9. Bookstore Shenanegans
Chapter nine
Bookstore Shenanegans
Neil
“Nice to meet you, Neil.” Frankie grabbed my hand, pulling me in for a quick hug. I stiffened in surprise. She whispered, “You know, Sawyer is single, and he’s a catch. Just saying.” She winked as she pulled away.
He seemed like a catch to me, too, which made me wonder what kept him single. I bet Frankie knew the dish about Sawyer… but no, I didn’t care. It’s not like he was actually interested in me.
“Frankie…” Sawyer groaned and swatted at her.
“Don’t be a stranger, Sawyer!” Frankie said, jogging off backward across the sand with a wave.
“She’s… interesting,” I hedged, shaking my head.
“That she is.” Sawyer put his hand on my back and gently led me the last few steps to the restaurant door.
We got a seat on the patio, looking out over the beach. The sun setting over the ocean was gorgeous, with the sunset pinks and golds reflecting and refracting off the water. It would have been very romantic if we were actually here on a date.
Sawyer looked nervous as the hostess sat us down. Combined with what Frankie’d said when she’d greeted us, I got the impression it had been a while since he dated. Which, same. But also I was nervous for another reason. Since I’d been trying to keep things professional between us, and with Sawyer’s insistence that this was not a date, I hadn’t bothered to disclose my trans status to Sawyer.
We sat in awkward silence after Frankie left, broken only briefly by our server dropping off our menus. Sawyer kicked off his sandals and relaxed back in his chair.
“How are you liking our little beach community so far?” Sawyer asked.
“It’s an adjustment, that’s for sure. From a desert to this. I’d never seen the ocean before. It’s very pretty.” I picked up my menu.
“Never seen the ocean before? That means you’ve never surfed either?” Sawyer clutched his heart dramatically and swooned back in his chair.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, well, you grew up here. How many times have you been skiing?”
Chuckling, Sawyer sat back up and raised his hands. “None, you got me. I get your point. But how many times have you been skiing? You said you moved here from a desert.”
“I moved here from Idaho, and yes, Idaho is a desert—a high desert. We skied every weekend. Mostly cross-country, but there’s downhill skiing there too.”
Sawyer described surfing to me, and balancing on a board on the water sounded a lot like snowboarding, which I told him. Then we had a little friendly argument about whether the two were really similar activities or not until the food arrived.
Dinner was excellent. Conversation with Sawyer flowed freely from one topic to the next, although he kept one eye on the beach. As we sat talking, laughing, and eating, I noticed the muscles in my shoulders and back releasing.
Our server dropped off the check, but Sawyer didn’t even notice, eyes on a husky frolicking in the surf. I snatched the check and pulled out my wallet.
“Can’t keep your eyes off all those cute dogs, huh?” I teased him gently as I handed the server my card.
He gave me a shake of his head and a wry smile before noticing the money change hands. “Hey, I invited you out! That obligates me to pay.”
I shrugged. “It’s the least I can do. You were right. I needed this.”
“I’ve got the next one, then,” Sawyer said with a wink.
Next one? My face burned with a blush. But it wasn’t personal, I told myself. Sawyer was just a huge flirt; it wasn’t me.
“Bookstore time!” Sawyer whooped as we stepped off the patio. “What’s your favorite section?”
“I loved fantasy growing up, but honestly, lately, I haven’t had time to read much.”
“Fantasy? Yes! Do I have the series for you?” Sawyer grabbed my hand and dragged me to the graphic novels. He pulled one off the shelf and held it up.
“ Faerly Hunter ?” I groaned at the terrible pun. The guy on the cover had big fairy wings and wore a fedora pulled low over his smirk.
“Yeah, I know the title is a bit cheesy, but the writing is superb. And the best part…” he tapped the name in much smaller print under the author’s name.
“Sawyer Tirrell!” I exclaimed. “Wait, that’s you. You drew this? This art is great.”
“Thanks! I started drawing it in high school with a friend, which is why the punny title.” Sawyer tapped the other name on the cover, Hector Rose. “I’ll have to introduce you. He’s still my best friend.”
“And now you’re in bookstores? That’s so cool. So this is what you do all day for work? Draw hot guys with fairy wings?” I was half teasing but half jealous.
Sawyer gave an embarrassed laugh. A flush crept up his face and colored his cheeks before he covered his face, using the book as a shield. “I wish. My graphic design day job pays the bills. This is just a passion project.”
“Still, it’s neat.”
Sawyer shrugged and peeked out at me from behind the cover. The tips of his ears were still pink, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Not as neat as you getting to do something you’re so passionate about every day at the shelter.”
I grimaced, my shoulders tensing up. Why did Sawyer have to bring up my work when I’d started to relax? “Well, not for long if I can’t prove myself.”
“Be positive.” He swatted me gently with the book before reshelving it. “Sorry, I brought up your work. So, to change the subject, what was the last good book you read?”
I paused, and nothing came to mind. Had it really been so long since I’d read a book for pleasure and not for school?
Sawyer’s eyebrows rose until they disappeared into his shaggy hairline. “Ah, right. You said it’d been a while. No pressure. We can browse the sci-fi/fantasy section and critique book covers and blurbs together.”
Relief made my knees weak. I nodded and mutely followed Sawyer around the corner, where he grabbed a book with a shirtless man in a kilt inexplicably standing on the deck of a spaceship. “What’s your guess on what this is about? I’m gonna say Highlander meets Star Trek.”
“Okay, since you took the obvious option, I’m going to say… time travel romance.”
Sawyer nodded, flipped the book over, and then scowled as his eyes darted over the description. “First point, Neil,” he said, slotting the book back onto the shelf. “Your turn to pull a book.”
“Point? So it’s a contest? What does the winner get?” I asked as I grabbed a book without looking. My heart hammered, my face burned, and my palms were sweaty enough from nerves to stick to the cover. The words had slipped out without my considering how they could be taken. Sawyer was such a flirt. I couldn’t help but flirt back despite my intentions to keep this professional.
Sawyer’s lips twitched like he was reading my mind. Or maybe it was the book cover? I glanced at it to see I’d grabbed another science-fiction novel, this one featuring an astronaut speaking with a tiny furry creature. Nothing really humorous about it. “We’re in a bookstore. Loser buys the winner a book…” he held up a finger, “of the loser’s choice.”
“Fair enough.” I considered the unlikely pair on the cover. “I say it’s an odd-couple murder mystery.”
“Since the furry guy isn’t wearing clothes, I’m going to guess it’s more of an Avatar / Dancing with Wolves kinda thing about colonization,” Sawyer said.
“Okay. Let’s see here.” I turned the book over, and we both huddled over it to read the blurb. Wealth, blah blah, prove they are sentient. Dang it. That’s closer to Avatar.”
Sawyer fist-pumped.
In the background, the employee at the front desk called out, “Five minutes till closing!”
“Best two of three. We have time for one more,” Sawyer said, picking a book while I reshelved mine. The book had an illustrated cover that took me a moment of squinting to understand. A human head, mouth open, with tentacles for eyes and too many rows of sharp teeth to be human. Everything was done in bright, saturated colors against a black background.
“What the frick?” we said in unison (though Sawyer used a lot stronger word than me), then glanced at each other and burst out laughing like kids.
“Jinx,” I said between hiccuping laughs. I had to lean on a shelf, smothering my loud laughs into my arms.
Sawyer wiped a tear of laughter from his eyes. “I’m going to give you this one. I don’t even want to guess,” he said, reshelving the book without turning it over.
Still giggling, Sawyer ducked around the corner and made a beeline for the registers. I made my way in that direction at a slower pace while I tried to recover from my overwrought emotions. Really, it hadn’t been that funny, but I’d been so pent up that a minor moment of humor had sent me into uncontrolled cackling.
I got to the counter as the cashier tucked the receipt into the book and slid it back to him. Said book was the one Sawyer had drawn.
“You bought your own book?” I said, another giggle bubbling up.
“Naw, I sell them here on consignment.” He shrugged and handed it to me. “So, really, it’s like taking money from my left hand and putting it into my right.” He mimed the motion.
The man behind the register piped in with a grin as he leaned across the counter to take an imaginary bill from Sawyer’s hand. “Except that I get a cut.”
“It’s worth it, man!” Sawyer held out a fist, and the cashier bumped it. “To keep this amazing place open.”