I nodded.
“You’re going to have so much fun. God, I would have loved to have been seventeen on Nantucket.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Liz said. “You were an angry baby goth at seventeen.”
“True,” Maggie said amicably. “I’ve mellowed in my old age. I’ve become basic.”
I loved Maggie and Liz’s banter, yet the closer we came to the end of my shift, the more tension wound around my body, pulling me tight and stiff. By four thirty, I started every time the door chimes heralded a new customer.
And after half a dozen false starts, they heralded him.
It was almost a surprise, I’d gotten so used to it not being Noah. I froze in the middle of the Mystery aisle, the book in my hand half-shelved. Noah’s determined gaze fastened on me almost immediately, and he stopped on the other side of my cart of books, his hair wind-mussed. “So you do work here.”
“Yeah.” I shoved the book firmly into place. “But I can’t leave until five.”
“Fine.”
I shelved another book. And another. Then I looked at him again. “Are you just going to stand there?”
He shrugged. “Gotta kill these ten minutes somehow.”
“Hm.”
“You could help me find a book.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure.”
“What kind of book?”
“You’re the bookstore girl.”
“Well, what do you normally read?” I looked him up and down. “James Joyce? David Foster Wallace?”
“Why are you smirking?”
“I’m not smirking.”
“I like sci-fi,” he said, which surprised me. “John Scalzi. And Le Guin.”
“Huh.” I reconsidered him. “Interesting.”
He gave me a wary look. “Why?”
Because I’d been being judgmental and now I need to reevaluate. “Have you read the Ancillary books? By Leckie?”
“I don’t think so.”
“If you like Le Guin, you might like her. And maybe the Expansebooks by Corey.” Always good to recommend a book made into a TV show. I pulled the first books in both series and brought them to the register, taking his card when he handed it over. “Platinum. Cute.”
He scowled.
Payback for mocking my license picture, bro. I studied his name. “Noah Ari Barbanel.”
“You want to memorize the number, too?”
“I’ll think about it.” I handed the card and books back, receipt tucked beneath a cover.
