cool,” Nick reminded his reflection. “Maybe she really does just need someone to help pack online orders. Even though she sucks at asking for help. This isn’t secretly a confrontation! She doesn’t know she’s your mate! This is a normal friend thing!”
His reflection stared back at him, dazed.
He was wearing the soft blue shirt Vi had complimented once.
His nails were clean, fangs polished. His hair stuck up at even stranger angles than usual thanks to all his attempts to comb it flat.
He’d even tried flicking tap water at it, only to rub it out with a paper towel when it made him look like a wet rat.
“Be cool,” he repeated, and then stumbled out of the staff bathroom.
Wyatt was on him immediately, jumping on his back.
“His n-nails are c-clean,” he crowed as Nick swatted at him. “He’s going to the b-bookshop!”
“It’s book club night, dumbass,” Duncan called from across the garage where he was polishing a toolbox that didn’t need polishing. “’Course he’s going.”
“Going early,” Wyatt said, jumping off Nick before Nick could really start whaling on him. “What’s he d-doing again? Online orders?”
“I’m helping out my friend, because she’s swamped,” Nick said. “I do that now. Is that alright with you, Wyatt? Huh? Do I have your permission to be a useful member of the Claw Haven community for once in my life?”
He straightened out his shirt. He made sure to do it with a sharp, jerky motion so it seemed like he was just annoyed about Wyatt jumping on him, not like he was actually worried about the shirt.
“No, he’s right,” Duncan said dryly as Wyatt opened his mouth to tease him further.
“He’s involved now. Helping Rosie Dunham with her groceries and everything.
Hosting quiz nights and wrapping flowers for Joshua’s shop.
He chaperoned a kid’s birthday party. Don’t know why he couldn’t chaperone my kid’s birthday party—”
“I’ll get your kid next year,” Nick said, trying to step around Wyatt to get to the front of the garage. “Later, you useless shits.”
“Could just ask her out,” Duncan said, rubbing a dirty cloth over a clean wrench. “Just so you know. ’Cause it doesn’t look like you do.”
Nick took a steady breath through his nose.
He imagined letting it all spill out of him: She’s my mate.
But she hates fated mates, so I’ve been quietly trying to woo her without making her suspicious.
But I’m going to have to tell her soon; I can’t sit on this secret for much longer.
I just spent ten minutes in the bathroom convincing myself that she doesn’t already know and isn’t dragging me over there to yell at me for not telling her.
Then he turned, flashing them a grin.
“We’re friends,” he said, playing the world’s most annoying game of hopscotch with Wyatt as he tried to get past. “Even if we weren’t—Wyatt, come on—even if we weren’t, I don’t date. Wyatt, Jesus—”
Wyatt lunged for his back again. Nick sidestepped him and shoved his leg out so Wyatt stumbled to his knees on the concrete floor.
“N-nice one,” Wyatt wheezed.
Nick flipped him off without looking back, heart hammering a mile a minute as he crossed the street and headed for Sweethelm Books.
His head was such a mess of runaway thoughts that he knocked, actually knocked, on the bookshop door before remembering he was an idiot and pushing in.
Other than Vi at the counter, the bookshop was mercifully empty. Although judging by Vi’s amused look, she had definitely heard him knocking. A stack of books sat next to her, pieces of paper sticking out of the front covers, full of customer details.
“Nick,” she said, waving a strip of packing tape at him. “Good to see you.”
She said it the same way she’d been saying it for months: no customer-service shine, just genuine enthusiasm. Nick’s heart spasmed in his stupid chest. She was way too friendly for a confrontation. He’d freaked himself out for nothing.
He took a container of muffins out of his jacket and set them down on the counter.
“Sorry I couldn’t do the other day,” he said. “I had to help Rosie’s daughter put a dresser together.”
“It’s fine.” Vi’s mouth did a complicated twitch Nick couldn’t begin to decipher. She tapped the container between them. “When did you have time to go out to the mysterious out-of-town bakery?”
The back of Nick’s neck prickled. She definitely sounded suspicious. He had to stop keeping so many secrets from this girl.
“I made time,” he said vaguely.
She hummed. Nick tried to look innocent. It wasn’t one of his strong suits.
Luckily, she relented. “Duncan was okay with you getting off early?”
“Oh, yeah. He knows how understaffed you guys are.” Nick wandered around the counter, touching the yet-to-be-stickered books and pretending not to be relieved she let the mysterious bakery crap go. “Where’s my favorite cat?”
“I haven’t seen him in a few hours, which usually means he’s napping under a shelf somewhere.
” She stood back, gesturing at the stack of books.
“Okay. So I’ve done all the processing already.
You just need to get them ready to ship out.
We’re wrapping them in paper, then cardboard, then taping it closed. ”
“Done.”
“We close in an hour,” Vi continued. “I’ll go around finding the books for tomorrow. In about forty minutes, I’ll have to start setting up for book club—”
“I can help,” Nick said instantly.
Vi’s mouth did that complicated twitch again. She ducked her head, a strand of brown hair falling over her sweet face.
“Thanks,” she said. “But I actually really need these packaged up. We usually have someone doing online orders all day . . .”
“Package like the wind,” Nick said. “Got it.”
He grabbed the first book and started wrapping.
It wasn’t his strong suit, but if he got the hang of icing, he could get the hang of this.
As he was grabbing a piece of cardboard from the carton Vi had pointed to during the explanation, he looked up to find Vi standing there, watching him.
She was mid-turn, like she’d been about to do something else but got distracted.
Nick paused. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“You’re not doing it wrong,” Vi said after a moment. Her mouth opened and closed. For a heart-stopping moment, Nick thought he’d been right after all, and she had dragged him here to confront him.
Then Vi continued: “Thanks.”
“’Course,” Nick said, deflating in relief. “It’s what I do now, right? Helping out.”
Her face fell. Oh, shit.
“And we’re friends,” he hurried to say. “I’d . . . You know. I’m not just helping out to help out. Friend asks for help, it’s . . . You know.”
“Right.” Vi tightened her already-tight hair ribbon. “I’ll . . . go grab more books,” she said, and headed into the stacks.
Nick watched her go. He had the creeping feeling he’d done something wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
He looked down over his outfit, checked his nails for engine gunk.
He was as clean as he got. He was even wearing his nice jeans, the ones without rips.
Well, the ones with rips he’d sewn up. Basically the same thing.
It was a surprisingly quiet hour. Nick hummed along to the calming music playing over the speakers, laughing when Vi admitted it was a Spotify playlist she’d found by searching for bookshop playlist. Vi piled more books behind him.
She seemed distracted. Lost in her own head.
Nick was 90 percent sure it wasn’t his fault.
Customers trickled in, some locals Vi paused to chat with and tourists who mostly wanted to be left alone. Except for a human tourist from Texas who wanted to know what to get for his fourteen-year-old daughter.
Nick listened to the conversation with growing sympathy:
“What does your daughter like to read?”
“Well, I don’t know. She’s always on her phone.”
“Alright, do you know any TV shows or movies she likes?”
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s alright. Do we know if she likes romance, mystery, horror, adventure? Happy things? Sad things?”
“Uhhh.”
“How about we go over to the young adult section, and I’ll give you some recommendations that girls that age tend to enjoy?”
Nick shot Vi a wince. Vi glanced at him so fast, he thought she’d missed it. Then he caught a hint of a smile as she passed, the Texan trailing behind her.
“He seemed cool,” Nick said once it was just them in the shop once again.
Vi laughed. “I really want to tell these customers to get a gift voucher. But that’s too impersonal.”
“Right, no, you should get them a mystery book when you don’t even know if they like mystery.”
Vi laughed again, louder than that weak joke deserved. She tugged at her hair ribbon again, and Nick resolutely didn’t imagine feeling the silky material between his fingers.
“I think I owe you an apology,” Vi said slowly.
Nick made a show of looking around, startled. “Oh shit, why? What’d you do?”
Vi’s hands twisted together. “You’ve been . . . You’ve been a big help this past month and a half. Not just for me. I underestimated you.”
The situation was veering too close to serious. Nick felt himself grin, defensive and automatic.
“You really didn’t,” Nick said, smoothing wrapping paper around the next book so he’d have something else to look at than Vi’s big brown eyes. “I’m still the same jackass from that first barbecue, I promise.”
“You’re not,” Vi said, her tone so final that Nick’s smile died in shock.
Vi paused, looking surprised herself. “I don’t know. Maybe you always had hidden depths and were just so annoying, I never looked past that.”
“Ha ha,” Nick said, too loud. “Just what I wanted!”
He shot her a pair of finger guns, tape stuck to his thumb.
“Anyway,” Vi said. “I just wanted to say sorry. And . . . I’m glad we’re friends.”
She smiled at him. There was something behind it, a stiffness, maybe from how goddamn awkward Nick was being.
“Right,” Nick said. “Yes. Me, too.”