Rachel’s hands slide down my chest as she wraps around me from behind and places a soft kiss on my cheek before she whispers in my ear, “I plan on doing a very good job distracting you.”
And I believe her. Wholly. I’m already expecting to mess up at least twenty signatures.
She saunters over to the side, sliding out of her sandals. The smile on her face when she looks at me is devious, as if she’s plotting my demise, and I’m totally okay with this plan.
The first time Melanie disappears, Rachel walks over to me, leaning in from behind while I sign a fan’s book and says, “Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?”
I shake my head, completely confused. “What?”
“Oh, no reason, just filling the time with some facts before you kiss me again.”
The second time Melanie disappears, Rachel jumps the line again with a book, setting it down in front of me before she says, “Big fan. HUGE. Can you write, ‘To Rachel, the most talented, beautiful, distracting woman that I’ve ever hated’, please?”
My eyebrows raise up at this one. “I never really hated you.”
“Oh, you hated me so much,” she says as she leans over the table. “You have a lot of making out, I mean, making up to do.”
Then she swipes the book and stands back in her spot, winking at me just in time before Melanie returns.
When the last book is signed, she casually walks over.
The bookstore is quiet now, the crowd mostly gone, leaving the regulars that come in to take up residence in a corner with a good story, but the chaos in my chest hasn’t calmed. Not even close.
Rachel stops in front of me, her fingers brushing mine, soft and steady like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me, and maybe she does. Maybe she’s always known.
I think I have. It’s why I was determined to hate her, knowing what letting her in would mean. The moment I read her words, I knew…I fell for her before I wanted to realize it, before I even knew her, because it’s the way she sees the world. The way she writes about things that should break a person but somehow stitches the broken pieces into something tender and whole.
I didn’t want to believe someone like her could be real. I thought she hid behind her words, or that her kindness was a performance, but she’s standing here now—fingers laced with mine—and I think she might be more real than anyone I’ve ever known.
And I’m not terrified.
I’m hopeful, and hopeful feels dangerous. Yet there’s something about Rachel that makes me believe she can help me take the pieces of my story and write it in a way that isn’t bitter, but instead, is better than what I can write myself. Than what I have been writing myself.
She did, after all, take Barrett and give him a new life. ‘Resuscitating him’ is actually what she said.
And I think she can resuscitate me.
In fact, she may have already done so with that kiss earlier, because you would think a kiss like that would leave you breathless, but I feel more alive than I’ve felt in a long time. Like she started my heart back up again.
“Hi,” she finally says, breaking the silence with the simple word and her smile.
“Hi,” I say back.
“So…” she trails off.
I grin wider. “I think someone said I had a lot of making out to do.”
Her eyes light up as she glances around. “Want to find an empty aisle?”
I don’t answer with words. I pull her along behind me, anxiously looking for an empty aisle.
And then, we find one.
I never thought I’d love theSocial Sciencessection in a bookstore, but it’s now one of my favorite places. Top five. Maybe topthree.
Chapter 38
Rachel
