Chapter 15
DELILAH
The bookstore is quiet. Not the kind of dead silence that feels eerie, but soft, peaceful, familiar.
It smells like old pages and warm wood, the same comforting scent it’s had since the first day I walked in.
I love the neatness of the shelves, the simple order of it all—every book exactly where it should be, waiting to be found.
I love being alone, too. After a full day of people, lectures, and casual emotional exhaustion, being here—just me, the books, and some lo-fi music in my headphones—is the best part of my night.
I’m halfway through logging the latest shipment into inventory when the door chime jingles. I pause, frowning. The store is closed. Troy Hawkins walks in like he owns the place, carrying a box of donuts. I rip my headphones out. “Are you serious?”
“You sent me the address,” he says, grinning like that explains everything.
“I didn’t invite you.” I honestly thought he was joking, a small part of me wondered if he was serious but a more rational part of me assumed he must be joking and I won’t see him for ages.
“You didn’t not invite me.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “This is insane. You are insane.”
“I brought donuts,” he says, holding up the box. “You’re welcome.”
I open my mouth, ready to tell him to turn around and leave. But then my stomach growls.
Loudly. I snap my mouth shut.
Troy’s grin widens.
“Oh,” he says. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
I cross my arms. “Irrelevant.”
“Nope. Very relevant. You’re starving, I’m a hero—this is a perfect situation for you. And I’m willing to offer free labor.”
I hate that he’s right, I am freakin’ starving.
I snatch the box from his hands, opening it up to find a full dozen, still warm.
I hesitate for exactly three seconds before pulling out a chocolate one.
Troy watches me, clearly smug.
“You know,” he says, leaning against the counter, “I knew you liked these.”
I pause mid-bite. “How the hell would you know that?”
“Saw you every night at camp,” he says easily. “You’d always grab a donut for dessert. And if they ran out, you’d look so disappointed.”
I stare at him.
“You—” I shake my head. “You remembered that?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “You’re kind of dramatic, Greer. It was funny.”
I huff. “Whatever. Thanks for the donuts. So, what do you want? You can go back to the party if you want.”
“Or,” he says, grinning, “we could talk about camp.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
“Because we didn’t like each other,” he says, grabbing a donut for himself. “You were mean, and I was better than you at kayaking. Truce?”
I snort. “No.”
Troy gasps, “No? Wow. Shocking. And here I thought we were bonding.”
“We are not bonding.”
“I think we are. I think we may actually be into the realm of friendship now.”
“We absolutely are not, and also, you were a dick to me at camp.”
“You critiqued everything I did,” he argues, taking a bite of his donut. “Everything my team did, actually.”
“Because you were brutes,” I counter. “Our team was better but you guys cheated.”
Troy laughs. “No, Greer. We were just stronger.”
“You cheated.”
“We did not cheat.”
“Oh, so you conveniently winning every major challenge was totally fair? And my guy’s equipment always seemed to be broken or have holes in or something?”
He looks taken back. Did he not know that?
“Irrelevant. We were better.”
I scowl at him.
He grins back and suddenly, I remember exactly why we clashed so much over the summer. Troy Hawkins is annoyingly competitive, impossibly smug, and very, very hard to ignore.
I finish my donut. It’s really freakin’ good and I think the sugar has made me feel a little better, actually.
Which, annoyingly, means I can’t pretend to still be eating while Troy is standing there, grinning like he just single-handedly saved me from starvation.
He dusts sugar off his hands and stretches, rolling his shoulders. The sweatshirt lifts.
He shrugs, stepping closer. “Or maybe I’m just a good person who’s noticed you’re a bit stressed out and could probably use someone to look out for you.”
That catches me off guard, my head roars. He noticed? He noticed that I’m stressed?
I cover the tiny stutter in my breath with a scoff. “I have a handle on it, Troy, but if you insist, you can take that one into the back.” I point to a nearby box of extra copies of mystery novels.
He laughs, low and warm, but doesn’t push.
Instead, he grabs the box like it weighs nothing and lifts it easily onto his shoulder, muscles flexing just slightly as he adjusts it.
I cross my arms, pretending not to be impressed. Not pretending, I am not impressed.
…Okay, maybe a little. But he doesn’t need to know that.
For the next thirty minutes, Troy actually helps. Like, really helps.
He lifts boxes. Sorts inventory. Stacks things neatly without me even asking.
He’s shockingly competent. I assumed he’d be all talk, all show, mostly just here to get on my nerves.
He needs to stop surprising me like this.
I’m watching him easily maneuver through tasks, his muscles flexing under his sweatshirt, his stupid perfect arms handling heavy boxes like they’re light as air.
I hate that I’m aware of all of this. I hate it even more that my traitorous brain decides to picture what he’d look like without the sweatshirt entirely.
For the past thirty minutes, I’ve done a terrible job of ignoring the fact that Troy Hawkins looks unfairly good lifting heavy things.
The bookstore is quiet except for the lo-fi beats playing softly from my phone, the steady rhythm usually enough to keep me focused.
But right now, focus is hard when every time Troy reaches for something, his sleeves pull up just enough to reveal his forearms. And goddamn. He’s got the kind of arms that belong in a training montage, the kind that make people go feral on the internet.
I clear my throat aggressively.
“You’re actually… kind of useful,” I say begrudgingly.
Troy grins. “High praise, Mittens.”
I roll my eyes, turning to grab the last box that needs moving and I make a mistake. It’s heavier than I expect—my grip slips, my arms strain, my breath catches.
And before I can even react, Troy is there.
He steps in behind me, effortlessly catching the other side of the box, his hands bracketing mine.
I go completely still. He’s close. Too close. His chest brushes my back, solid and warm through his sweatshirt. I can feel the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing, the faint brush of fabric against my bare arms.
His hands don’t just grab the box, they cover mine and suddenly, the weight of the box is nothing compared to the weight of his touch.
My breath hitches. I swear I feel him tense for a fraction of a second, but he doesn’t move away.
Neither do I. The lo-fi beats in the background suddenly feel too soft, too intimate.
Slowly, I turn my head and Troy’s face is right there. Close enough that I can see the way his lashes frame his ice-blue eyes, the way the corner of his mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smirk.
His gaze flickers down—to my lips.
Holy.
Fuck.
Too long. Too quiet.
Even the books seem to go still, or still-er, like the whole damn room is holding its breath.
I should move. Say something. Blink.
Instead, I freeze, the box heavy in my hands and the air between us somehow heavier.
Troy shifts closer, just enough that I catch the scent of his cologne—clean, warm, something I don’t have a name for but suddenly want to memorize. His fingers brush mine as he passes over the last folder, the contact brief but electric. Warm. Too deliberate to be an accident.
“You got it, Greer?” His voice is low. Rough around the edges.
It hits somewhere deep in my stomach.
I look up. He’s watching me. Not in that smug, teasing way he usually does.
This is different.
Sharper. Hungrier. Curious in a way that makes me feel like I’m not entirely safe—and not entirely sure I want to be.
My mouth is dry.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. Too fast. Too loud. My voice cracks slightly at the end, and I hate that he hears it.
He doesn’t move.
Troy lingers, eyes flicking from my mouth to my eyes and back again, like he’s waiting for me to do something. Say something. Stop him.
I don’t.
For a second, I think he’s going to close the distance. Just one step. That’s all it would take.
Then, just like that, he steps back.
The air between us breaks. I inhale too sharply, like I’m surfacing from underwater.
He grins. That infuriating, perfect grin that makes people underestimate him. That makes girls fall in love.
“Careful, Mittens,” he says, picking up another box like he didn’t just almost rearrange the molecules in my body. “Wouldn’t want you getting flustered on the job.”
I want to punch him. I want to kiss him.
Mostly, I want to go back to two seconds ago and see what would’ve happened if I hadn’t looked away.
But instead, I roll my eyes. Pretend I’m fine.
He’s back to being annoying.
Good.
I know how to handle annoying.
It’s everything else that’s the problem.
We finish the rest of the inventory in relative silence, the only sounds the soft beats and occasional rustle of cardboard.
I keep catching myself watching him when he's not looking, the way his brow furrows in concentration, how his hands—strong but surprisingly careful—handle the delicate older books.
By the time we're done, it's nearly midnight. Mr. Abernathy usually closes up, but tonight he trusted me with the keys. I feel a strange sense of pride in that, mixed with the weight of responsibility.
“We’re all done,” I announce.
“I should probably get going,” Troy says, wiping dust from his hands onto his jeans.
I nod, already reaching for my coat. “Thanks for the help. And the donuts.”
“Anytime, Greer.” He smiles, and it's not his usual smirk. It's something softer. I hate how much I notice the difference.
Outside, the night air hits my face, cold and refreshing after hours in the stuffy backroom. I lock the door behind us, double-checking it out of habit.