Chapter 2
LACY
The chai latte has gone cold. Again.
I thumb through the payment app on my phone, cross-referencing invoice numbers with deposit dates while the cursor blinks at me like it's judging my life choices. Which, honestly, fair.
Three prescription refills for Aunt Rene. One for blood pressure. One for cholesterol. One for the thing her doctor calls "just to be safe" but won't explain in detail because apparently medical transparency is optional after seventy.
The numbers don't add up the way I need them to.
I take a sip of cold tea. Grimace. Set it down on top of a stack of vintage mysteries that probably shouldn't be used as coasters but desperate times, desperate measures.
Ellis Books & Brews isn't technically open yet. Pop-up bookstore slash cafe is the generous term. Glorified folding tables and string lights in a rented storefront is the honest one.
But it's mine.
Six months since I walked away from the community library. Four months since I stopped answering my ex's texts. Two months since I filed the LLC paperwork and decided that reinventing myself at thirty-two was either brave or catastrophically stupid.
The jury's still out.
I shift a stack of paperbacks from the biography section to the impulse-buy table near the register. Tuck a hand-lettered sign between them. Staff Picks: Books That Made Us Cry (In a Good Way).
The front windows let in watery afternoon light. The kind that makes everything look softer than it is. I've hung curtains. Mismatched. One floral, one striped. Aunt Rene said they looked "eclectic." Which is aunt-code for "questionable but I love you anyway."
The espresso machine gurgles behind me. I haven't figured out how to make it stop doing that. YouTube tutorials have been unhelpful. The user manual is in three languages, none of which are English.
I'm considering percussive maintenance when the crash happens.
Not a polite crash. Not a "whoops I dropped my keys" crash.
A full-body, structural-integrity-threatening, what-the-hell-was-that crash.
The front awning shudders. Groans. Something large and wooden smashes through the striped curtain and lands in the middle of the street.
Books explode outward. Paperbacks flutter. Hardcovers thud against asphalt.
A woman shrieks. A man yells something I can't make out.
I'm already moving.
Phone down. Tea forgotten. The door swings open under my hand and I'm outside, staring at the wreckage.
A crate. Massive. Splintered along one side. The kind you'd use to transport furniture or small livestock or, apparently, someone's entire personal library.
And standing next to it, looking like a natural disaster in a coat two sizes too small, is an orc.
Green. Scarred. Broad enough to block out the sun.
He's staring at the scattered books with an expression I can't parse. Horror, maybe. Or grief. Hard to tell with tusks.
"What," I say, very calmly, very slowly, "did you just do."
His head snaps up. Eyes meet mine. They're pale. Almost gray. Startlingly soft for someone who just destroyed my awning.
"I tripped."
"You tripped."
"The curb." He gestures vaguely. "It was higher than I thought."
I look at the curb. It's a standard curb. The kind that exists on every street in every city. The kind that does not typically cause catastrophic awning failure.
"You threw a crate through my window because of a curb."
"Not through. Into. Technically."
"Oh, technically." I press my fingers to my temples. Breathe in through my nose. Out through my mouth. The meditation app I downloaded last year would be proud. "Do you see these books?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what they were doing before you tripped?"
"Sitting in the crate?"
"They were not in the street." My voice stays level. Stays calm. Stays approximately three seconds away from a full meltdown. "Now they are in the street. Do you understand the problem?"
"I'll pick them up."
"You'll pick them up."
"Right now." He's already moving. Crouching. Scooping paperbacks into his arms with surprising care. His hands are huge. Scarred knuckles. Blunt nails. He handles the books like they might break.
Which they might. Because they've been hurled into the street by a walking disaster.
I crouch next to him. Start gathering. A cozy mystery. A cookbook. A self-help guide with a cover so aggressively cheerful it makes my teeth ache.
"I'm sorry." His voice is low. Rough. He doesn't look at me. Keeps his eyes on the books. "I didn't mean to. I was trying to be careful."
"Careful people don't demolish awnings."
"I know." His voice remains quiet, steady. No argument. No excuses.
"Careful people watch where they're going instead of barreling down the sidewalk like a—like a—" I fumble for the comparison. Nothing quite captures it.
"I know."
"Careful people don't—"
"I know." He picks up another book. Turns it over. Brushes dirt from the spine. "I'm not good at this yet. The city. The walking. The not breaking things."
There's something in his tone. Not defensive. Not dismissive.
Honest.
I glance at him. Really look. The coat is threadbare at the elbows. The duffel bag slumped on the sidewalk has seen better decades. There's a scuff on his jaw that might be a scar or might be a scrape from this exact incident.
He's new.
The realization hits with uncomfortable clarity.
New to the city. New to human spaces. New to curbs and awnings and the unspoken rules about not throwing crates through storefronts.
I soften. Slightly.
"Just help me get these inside."
"I will."
We work in silence. Him scooping. Me stacking. The small crowd that gathered starts to disperse. Someone mutters about "those orcs." Someone else laughs.
I ignore them all. The murmurs, the laughter, the pointed looks—none of it matters right now. I have books to salvage, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
The last book is wedged underneath the crate itself, pressed flat against the pavement.
I crouch down, bracing myself, and tug at the corner that's poking out.
It doesn't budge. The crate's got it pinned good, and no amount of wiggling is going to free it without potentially tearing the cover clean off.
Stone reaches past me. His arm extends over my shoulder, close enough that I can smell woodsmoke and leather, earthy on his coat.
He grabs the crate by its edge and lifts it with one hand like it weighs absolutely nothing.
Like it's made of paper instead of solid wood packed with who-knows-how-many pounds of hardbacks.
He sets it aside on the sidewalk with barely a sound, careful now, deliberate.
The book underneath is fully visible now, and my heart does a complicated little stutter-step in my body.
It's battered. Cover creased down the middle from where the crate landed on it. Spine cracked in at least two places, maybe three. The gilt lettering is half rubbed away from age and use.
The Bloodied Crown.
My breath catches. Just stops, right there in my throat.
It's pulp. Cheap fantasy. The kind with a half-dressed warrior on the cover and a tagline that promises adventure, romance, and poor editorial oversight.
It's also my favorite.
I've read it six times. Own three copies. Can quote the first chapter from memory.
Stone picks it up. Turns it over. Studies the cover. The warrior. The dragon. The improbable armor.
"This any good?"
My brain short-circuits. Just completely flatlines for a second.
"What?"
"The book." He taps the cover with one thick finger, careful not to damage it further. "Is it good? Worth reading?"
I stare at him. At the book cradled in his massive hands. At the way he's holding it like it actually matters, like it's not just pulp trash he pulled out from under a wooden crate. Like he's genuinely asking.
"It's trash," I say finally. The words come out flat.
"The good kind?"
Something loosens in my soul. "The best kind."
He smiles then. It's lopsided, a little crooked, pulling more to one side than the other. It makes the scar on his jaw shift, the tissue there paler than the rest of his green skin. The expression transforms his whole face, makes him look younger, almost boyish despite the bulk of him.
"I like trash," he says, and he sounds completely sincere about it.
I don't mean to laugh. It escapes anyway, unbidden. Small and surprised, like someone just caught me off guard and I haven't quite decided how I feel about it yet.
He hands me the book, extending it with both hands like an offering. Our fingers brush in the exchange. His skin is warm against mine. Rough, callused, the texture of someone who works with his hands.
I pull back quickly. Tuck the book against my chest, protective.
"You still destroyed my awning."
"I know." No excuses. No deflection.
"And probably scared off half my future customers."
"I know."
"And I have no idea who you are or why you were carrying a crate of books through downtown in the first place."
He straightens. Towers. Blocks out the sun again.
"Stone Venn. Cross-Cultural Placement Program. I'm assigned to Ellis Books and Brews." He pauses. Tilts his head. "This is Ellis Books and Brews, right?"
The universe has a sense of humor, apparently. A terrible, vicious, cosmically ironic sense of humor that thinks it's hilarious to send me a seven-foot orc who demolishes property on arrival and admits to liking trash with the kind of sincerity most people reserve for weddings and funerals.
I look at him. Process. Recalibrate.
"You're my placement," I say slowly, like speaking the words aloud will make them make more sense. They don't.
"That's what the paperwork says." He shifts his weight. The floorboards creak under him. "Cross-Cultural Placement Program. Two-year assignment. Ellis Books and Brews." A pause. "Unless there's been a mistake?"
There has to have been a mistake. There has to be.
I look at the awning. The crate. The books. The orc standing in my almost-open shop looking earnest and apologetic and like he might trip over another curb at any second.
"Of course you are."