I shook my head, laughing despite myself. Despiteeverything. “Nothing. You’re fine. You’re—” I waved a hand vaguely at him. “A menace.”
“I really didn’t mean to say it out loud.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” I stifled a laugh. “Still a weird thing to justthinkquietly in your head, Barlowe.”
He didn’t answer. So we sat in it — the awkward warmth, the ridiculous weight of him looking at me likethat,like I was already a story he’d tell someone years from now.
Like I wasn’tjusta delivery girl with messy hair and a hell of a lot of baggage.
Like I was more.
I didn’twantto be more. Not to anyone. Not to him.
So why did my stomach do a little flip at the intensity of his stare? I sipped my coffee, trying to push downwhateverthis feeling that threatened in my chest was. “You really don’t know how to be normal, do you?”
He smiled, sheepish. “Not around you.” And then — my phone buzzed. Loud and insistent, vibrating across the table like it was trying to escape. I glanced down.
Shit.
RAYMOND, it read in all caps.
“Shit,” I muttered out loud, grabbing it.
Ansel perked up. “Everything okay?”
“My boss,” I hissed, and answered. “Hey, sorry, I?—”
“You’re still not back? Juniper, what the hell? You were supposed to return the vanan hour ago.The store’s backed up, I’ve got three pickups waiting, and if this is another‘sorry, the celebrity was hot’excuse?—”
“I didn’t say that last time?—”
“—you’re benched for a week.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but I wasn’t speaking, there were no words coming from me.
So Ansel beat me to it.
He reached across the table, plucked the phone out of my hand like a criminal,and said, with full Ansel Barlowe confidence, “Hi. Yes. This is the celebrity in question.”
My soulleft my body.
“I’d like to personally apologize for the delay,” he said, chipper. “And to make up for it, I’d love to donate…” He looked at me. “What’s a normal bookstore donation amount? Five grand? Ten?”
“Ansel.” I hissed, reaching for the phone. He dodged me.
“Ten thousand dollars to Figments,” he declared. “No strings attached. Unless you count keeping Juniper here for another twenty minutes.”
There was a long pause on the other end. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest.
Or I was just going to throw up all the shitty coffee I’d had in the last twenty minutes.
Then I heard Raymond say, “Who the hell is this, really?”
“Still Ansel Barlowe,” he said. “Big fan of independent bookstores. Bigger fan of Juniper Haddock.”
Raymond was silent on the other end. Then, eventually “I’m texting the store’s Venmo to Haddock.”
Ansel grinned and handed the phone back to me. “See? Fixed.”
