“Then she’ll be wrong,” he said. “But I think… I think she’ll look at you and understand.” His eyes sparkled as he smiled. “I’ve never… brought someone home.”
I looked up.
He wasn’t smiling anymore. Not really. Just watching me with something sobarein his expression, I had to look away.
My heart was thudding. I wasn’t ready. But I didn’t want to stay still. Didn’t wantusto stay still.
“Okay,” I said. My voice barely carried. “I’ll go, but I have a condition.”
“Anything,” he said quickly, eagerly. “Everything. Whatever you want.”
“No flying.”
He laughed under his breath, but there was something tender in it. “No flying,” he agreed. I stared down at the cup in my hands. I could feel the heat through the paper, the way my fingers trembled slightly around it. Like my body knew before my mind had quite caught up — this isbig. Real.
“I’ll have to ask Raymond,” I murmured, half to myself.
“You won’t have to ask me anything,” came a voice from the stockroom.
I startled and turned as Raymond emerged, clutching a clipboard and his third smoothie of the day.
“You’ve got vacation days. Plenty. And I’ll get that temp girl from St. Claire to cover the register.”
“Raymond—”
“And anyway,” he said, jerking his chin toward the counter. “I don’t think you can say no.”
I followed his gaze.
There, like a casually discarded receipt, sat the envelope.
I blinked at it. “What?—?”
“It’s a check,” Ansel said simply. “For Figments. Donation. Or sponsorship. Or… whatever makes the books stay on the shelves.”
Raymond raised an eyebrow. “How much?”
Ansel shrugged. “Enough.”
Raymond opened the envelope, skimmed it, and promptly choked on his smoothie. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Probably.”
“You know this is illegal, right?”
“It’s a gift,” Ansel said. “I didn’t buy the bookstore. Just bought a little time. Can a man not donate money to his favorite Seattle indie bookstore?”
I felt my face go up in flames. “Ansel?—”
“I want you to come with me,” he said, softer now. “I want to slow down. Take a breath. Let it be quiet for a while. And I know you wouldn’t leave Figments without someone covering you, so…” He gestured to the envelope again. “Now you don’t have to worry about it.”
Raymond snorted, tucking the check into his back pocket. “For this much, I’ll run story time and alphabetize the nonfiction shelf myself.”
“Raymond.”
“I’m just saying, June, I’ve never had to Google how many zeroes there are in this many zeroes.”
“What?” I covered my face with one hand. “Oh, my god.”
