‘Oh.’ My eyes widened as suddenly the weird humps on the dinosaur’s back made sense. Wings. ‘I told Hamish I liked his dinosaur.’
Kit pressed his lips together, but the skin around his eyes remained crinkled along faint laughter lines. ‘His abrupt departure makes more sense now.’
‘Sorry.’ I grimaced. ‘Now I’ve gotten a better look at it, it definitely has dragon-like qualities.’
Kit laughed, his teeth flashing. Unconsciously, his hand rested on my arm.
I could tell the exact moment when he realised he was touching me. His eyes widened and his smile froze. Before he could do anything stupid like worry if I minded, I twisted my arm and caught his hand. I threaded my fingers through his, thankful I’d disinfected my hands after I left the surgery so that Kit didn’t have any excuse to tug his away.
He didn’t seem inclined to. He stared at our hands for long seconds before I swiped my thumb across his knuckles.
‘Show me the rest of the shop?’ I prompted.
Kit started with the painted blue shelves behind the very dinosaur-like dragon and explained the shop’s system of genres and assorted stuff to do with reading. As often as I admired the shelf displays, I caught Kit looking at our joined hands.
I knew it wasn’t common for two friends who were guys to hold hands, but I liked it and I was pretty sure Kit did too. He squeezed once before unlinking our fingers so that he could wander behind the counter. An antique-looking till sat beside a sleek card reader, the wood of the counter beneath polished to shine.
‘I love it,’ I told him, looking over my shoulder at his bookshop. ‘When did you start working here?’
‘I bought the shop before I moved to the island.’ A line formed between Kit’s eyebrows as he counted out notes from the till and slipped them into crinkled plastic bags. ‘I saw an advert online for a bookseller job on a remote Scottish island. It had been up for ages because the catch was that you needed to be able to buy the bookshop and the cottage, as well as run the business alone. Or only with the help of one sweary teen.’
‘Did you visit the island before you bought the shop?’
Kit shrugged. ‘No, but I knew what I wanted and I had the money. I couldn’t see a reason not to go for it.’
A lot of reasons popped into my mind. He could have hated the island, could have hated the bookshop. The advert could have lied and he could have bought somewhere that needed far more work than he thought and he would have been screwed. It could have been a scam and the island deserted.
‘Did you know anyone here before you moved?’ Maybe that’s why he’d been so sure. I’d taken a job without visiting or even talking to anyone who lived on the island, but I’d had Aster propelling the whole thing along.
‘Nope.’ Kit placed a tenner on top of a neat pile. ‘I know it sounds impulsive and a bit mad, but I needed a change and I’d always wanted to run my own bookshop. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.’
‘I’m not judging you. Just trying to understand.’ I waved at the shop behind me. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter how you came to be here. You’ve created something wonderful.’
Dimples reappeared as Kit smiled. ‘Thank you. The woman who owned all of this before wasn’t interested in keeping it up to date or stocking anything anyone under the age of a hundred would read.’ His eyes were bright as he looked around his shop. ‘It took a lot of work and I probably spent more of my savingsthan I should have, but I’m really happy with how it’s turned out.’
I smiled back at him, and blamed spending too much time with my chronically nosey best friend for my next words. ‘Why did you need a change?’
The dimples faded. ‘My mum died.’
‘Oh, shit.’ Without thinking, I rounded the counter and pulled him into a hug. ‘I’m sorry, Kit.’
He pressed his face into my neck and it wasn’t even a little bit gross when he sniffed wetly against my skin. ‘It’s fine. She died years ago and I’m okay most of the time.’ His arms wrapped around my middle. ‘Do you know what the worst thing is?’ He sighed. ‘She would have hated me working here.’
I had to draw back to express the sheer force of my disbelief. ‘What? Why? Kit, you are brilliant at this.’
His eyes dipped down, his cheeks red. ‘She wanted me to be a lawyer. Like her. I was trying to do that, right up until she died, but then she was gone and I was too sad to keep trying to do something that was never going to make me happy.’ He shrugged, and my hands moved with him where they were gripping his upper arms. ‘Life is way too short to waste it doing anything that makes you miserable.’
I pulled him back into a hug. ‘I didn’t know your mum and I’m sure she was a smart lady, but she was wrong about you. You’re perfect exactly where you are.’
Kit exhaled sharply against my neck. I rewound what I’d said and a furious blush rose to my face, but I didn’t attempt to take it back. I didn’t want to. It was a step further than anything I’d said before, but it was true. I’d walked into his bookshop and seen him and it was right.
‘Thank you,’ Kit murmured.
I held him tight and pressed my lips together so that nothing else could spill out. Kit had said he didn’t mind my over-the-top compliments, but I wasn’t about to push it. One risk to our friendship per day was enough.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KIT
