Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next day, a bit to Steven’s disappointment, Jet showed up at the bookshop, Shelly in tow, car keys jingling.
Myles had, only moments before that, dragged Steven down from the top floor where they had been eating lunch.
Or mostly eating lunch. If someone told him that hadn’t been his primary motive for closing the shop for an hour and taking Myles up there, he could hardly argue with them.
“Jet? What’s going on? Is everything all right?
” The sheer panic in Myles’s voice echoed down Steven’s own memory paths, dimming the bright afternoon sunshine.
The kind of trauma when someone showed up at your door to give you the worst news of your life never quite went away.
It also never warned you it was coming when it showed up again.
Jet held up the keys and shook them. “Just thought if we were still going to the Y today, maybe we should think about doing that before it closes?”
Nothing. Steven gulped in a breath. It was nothing.
He reached past Jet to turn the shop sign to OPEN.
“Sorry,” he managed in a mostly normal and barely pinched at all voice.
“That was my fault. I normally have someone come in for a few hours in the afternoon, but she called in sick today. We were just taking a lunch break.”
Jet scowled. “Not your fault my uncle can’t tell time.”
“Jet,” Myles warned.
“Whatever. Can we just go?”
Steven patted Myles’s back. “Do what you have to do. I’m not going anywhere.”
Myles pointed a finger at Jet. “Don’t be a jerk.”
Jet huffed but turned to Steven. “Sorry.”
He didn’t sound terribly contrite, but Steven smiled anyway.
“I get it. You guys go.” He didn’t have to be a jerk back, but he also wasn’t going to let a teenager cow him, so he spun Myles by one shoulder and kissed him soundly but briefly on the mouth.
It went some way to calming his jangled nerves.
Watching Myles’s eyes go a bit dreamy, even if it only lasted a heartbeat, calmed him further. He didn’t have to stay stuck in the panic. If he had the power to do that to a man like Myles, surely he had the power to overcome one bad moment that had happened a lifetime ago.
“I’ll see you later?” he asked, catching Steven by the collar before he got too far.
“Of course. You know where to find me.”
“Right.” Myles kissed him again, quick, almost chaste, then herded the kids out the door.
The desire to flip the sign back to CLOSED and lock the door, turn all the lights off in the front rooms almost overcame Steven, once they were gone. He resisted. Barely.
He was trying hard these days not to be a recluse, he chided himself. One little reminder of that terrible day of opening the door to a stranger telling him his life had just turned itself inside out should not negate all the work he’d done to get to a place he had a real, live guy to kiss.
A real, live guy who, probably sooner rather than later, was going to get sick of the restrictions. Steven’s fear of leaving the house was going to put a strain on their times together. That had already happened with Becca, and Steven saw no reason why it should be any different with Myles.
Except Myles hadn’t given the smallest sign that the shop, or Steven’s company, bored him.
He hadn’t once suggested they go out, or do anything different.
In fact, he’d extended his vacation in Griffon’ Elbow, and though he had said that wasn’t just because of Steven, he also hadn’t said it wasn’t, in part because of their relationship.
So that was good, right? He liked Steven. He liked the shop. Hell, he liked books, which Becca hadn’t. Not that that made her a bad person. Just not his person.
You can’t compare the two.
“I am not comparing them,” he told the annoying voice. Even though that was one hundred percent totally and completely what he was doing. “And anyway, if I am, it’s only to remind myself how much better he is for me than she ever was.”
And it’s not at all about how you are just as terrible for him as you were for her.
“Shut up!”
“I’m sorry?”
Too late, Steven heard the squeak of the door hinges announcing the entrance of a customer.
“Oh! No! Not you. Obviously. I mean, come in. Here, let me get the door for you.” He hurried over to hold the door from swinging shut before his guest had a chance to clear it with both her crutches. “Tiffany, isn’t it?”
“It is. Thank you for remembering.”
“You bought notebooks from me last month.”
She smiled at him. “I did. The tooled leather covers and cream paper. One had hibiscus and one peonies, I believe.”
“One of a kind, those.” He remembered the two blank notebooks she’d purchased. He’d been surprised to find them in one of his father’s dusty old boxes, unaware he’d ever bought anything but the endless boxes of novels he’d been unpacking recently.
She looked a little disappointed at that. “So you don’t still carry them?”
“Sorry. I found them in one of the old boxes my father bought before he died. They were under a stack of old, unused colouring books. I doubt he even knew they were there.” Funny how the mention of his father, even his death, for once didn’t make it harder to breathe.
Still made his heart twinge, but it didn’t crush his chest like so many times before.
“That’s too bad. That paper was a dream to write on.” She went on about her notebooks as though a major life event hadn’t just happened. Which for her, it hadn’t.
Steven raced to catch up. “I did source some other notebooks. Not as old as those ones, but still.” He scrubbed at his chest as he led her over to a rack near the centre table where he and Myles had been working.
“Twenty-year-old stock from a stationary shop that closed down.” Rather than show her the pretty but ubiquitous books on the rack—ones she could have purchased at any nice gift shop—he opened a cupboard at the bottom of the display and pulled out a few older ones.
“Better quality even as old as these are than anything you can buy now. Unless you want handmade stuff, I mean.”
He held out his favourite of the small selection of lined notebooks. The covers were all velvet and brocade over heavy cardboard and the pages thick enough the ink from the pens Tiffany preferred wouldn’t bleed through.
“This is nice,” she agreed.
“I stashed them away for you. Just in case.”
She looked up from examining the stitches holding the pages in place. “That’s sweet.”
Steven shrugged. “I knew you’d appreciate them.” He spun the rack around. “I like to tell people the notebooks are where these books all start.”
The narrow shelves on the opposite side of the rack from the notebooks displayed copies of Tiffany’s own books.
“Not sure how I feel about seeing my books in a used bookshop.”
“Oh. These aren’t used. I order them from your publisher. They keep me stocked up. You have a lot of fans, you know. I’m having a heck of a time keeping the latest one on the shelf.”
“Look at you.” She hugged the notebook to herself. “I didn’t know they even stocked smaller numbers like this.”
“When they found out I’m in Griffon’s Elbow, they asked if I knew the B and B. I think they let me carry a small inventory because you’re kind of a local legend.”
“That and as long as this place keeps me inspired, I keep writing more books and they make more money.”
“Well, I hope they know what a gem they have in you. I wouldn’t want to see their bottom line if you ever decide to self-publish.”
She tapped one crutch on the floor. “I’ve got plenty on my plate, thanks. How many of these beauties do you have?” She held up the notebook.
“Three, I think.”
“I’ll take them all.”
He nodded, took the one she held, and she followed him to the till. As he rang up her purchases, she gazed around the room. “Very cozy in here, isn’t it?”
“I like it.”
“So I hear.”
He glanced up, but she was still examining the room, not looking at him. “I guess I spend a fair amount of time here,” he conceded.
She chuckled, but didn’t comment on his gross understatement. “Only I wonder.”
When she didn’t continue, but only handed over some cash, he prompted her.
“You have these wonderfully comfortable-looking couches and chairs. And all this quiet.”
“I do.”
“You see, the B and B has been overrun with a group of college kids. Lovely people. But a bit rowdy.”
“You need a place to work?” Steven guessed.
“Do you mind terribly?”
“Not at all. If the occasional customer wandering through won’t bother you, you’re more than welcome. The company will be nice. Though I promise not to interrupt your concentration by chatting.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.” She turned and started back towards the circle of comfy furniture, leaning heavily on her crutches as she went.
Steven took her new notebooks and the bag she’d abandoned on the floor and followed. Once she was settled in one of the wingbacks, he returned his attention to the books stacked on the table that he and Myles had been working on before their break.
Hours passed. The soft clacking of the keyboard on Tiffany’s laptop played a gentle counterpart to the music rolling constantly under the day’s activities.
Tiffany didn’t talk much. When someone bought three of her novels off the rack, she only smiled to herself. Until the woman realized who she was and approached her. Then she kindly signed the books and chatted about the one she was writing, making the customer’s day, it seemed.
“That was really nice.”
She shrugged. “All in a day’s work.”
“You really love your job, don’t you?”
At that, she closed her laptop and looked up at him. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah. A lot.” He grimaced. “I would have to, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you?”
“It would be some pretty serious self-flagellation to never leave here, and also to not like what I do while I’m here.”
“But it isn’t that.”
“No.” He sat in the chair next to her. “Do you believe in sentient houses?”