Chapter Thirty
“You really don’t have to do this,” Vi reminded Gabriella as she turned on the flashlight on her phone. “Your exhibition is tomorrow night, and you have so much left to do!”
Gabriella waved her glowing phone in Vi’s face, making Vi cover her eyes.
“Then I’d be the only one in town not looking for our beloved bookshop cat,” Gabriella said. “I’d never live that down! Okay, down that street?”
She pointed in the direction Vi had allocated her group. Vi nodded, and Gabriella ran after her group, who were already hollering Mosey’s name as they walked around the corner of Main Street.
Vi stood back to observe the crowd. In the forty minutes since Mosey had run out into the street, the whole town had assembled to find him.
Emma had closed Cozy Grotto Café for the night and instructed her entire staff to join the search.
Luna Musgrove had come over from the inn, Oliver in tow, snapping photos of the search and posting them to the ever-growing Claw Haven social media sites.
Even a few tourists had gotten involved, marching down the snowy streets shouting for Mosey.
Vi sighed, watching her sister vanish around the corner with her group. “This feels like too much.”
Nick came up beside her and snorted. “For Mosey? No such thing.”
“No, I know, I just . . .” Vi paused. “I’d happily search all night for the little guy, but it feels weird to drag everyone else into it.”
“Who’s dragging?” Nick asked, rubbing his backpack straps. “You should’ve seen the emojis in some of their replies. People couldn’t wait to help.”
Vi turned to him. Nick looked at her steadily, and Vi had to fight down a stubborn, exhausting riot of butterflies in her stomach.
Nick had wasted no time in texting everyone in town to come together for a Mosey search.
He’d ended up with a lot of phone numbers these past few months.
Vi had been expecting a lot of polite refusals, but less than an hour later, everybody was dispersing from Main Street to search the surrounding streets—leaving Nick and Vi to search Main Street.
It had already been semisearched while everybody arrived, but Vi wanted to go over it again.
There were a lot of places a scared cat could hide.
Vi started to say they should begin their official search, only to stop when Emma jogged up.
“Hey,” Emma said curtly. “While you’re here, never mind about covering the quiz next week. I’m all set for the month.”
“Oh,” Vi said, surprised and then utterly unsurprised as she watched Nick shift nervously beside her. “Okay. Thanks.”
Emma gave her a distracted nod and then ran back to her group, pausing only to give Heath a nod as he came over.
“Vi,” Heath said, his scaly face stuck in the same perma-frown as always. “We only need you at the food bank every second Saturday now. Does that work?”
“Uhhh,” Vi said. “Sure?”
“Good. Don’t show up this Saturday, show up next Saturday, and then so on.” He gave Vi a short nod. Then he returned to his group, tail swishing.
Vi blinked. Her week had suddenly gotten a lot freer, immediately after Nick showed up in her life again. Who would’ve thought it?
“We should get going,” Nick said loudly. “Start from the top and work down?”
Vi nodded. They started through the snowy street, which had been cordoned off for the search. Nick kept a careful distance away, his hands stuffed deep into his jeans pockets. He was wearing a scarf, giving her no way to tell if Jared was right about the hickey.
Vi stared at his backpack. It wasn’t falling apart, but only because parts of it were stitched together haphazardly with different-colored twine. Less artistic and more done over multiple years while running out of thread.
“We were worried about you,” Vi said suddenly. “Nobody had heard from you all week.”
“I was sick,” Nick replied. He peered into a nearby alleyway, and Vi clocked it as at least half genuine and half a reason to look away from her. She couldn’t figure him out, but whatever his deal was, he didn’t care about her enough to explain it.
“So,” Nick said as they searched Main Street, “Jared is cool.”
Oh, Vi thought. So we are going to talk about it.
Jared hadn’t stuck around for the search. But he had told her to let him know if she needed anything, which seemed strange when Nick was rallying the troops via text a few feet away.
“You know Jared?” Vi asked.
“Kinda. We went to school together. He’s . . .” Nick blew out a long breath. “Successful. Good smile, I guess. If you like that sort of thing.”
Vi watched him smile, small and self-conscious and beautiful. She wished he would just say what he was thinking. She was so tired of second-guessing herself.
“Are you guys serious?” Nick asked.
Vi almost laughed. Serious? In the week since she had broken things off with Nick?
“I mean, not serious,” Nick continued. “But do you like him?”
Vi stopped, turning to face Nick in the soft glow of the streetlights. “Would it matter if I did?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you take those alternate shifts at the food bank? And those quiz nights? And earlier today, Joshua said he didn’t need me to help with a big flower display. Did you poach that, too?”
Nick laughed awkwardly, pulling his backpack closer against his back. “Is that a crime?”
Vi wanted to shake him. Vi wanted to kiss him. Vi wanted him to cut the bullshit and just say what he meant for once.
“I do want to do some of them,” Vi said. “I like helping people. They have an Austen quiz night coming up.”
“Oh,” Nick said. “You can have that one, then.”
“Why are you doing this?” Vi asked, her voice becoming worryingly thin. “People keep saying things about you, and I don’t want to believe them if they’re not true. If you tell me it has nothing to do with your feelings for me, I’ll believe you. Just don’t lie to me.”
Nick looked stricken. His fingers tightened around his backpack straps, and for the first time, Vi wondered what he had in there. She’d never seen him with a backpack before.
“Vi,” Nick started.
Vi’s heart leaped. It sounded like a confession. Maybe not a confession she would like, judging by Nick’s worried tone, but she wanted to know, once and for all.
Nick opened his mouth again.
A triumphant cry drowned out whatever he had been about to say.
Vi whirled.
Cheers and whoops erupted as everyone spotted Chester wheeling himself down the street, Mosey curled up on his lap with his wings tucked in tight around his small, furry body.
“You can call off the search party,” Chester called amongst the sounds of celebration. “I found the little beast.”
Emma emerged from a side street and raised her arms to yell: “Everybody into Cozy Grotto Café, where it’s warm!”
The crowd started to shuffle toward the café. Tourists gathered around Chester to take photos, only to be waved away by an irritated Chester and then coaxed back by an enthusiastic Luna Musgrove, who asked if she could post the pictures to the Claw Haven socials.
“Vi,” Chester said, spotting her through the throng. “Help me get this cat inside before he flees again.”
Vi moved without even thinking, stepping into the street.
“Wait,” Nick said.
Vi turned back. Nick pulled his backpack off and unzipped it, rummaging until he found a battered container. There was a dish towel wrapped around the container, knotted in a clumsy bow.
“Peach cobbler,” he explained.
Vi touched the bow carefully. “Is this . . . apology cobbler?”
“Sure.” Nick smiled crookedly. “I wanted to make sure things are okay between us.”
Vi took the cobbler. She tried to say thanks, but the word wouldn’t come out.
“I—” Nick’s grip tightened around his backpack. “I should . . . You should know . . .”
Vi waited, heart in her throat.
Chester yelled from behind her: “Vi! Wheel me out of this mess! They want me to pose for them!”
“One second!” Vi called back. She turned back to Nick, but he was already shaking his head.
“Never mind,” he said. “This isn’t a good time. Uh, pat Mosey for me.”
Vi watched him walk down the snowy street. The plastic container was cool in her hands. For some reason, she’d expected it to be warm.
The door settled shut behind Vi, and Chester sighed in relief.
“Okay,” he told the cat in his lap. “Off you go, you little deviant.”
Mosey meowed and jumped onto the bookshop carpet, trotting toward the back room with the calm of a cat who had no idea he had triggered a town-wide search.
“I have no idea what came over him,” Vi said. “He’s never made a run for it like that before.”
Chester grunted. “What happened?”
“I think . . .” Vi hesitated, thinking back to how eagerly Mosey had run for Nick when he’d spotted him across the road. “I think he wanted to see Nick.”
Chester laughed uproariously. “Wicker? You don’t say. Everybody wants a piece of that orc nowadays.”
Vi thought back to Jared telling her about Nick’s hickey, probably hidden behind the scarf he’d been wearing tonight.
Chester’s gaze dropped to the container in her arms. “What’s this?”
“What? Nothing.” Vi hugged it protectively, then tried to look like she hadn’t just done that. “I mean, it’s a gift. Nick had some extra food, so . . .”
Chester pushed himself slowly back and forth in his wheelchair. “He ran away pretty fast. I would’ve thought he’d want to stay and check on Mosey. He adores that cat.”
Vi hummed.
“You never told me what happened with you two.”
“Nothing happened,” Vi said, too fast.
Chester sighed. “Did you have a fight?”
“No! We actually . . .” Vi held the cobbler closer to her chest. “We just made up.”
“He dropped out of touch with everybody,” Chester said flatly.
Vi swallowed. “We’re friends. So that’s . . . settled.”
Chester wheeled closer to stare at the container she was holding. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, so it was more of a squint. “And he told you he just wanted to be friends?”
“Yes!”
Chester slumped back in his wheelchair, looking oddly disappointed. Or maybe that was just the face he made when he couldn’t get to an itch under his remaining leg cast, scaly fingers flexing over the plaster in a way that meant he’d quite like to dig through it.
“Nick has been reading to me for a while now,” Chester said.
Vi blinked. “He . . . what?”
“I traded him.” Chester smiled wryly. “I taught him how to come up with book club questions and discuss them eloquently—his version of eloquence anyway—and in return, he reads me the book. As much as we could get through in a week anyhow. Apparently, he listens to the rest of it on audiobook. Ugh.”
“He never said . . .” Vi said weakly. A strange feeling twisted through her gut, forcing her to sit down on the ramp. “Why would he not tell me that?”
“He wanted to be good at it.” Chester stretched out, straining to touch her knee. He patted it gently. “Said he specifically didn’t want you to know.”
Vi thought back to his uneasy smile as she yelled at him in the bookshop.
About him showing up with brownies, muffins, cakes, and lying about where he got them from.
Groaning when Vi confronted him about his panther buddy, making her promise she wouldn’t tell anyone what he said to Gilbert.
Emma not mentioning who took over the quiz nights this time, Heath telling her he only needed her every second Saturday, how it was only ever Rosie who told her about how the grocery trips were going: Nick would get avoidant and bashful whenever Vi brought it up.
Not wanting her to know. Not wanting her to see him.
Vi burst into tears.
Chester leaned from his wheelchair, gripping Vi’s knees. “Atta girl. Let it out.”
As if Vi had a choice. The tears came fast and gasping.
Vi couldn’t stop if she tried. And she did try, digging her fingers into her palms or holding her breath or, mainly, telling herself she was being a big, stupid baby who had more important things to do than cry.
People were depending on her. People needed her.
It was hard to tell herself that with Chester’s frail hands stroking over her knees, smoothing out her skirt. Triss was gone; it was just her and Chester, and then suddenly, Mosey, who came scampering out from the back room to see what all the fuss was about.
Chester lifted Mosey onto Vi’s lap, and she sobbed into Mosey’s fur for a humiliating thirty seconds until her sobs finally subsided.
Chester handed her the ends of her skirt. Vi let out a hiccupy laugh, drying her face with it.
“I need to talk to him,” she croaked. “After . . . After tomorrow. My sister has the art show.”
Chester waved a hand. “I can handle that.”
“She’s my sister,” Vi said, sniffing hard. “I’ll talk to him after. If he doesn’t want a relationship, that’s fine. But . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to talk him into anything he doesn’t want. If he doesn’t want me—”
“He wants you,” Chester assured her. “It’s just a question of whether he’s going to get the hell out of his own way.”