I walk through the shop door a few minutes later to find the place in uproar.
“An email,” Levi shrieks, coming barreling towards me and sounding like he’s had too much of his own coffee. “We’ve had an email! From Saturday Lane. Read it to her! Read it!”
He looks at Dad, whose hair is standing on end as if he’s been raking his hands through it.
“Itisrather exciting, Holly,” he begins, beaming at me. “It says—”
“It’s about Elliot Sinclair,” interrupts Levi, who I’m starting to think missed his calling as an actor, if his current level of drama is anything to go by. “Did you know? Did you know about this?”
“I’ll read it out,” says Dad, patting the pockets of his cardigan in a state of agitation. “Now, where did I put my spectacles? I was sure I had them with me.”
“Could someone just tell me what’s going on?” I beg, as he wanders over to the register and starts rummaging underneath it. “Please, put me out of my misery here.”
Paris steps forward. She’s carrying Ed the cat like he’s a baby, and although she’s trying to project an air of calm, as befits her assistant-manager-who-secretly-wants-to-be-the-actual-manager status, her eyes are shining as if she, too, has recently overdosed on Levis’s Elf Eggnog Espresso.
“We had an email from Elliot Sinclair’s publicist,” she says importantly. “It wasn’t thepublisher, Levi. It was thepublicist. There’s a difference, you know.”
She shoots Levi a ‘so there’ kind of look, then turns back to me.
“You know how I’ve been keen for us to start hosting more author visits and signings?” she says. I nod, knowing what’s coming, but hoping against hope that I might be wrong.
For once, though, I am not wrong.
“Well,” says Paris, squeezing Ed so hard that he jumps out of her arms and stalks off, disgusted. “It turns out that Elliot Sinclair wants to do a signing while he’s here in town. And he wants to do it here. At Hart Books.”
I step behind the counter and hang up my coat and bag, silently trying to process this information.
“I’m surprised you’re on board with this,” I say to Dad, speaking low enough that only he can hear me. “I thought you hated Elliot?”
Dad freezes in the act of polishing his glasses, which he’s finally realized he was wearing the entire time.
“Oh, I wouldn’t saythat,” he says casually, not looking at me. “I didn’thatehim. I didn’t think he was the right man foryou, is all.”
I raise my eyebrows in disbelief.
“He’s very much turned out to be the right man for thestore,” though, says Dad, unable to hide his excitement at this. “For the whole town, really. Just think of how many of his books we’ll sell with him here to sign them! I wonder what people would beprepared to pay for a signed copy, plus a chance to meet the man himself?”
“I’d pay alot,” confirms Levi, who’s been blatantly listening in. “Like, I already have a copy of every edition they’ve ever released, obviously, but a signed one trumps them all. D’you think he’ll do a Q&A?”
“I wonder if he’d take a selfie with me?” says Paris, forgetting to look bored for once. “Will you ask him for me, Holly?”
“Oh, stop it, all of you,” I burst out, unable to listen to this for one more second. They all stop what they’re doing and look at me, surprised.
“Elliot Sinclair isn’t going to be taking selfies with anyone,” I begin. “Or TikToks, or … or whatever it is I can see you planning, Levi. He’s not doing a Q&A. Honestly, if it was up to me, he wouldn’t even be allowed to cross the threshold of this store. I wouldn’t let him. ”
The bell above the door suddenly bursts into life, interrupting me with a loud blast ofDeck the Hallsas the door swings open.
“Hello,” says Elliot Sinclair, stepping across the threshold in exactly the way I just said I wouldn’t allow him to. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
“Look, I’m sorry to barge in like this,” Elliot says a few minutes later, once the excitement caused by his arrival has died down a smidge, and Dad, Paris, and Levi have all been banished to the Coffee Corner. “I just wanted to check if you were okay after last night. And, well, this morning. Whatwasthat this morning, by the way? With the car horn?”
He smiles; a ghost of his old smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“I don’t know, Elliot,” I say frostily. “You tell me. Whatwasthat this morning?”
“Uh, that’s… that’s what I just asked you?” he points out, not unreasonably. “Or did I just imagine that? I was asking what you were doing, honking your car horn at me?”
“I wasn’t honking itatyou,” I reply indignantly. “I was honking itbecauseof you. I, um, just happened to see you, that’s all. Coming out of that house. With that woman. First thing in the morning.”
