Eight
Three Little Words opened about a year ago, and I remember some of the local buzz that came with the downtown finally getting a new store after at least ten years. I’ve never made it inside, and the cheerful window display has me immediately regretting that.
Tall, proud sunflowers with printed pages for leaves flourish in the bright morning light, and a tidy little sign at their base proudly reads NO BOOKS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS DISPLAY.
The same haphazard whimsy continues inside the store, with brightly colored bookshelves, every surface overflowing with Jenga towers of books, and a small café tucked into the corner. Sitting at one of the tables next to the counter is Ash. He’s folded into a bright pink chair with teal polka dots, and his black jeans and black-and-white-striped button-down make him look like a lost crow. A fat tuxedo cat pumps biscuits into his leg.
I slide into a sunshine-lemon chair across from him, his companion taking me by surprise. “Who’s your friend?”
The sonorous purring almost drowns out his reply.
“Marlowe, meet Darcy. Darcy, this is Marlowe.”
Darcy keeps pumping, almost cross-eyed as Ash pats his rump.
“Aren’t cats supposed to be named things like Buttons or Duchess?”
“Darcy, you know, like Pride and Prejudice?”
I nod, because I know all about Matthew Macfadyen. “I haven’t read the book, but I have some passing familiarity with the movie.” It’s too early in the morning to admit to my sad-girl binges.
Ash stops petting, and Darcy meows in protest. “Don’t let Sloane hear you say that, or I can’t be held responsible if they drag you into the back and make you read it in front of them.”
“And who’s Sloane? If it’s another cat, I’m going to say we should go to the sandwich place next door.”
He grins, scooping a complaining Darcy to the floor. “They’re the owner, and a bit of a superfan.” He nods to a framed picture of a flexed hand propped up on the counter next to an espresso machine.
My stomach clenches, and I feel weirdly seen. That this scene from the movie that always made me breathless was more universal than I’d realized.
He stands, towering over me until I’m a little lightheaded. “Do you want a coffee?”
I perk up considerably. “A latte would be great.” He waves off my money and steps behind the counter to wash his hands. When he starts grinding beans, I lean forward. “Ash, are you sure we’re not supposed to wait for Sloane?”
He looks up, amused. “I work here, Marlowe.”
“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “Oh.” I turn and see the space in a new light; one that has Ash as a permanent fixture. His moody presence alongside books suspended in flight from the ceiling, like seagulls.
He hands me my coffee, and I try not to jump right into business. People like small talk. They like to ease into these things.
I fumble for a topic. “Do you have to work today?”
He shrugs. “I might help out a little if it gets busy.”
I nod, silence falling between us until my chest tightens enough to expel one burning question out of my lungs. “Ash, why are we here?”
I hate feeling lost or out of my depth. I want to insist that he pull out his calculus homework, so I can do it in front of him and prove that I’m at least good at something.
He frowns over the rim of his cup, which yells BOOKMARKS ARE FOR QUITTERS. “We have a few things to clear up.” He sets down his coffee. “For starters, I’m not going to be writing love letters to that dipshit.”
“Don’t call him that,” I say automatically. “Then what exactly are you proposing?”
“I am willing to be convinced to tutor you in romance.” He gestures behind him. “And with books maybe a little better suited to the job than Lady Jessica. I’ll help you find the words to describe your own feelings, and you can send those along to the jockstrap.”
“Homework?” I ask, looking at the overwhelming selection of books popping up on every surface like weeds. “And these are all romance? That’s going to take way too long. I was hoping to wrap this up by next week.”
He picks his cup back up and breathes in the steam rising into the air between us. Not a care in the world. “That’s all I’m willing to offer. You want a shortcut, but that would just be another guy telling you what love is. What you need are lessons from some of the masters and to make your own opinions.”
I slouch back in my seat and sip my annoyingly tasty latte. It isn’t unreasonable, which is also deeply annoying. In fact, it’s probably more time and effort on his part than simply slipping me a few songs from his top-secret stash.
“So, I read what you tell me, and suddenly I’m a romance expert crafting prose that will make Josh sit up and notice?”
“Are you always this moody in the morning?” he asks, falling short of accusatory and landing solidly in amusement. “I know you want specific parameters, so let’s do this the right way.” He pauses to think, but I have a feeling it’s all for show. “Let’s agree to four letters.” I open my mouth to object, but he cuts me off. “Quality over quantity. Getting a good love letter from you is going to be noticeable enough.”
“Anonymous letters,” I clarify.
“I thought you were trying to win him back.”
“I am,” I hedge. “Like with most things, I assume I will get better with practice. I don’t want him receiving one poor attempt and immediately discounting it.” Or for him to tell me to stop contacting him before I write one that can change his mind.
He nods. “Okay, anonymous then.”
I open my disco-cats notebook to the first blank page and make two columns, for Marlowe Amelia Meadows and Ashton Napoleon Hayes. His lips twitch.
“What’s this?”
“A contract.”
“What a shame, I left my notary seal at home.” His posture is casual, but his attention is a high-beam spotlight and I’m melting under the intensity of his gaze.
“Your first mistake,” I say, clearing my throat. “Because a notarized document could pop up at any time. I guess we’ll just have to trust each other.”
Under my name, I write:
FOUREXPERTLYCRAFTED LETTERS
He pulls the notebook across the table and snatches the pen from my fingers. “How many romance novels can you commit to reading per week without it affecting your schoolwork?”
“Probably about one? I’m a fast reader, but it’s usually interest that slows me down.”
He doesn’t seem bothered. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
He writes next to my neat, cramped letters in swirls and flourishes:
One Ash-curated book a week for homework
I pull the notebook and pen out of his hands. “What do you want? A book report or something?”
He shrugs. “Not a bad idea. Let’s say you keep track of them in this book. A quick synopsis, any tropes you identify and which ones you like best, and three things you learn from each novel.”
“Like, this book taught me that if a duke doesn’t offer to give up his title and lands for you at least once, you don’t even want him?”
“Exactly.”
I put pen to paper, feeling inspired.
FOUR ROMANCE FIELDWORK ACTIVITIES
“Now, what does that mean?”
“It means that I clearly need practical experience. You saw what a disaster that party was! I need real-time, boots-on-the-ground training.”
“Fieldwork?” He slides the notebook toward himself, as if the shape of my letters will give him more of a clue.
“You can take me to possible date sites so I can scope out activities I need to incorporate into my own romantic practice. We can replicate some activities from the books, just something.”
I pull the notebook back. “That’s it. These are the things I need to be successful.”
He exhales, leaning back. “All right, what are you offering in return?”
“Okay,” I say, fighting the nervous energy bubbling under my skin. I smooth out the paper, giving myself some time to get my thoughts in order. “I thought we could do something about Never Mind the Monsters.”
He stills, the coffee forgotten. “I’m listening.”
I pull out my phone, and briefly tilt it away from him so he doesn’t see I’ve bookmarked his website. “Your online presence is a mess. Who did this website?”
He looks at the blocky text and poor mobile format in front of us. “The bassist, Mateo’s, little brother. He did it for fifty Pokémon cards and twenty rides to the mall.”
I laugh and scroll down.
“Don’t laugh, Mateo is still paying that off.”
I hold up the grainy black-and-white photo, probably shot in someone’s basement. “And how old is this picture?”
He shrugs. “Over a year? Right around the time we started the band.”
I squint at the blurred blob that’s supposed to be Ash. “I remember when you were blond.” I look up at his hair, dark and loose. “This is better.”
One single arched eyebrow is the only indicator he heard me.
I pull up the band’s two social media accounts. “Your last posts were almost a year ago. You have no presence on streaming services, and aside from this one video, I couldn’t hear your music anywhere.”
“Did you watch it?”
I stop scrolling, and again feel the physical weight of his gaze. “Yeah, I watched it.”
His voice is softer. “Did you like it?”
I blush, but I don’t know why. He sounds so earnest, my head swims. The question is careful, and I get a sense of something hanging in the balance. I worry often about giving the right response, of being too direct, or missing the mark. I want to be honest, though. I want him to know that I want to unravel all of the lyrics to all of his songs.
I look him full in the face and am simply myself. “I’ve watched it at least twenty times, and I would like to hear the rest.”
He swallows and slowly picks up his cup. “Okay. You will.”
I lean over the notebook and under his column I write:
REVAMP CRAPPY WEBSITE (SORRY MATEO’S brOTHER!)
He leans over. “Is that what you’re going to study in college?”
I shake my head. “No, I’m going to be a biomedical engineer. I’m going to make synthetic organs, so nobody dies on a transplant list anymore.”
He sits back. “That’s extremely specific. How did you get into that?”
I pause, but I’ve known the answer to this question since I was seven. “My father is a cardiac transplant surgeon.”
“Fancy. Is he over at the big hospital in Gardner?”
“No, he’s in Denver. My parents split up when I was three.” I smile brightly to dispel the awkward pity people usually aim in my direction when I say that. “He’s unfortunately a little too much like me in this regard.” I nod at the notebook between us.
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, you know. We’re both a bit hopeless. Maybe if he’d had a tutorial like this, my parents would still be together.”
Ash frowns, and I can see him weighing a response before he takes another sip and swallows those words down. “So, fake hearts aside, you know how to build a website.”
“Anyone can build a website, Ash, which is how you were able to buy one for Pokémon cards and trips to Cinnabon. The neon-green background was a choice, though.”
I move down the list and create a subsection:
UPDATED CONTENT
“This picture has to go. We need something recent and stylized. We can work out the details later, but updated photos of all of you.”
He does smile now, and it breaks through like sunshine in February. “Are you a photographer now too, Marlowe?”
“Anybody holding a smart phone can be a photographer.”
“Well? Do you have a portfolio I can browse?”
“You better be serious, because I have twelve albums of mushrooms that I will walk you through without a moment’s hesitation. It will take the rest of this day, and all of your lunch period tomorrow.”
He laughs, and goose bumps prickle across my skin.
“Okay, I believe you. What next?” he asks.
I write:
UPDATE SOCIALS AND STREAMING SERVICES
“You’re literally nowhere online. What’s the point of this band?”
He blinks. “Sorry, I blacked out for a moment and thought you were possessed by my grandmother.” He pulls his hair up into a messy bun. “What’s the point of it? I don’t know. What’s the point of any art? The love of it? Wanting to share it?”
I wave him off. “I didn’t mean existentially. I mean, do you want to play local gigs? Record something? Hit it big?”
“Can we just go with ‘all of the above’ for now?”
“That’s not going to happen if nobody can hear you. We can start inviting all of River Haven to whatever garage you practice out of, or we can bring it to them.”
I look up, and his amused smile has me suddenly self-conscious.
Sometimes when I got too deep into a problem, Josh would tell me that the world wasn’t math, and humanity did not need me to sink my teeth into figuring out which restaurant had the best cheeseburger based on a six-point scoring system. Or that I didn’t have to go overboard with offering suggestions or research material to help Bo Dickerson train his new labradoodle when he just mentioned it in passing.
First off, the world is math. We’re all just coefficients and reactions. But I got his point. That sometimes my enthusiasm was too much. A step too far. A knee squeezed under the table to let me know that nobody had asked for the deluge of my personality.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sweating self-deprecation and embarrassment. “You probably know all of that.”
“Don’t apologize, Marlowe.”
I look up again. His eyes are such a dark brown, they’re almost black. Like Craterellus cornucopioides.
“I mean it,” he says, and I can see he does. “I don’t know much about a lot of this, and I feel a little put in my place by my own laziness. Everything you’ve said is true.”
“Okay,” I say, sitting up a little straighter.
His smile spreads, and it’s startling. He’s so much looser here. He still has the black clothes and the lip ring, but it’s like he’s cracked a window and I’m getting a glimpse of the rest of him.
I blush, feeling as exposed as if I’d forgotten to put on my skin suit this morning. “We’ll use the updated pictures, and I’ll post two times a week on these accounts. It’ll be slightly different content, as it looks like the target market varies a bit across each platform.”
He opens his notes app, and his fingers fly across the screen.
My confidence grows, and I keep going. Why shouldn’t he take me seriously? “How often do you practice?”
“About three times a week.”
I choke a little, my coffee going down the wrong pipe. “Oh! You’re serious serious?”
He puts down his phone, and his mouth quirks a little. “I guess so. We love it, we’re all best friends, so yeah, we like to practice.”
I make my last bullet point under his name:
ATTEND FOUR BAND PRACTICES FOR CONTENT AND UPDATES
He sits back, and the expanse of this project stretches out in front of us.
“This is a lot of work, for both of us,” he says, fidgeting with the silver rings on his left hand. “Are you sure you’re up for it? I can just show you where the poetry section is, and you can copy a stanza or two and he’ll never know.”
“And then what?” I ask. “He leaves me again in two months because I’m still missing what everyone else just instinctively gets?”
“I don’t think you miss much, Marlowe Amelia Meadows.”
“Then prove me wrong. Are these terms acceptable? Do you feel like this is an even trade?” I slide the notebook closer to him, more forceful than I intend.
He holds my gaze for another moment and then nods. He grabs the pen and signs Ashton Napoleon Hayes at the bottom.
I take the pen and do the same, and he takes a picture with his phone. Relief bursts through me like fireworks, until it fizzles out just as fast. “We still have to fit in Wuthering Heights somewhere.”
“Buck up, Marlowe. Based on this, it looks like we have plenty of time together to figure it out.”
“I do have a futon; you could probably just move in.” My face immediately catches fire, my filter gone with the wind. “I mean… you know what I mean.”
“We’ll call that plan B,” he says, holding his hand out. “Give me your phone.”
I hand it over, heat crawling up my neck as he programs in his number. It’s practically a business arrangement, but not many guys have ever asked for my number. He opens a chat and sends himself a mushroom emoji, and his phone makes a little chirp.
“Now that that’s settled.” He stands up, and I’m craning my neck again. “Come on, I’ll give you a tour.”
I try to keep track of the organization, but there are so many subsections of subgenres. He moves me around tables toward the far wall. “You know we only carry romance, and there’s just one rule: there must be a happy ending.”
“Why must there be a happy ending?”
“Because shit out there is dark enough. Why can’t there always be a happy ending?”
“Says the goth boy.” I laugh. I pick a book up from a table with a sign that reads MONSTER ROMANCE. “Is this man an octopus?”
He snatches the book out of my hand and points me toward the back. “We’re going to ease you into this.”
I follow him to the shelves where YOUNG ADULT is spelled out in pink neon lights. “We’ve got contemporary, historical, fantasy, sci-fi, and a trope for just about everyone.” He turns to me. “I want you to pick out something that speaks to you. You reached for Lady Jessica for a reason. Let’s see if we can re-create that.”
I flush. “I have a confession to make. I only read Lady Jessica because I couldn’t sleep and was a little raw at having just been told I sucked at love. I was hoping to learn something.”
“Okay. Did you?”
My hands slide across glossy covers in all shades of the rainbow. “I think so? She made me laugh, and she was so fearless about what she wanted. She made me wish I could grow up to be her—all bold speeches and refusing to compromise on what she wants.”
“I guess you never forget your first.”
“And what was yours?”
I swear he pinks up a little. “I was fourteen and staying with my grandmother for two weeks over the summer.”
“The same one who possessed me earlier?”
“The very same,” he says. “I was beyond bored. I didn’t know any of the neighborhood kids and was too shy to really put myself out there. My Switch had died a terrible death when I dropped it in the bathtub, and my grandmother had very reasonably told me she was not going to be replacing it. Long story short, I was starved for stimuli, and she had a library of romance novels.”
I pause over a book with a silver crown on the cover and pull it out.
“I found one with a pirate on the cover and decided what the hell. It was great. High stakes, sword fights, a beautiful woman he convinced to love him back. What’s not to like?”
I put the crown fantasy back. “Was your grandmother upset that you were reading them?”
“No, she handed me the next one in the series.” He grins, and that lone dimple feels shockingly indulgent among the black and spiky jewelry. “Love, human nature, grief, jealousy, all the sticky things that every one of us feel every day, they’re universal. Now sprinkle that in among normal life, vampires, spaceships, even Regency England, and promise me the ending is going to be satisfying? Why are little old ladies the only ones allowed to enjoy that?”
My face burns, like I’ve been allowed to witness something personal. I like seeing him like things.
He nods at the wall. “See if any of these speak to you. I’m going to check on Sloane.”
“Maybe an octopus man?” I ask, hoping to tug another laugh out of him.
He narrows his eyes, walking backward. “Try a second-chance romance. You’re the one hoping to backslide. We’ll see if the masters can show you something about what that looks like.”
My insides feel like they’re being pressure-cooked, and the sheer number of options are going to crush me. There are too many choices. There’s too much to get through. I pass over one with a girl whose magical powers could either save the world or damn it. Then one that has a girl who captains her own ship on the high seas with a cast of mythical creatures. Next, there are two boys competing for the chance to be the world’s next big pop star, but they find each other instead. I pull out one at random, pausing over the football uniform on the front cover.
First Down to First Love. The girl on the cover is smiling at this boy like he has the secrets to the universe. I skim the back: its protagonist swears she’ll never date another football player after having her heart broken by one in the past. Can Chase Sawyer change her mind, or will he remain on the bench forever?
Ash appears at my elbow, and I show him. “This one might be helpful.”
He’s doing that thing again, where silence hangs between us because he refuses to say what he’s thinking.
“Well, does it count or not?” I ask, needling him.
“It counts.” His eyebrows bunch together and say otherwise.
“Ash, introduce me to my new favorite customer!” The person I’m assuming must be Ash’s coworker walks up beside him. Their lilac hair is cut into a jagged pixie atop delicate bone structure with the finest dusting of freckles. Their forest-green blazer sports a bright orange pin announcing THEY/THEM, and by the time I get to the patent-leather oxfords, I’m smiling in delight.
“Hi,” I say, my smile stretching a little wider. “I’m Marlowe.”
“Sloane,” they say, holding out a hand. “I hope we’ll be seeing more of you around here.”