The smells hit me first—freshly roasted coffee beans mingling with the rich, unmistakable scent of ancient paper and leather bindings. It was the kind of aroma that made my librarian’s heart sing, the olfactory equivalent of coming home.
Then I saw the books.
Rich, dark mahogany shelving covered every wall from floor to impossibly high ceiling. They even had those rolling ladders book nerds dream of for their own libraries. Every inch of shelving was filled with volumes that looked older than Atlanta itself. Hundreds of them. No, thousands. Leather-bound spines in deep burgundies, forest greens, and midnight blues, their gold lettering catching the warm light from vintage fixtures that predated electricity.
I stood frozen in the doorway, my mouth slightly open, trying to process what I was seeing. These weren’t just old books—they were antiques, treasured works from a past so far gone most people wouldn’t recognize it. Some of them looked like they might have been hand-bound, their spines worn smooth by countless fingers over centuries.
“Theo?” Jeremiah’s voice seemed to come from very far away. His hand gently gripping my should jarred me back to the present. “You okay?”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
My inner child was exploding with pure, unadulterated joy while my professional librarian brain was cataloging everything I saw, trying to identify titles and estimate dates and wondering what treasures might be hidden near the top of those impossibly tall shelves.
Jeremiah tugged me toward a particular section near the entrance.
“Look,” he said softly, pointing to a shelf at eye level. “Third one from the left.”
I followed his finger and felt my breath catch. My heart definitely skipped a beat or two.
There, nestled between what looked like a first-edition Poe and something that might have been an original Thoreau, was a slim volume bound in deep green leather with gold lettering that had faded but was still readable:The Picture of Dorian Grayby Oscar Wilde.
“Is that . . . ?” I breathed.
“First edition, 1890,” Jeremiah confirmed. “I noticed you had a modern copy on your shelves at home, the one with the cracked spine that looked like it had been read about fifty times. I thought you might like to see what the original looked like.”
I blinked up at him, then looked back at the book, then at him again.
He’d noticedthat?
He’d been in my house exactly twice, and he’d not only noticed my books but remembered which specific titles I owned well enough to recognize a first edition when he saw one?
“You . . .” I started, then stopped, my voice failing me completely.
“Too much?” he asked, suddenly looking uncertain. “I know it’s kind of nerdy, but I thought—”
“No, God no, Jeremiah . . .” I managed, my voice barely above a whisper. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect. I just . . . I can’t believe you noticed . . . or remembered.”
“I notice everything about you, Theo.” His smile was soft and a little shy. “Everything that matters to you matters to me.”
I could’ve died right there, right then, and lived the happiest life any man had ever lived. I was still staring at him, speechless, when he reached down and squeezed my hand.
“Come on,” he said gently, tugging me forward through the maze of reading nooks and tables scattered throughout the space. “We have a dinner reservation, but we can spend the night afterward digging through the stacks.” He hesitated, then added, “I hoped you might like this place.”
Likethis place?
I was pretty sure I wanted to move in.
We wound our way through the labyrinth of shelves toward what I assumed was the restaurant portion of this magical establishment that wassomuch larger than how it looked from the street. I caught glimpses of readers folded into leather armchairs, some with coffee cups balanced on the arms, others with plates of what smelled like incredible food. It was the perfect marriage of sustenance for both body and mind.
“How did you find this place?” I managed to ask as we approached a hostess station that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of oak.
“I used to come here in college, the couple of years I attended, at least,” Jeremiah said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “When I needed to think, or study, or just get away from everything. I figured if anyone would appreciate a bookstore that serves dinner, it would be you.”
I gazed at him, trying to reconcile this information with everything I thought I knew about the man standing next to me. Jeremiah—gorgeous, athletic, charming Jeremiah who delivered packages and worked out religiously and knew more about Disney movies than any grown man should—had spent college years hiding away in rare bookstores?
“You came here . . . to study?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.
He tilted his head, looking amused by my reaction. “You sound shocked.”
