It was a beautiful store, all light wood shelving and soft lighting, a reading area in the center with dark brown leather chairs and a coffee table strewn with books.
“Can I help you with something?”
The voice startled Stevie and she turned around to face a young girl—no more than thirteen—smiling at her. She had golden brown hair shaved on one side and swooping past her shoulder over the other, hazel eyes, and a nametag that readRuby.
“Oh,” Stevie said. “Hi, um... I was just looking.”
The girl nodded. “Let me know if you need help.”
“Thanks.”
The girl turned to head off, but then Stevie got an idea.
“Actually,” she said, “can you direct me to the romance section?”
Ruby grinned. “For sure.” She beelined through a maze of tables set with pyramids of books, until she stopped at a section of the built-in shelves full of colorful spines. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.”
“I recommend checking out our Pride display,” she said,motioning toward a nearby table full of colorful paperbacks arranged in a rainbow. “It’s July now, but read queer all year, right?”
Stevie smiled at the girl. “Yeah. Absolutely.”
Ruby beamed and left her alone to explore. Stevie focused on the Pride table, picking up a yellow paperback with an illustration of a dark-skinned man holding a Black woman with pink hair in his arms. She sank down on the floor and started to read, soon lost in the world of two characters—one of them a bisexual woman—who started fake dating. She found herself suddenly ravenous for the sex scenes, the way the man clearly adored the woman even though she was terrified of commitment, for the ending that Stevie knew would be happy.
Before she knew it, she was crying on the floor in a bookstore. Actually crying. Snot ran out of her nose, and she wiped it on her own shoulder, and she wasn’t sure if it was possible for her to be more pathetic.
“Stevie?”
She froze, snapping her head up to see Iris’s friend Claire standing there with a few books in her hands, light brown eyes wide with concern.
“Honey, are you okay?” Claire asked.
And then Stevie burst into tears all over again.
“Oh goodness,” Claire said, setting the books on the nearest table and squatting down in front of Stevie. “What happened? Can I get you something?”
Stevie waved a hand, trying to getI’m fineout of her mouth, but the tears kept flowing.
Okay, sonowshe couldn’t be more pathetic.
CLAIRE SET Amug of peppermint tea in front of Stevie, who was now sitting in the shop’s café area, hiccupping while she clung to the book she pulled off the Pride table like it was a lovey.
“I’m so sorry,” Stevie said, sipping at the warm drink.
Claire waved a hand as she slid into the chair across from Stevie with her own mug. “I cry over a book at least once a week.”
Stevie nodded, tapped the book’s cover. “I’ll buy this one. I’m pretty sure I cried on it.”
Claire laughed. “I’d appreciate that.”
“So... you own this store?”
Claire brought her mug to her mouth. “I do. Iris didn’t tell you?”
“You could probably fill several of these shelves with all the stuff Iris doesn’t tell me.”
Claire pressed her mouth together. “Is that why you’re crying in my shop? Iris?”
