So I do.
I DRIFT ALONG THE SHELVESlike I'm being pulled by something I can't see.
My fingers trail over the spines. Leather smooth as buttercream. Cloth rough with age, like the texture of raw linen. Embossing that catches against my fingernails. The titles blur past. Some are in English, some in languages I don't recognize, some in scripts that don't look like any alphabet I've ever seen.
I don't stop to examine any of them. I'm looking for something specific.
No. That's not right.
Something specific is looking forme.
And then I feel it.
A tug. Gentle but insistent. Like someone has hooked a finger through my ribs and is pulling me toward the far corner of theshop, where the lanterns don't reach and the shadows gather thick enough to hide whatever's waiting there.
There's a book there.
It shouldn't be visible. There's no light falling on it, nothing to make it stand out from the darkness around it. But I can see it anyway. A small volume bound in burgundy leather so deep it's almost black. Gold lettering on the spine. Gilded edges that gleam despite having no light to catch.
I reach for it.
My hand is trembling. Why is my hand trembling?
The leather is warm under my fingers. Not room temperature warm.Bodywarm. Like the book is alive. Like it's been waiting for me to touch it.
Okay, Bailey. Okay. Let's think about this rationally.
Possibility one: this is a normal book that happens to be warm because...because...there's a heating vent behind this shelf. Sure. That's plausible.
Possibility two: this is not a normal book and I should put it back immediately and walk out of this shop and never return.
Possibility three: I've completely lost my mind and I'm actually still at Lauve Studio, having a breakdown in the supply closet, and none of this is real.
I pull the book from the shelf.
Apparently we're going with possibility one.
The title stares up at me in ornate gold script:
Choose Your Own Mafia King.
I blink.
A choose-your-own-adventure...romance? With mafia heroes?
A surprised laugh escapes me. It's such a ridiculous concept. Ridiculous and wonderful and exactly the kind of thing I would have devoured in high school, back when I was still naive enough to believe that love could look like danger and turn out safe.
I flip open the cover.
The first thing I see is an illustration.
It's gorgeous. The kind of artwork that makes you stop breathing for a second. Lush and romantic, rendered in colors so rich they seem to glow against the cream-colored page. The composition is perfect. A girl at the edge of a ballroom, positioned according to the rule of thirds, chandeliers creating leading lines that draw your eye straight to her. Men in dark suits occupy the shadowed edges of the frame, their faces obscured, their presence a threat that the lighting makes palpable.
And the girl...
The girl looks like me.
I mean, she has dark hair, that's all. Lots of romance heroines have dark hair. It doesn't mean anything.
