“You own a phone. Text me if you want to talk about something.”
An unfamiliar tide of emotion welled up under Daniel’s skin, flushing his cheeks. Annoyance. He was annoyed Angie had showed up here, he was annoyed Nan was nagging him, he was annoyed things hadn’t worked out with Sam, and more than anything, he was annoyed at himself for being annoyed. These things usually rolled off of his back, slid right off of him and disappeared in his sea ofthe best is yet to comethinking.
Not today.
“If I texted you, I wouldn’t get any of Nan’s free tea. This shit costs me a pound seventy-five at Costa.”
“Hey.” Nan snapped a towel in his friend’s direction, almost disturbing the steaming hot liquid in the dainty china cup.
“And I can’t get any of Nan’s sparkling wit if I text you, of course.” Angie recovered with a smile and a wink.
“Well, you won’t be getting it today.” With a speed and agility remarkable for a woman of her age, Nan ripped off her apron and collected her oversize sewing box. She wasn’t a particularly good stitcher and was more of a humanist than religious, but every Monday she rode the bicycle she’d owned since she was fifteen down to one of Oxford’s many churches and stitched away for hours. She wasn’t good at sewing or God, but she wasexcellentat gossip and worshipped stolen stories above everything else. “Off to my Stitch ’n’ Bitch. See you two later. Daniel, make sure you mop back here before you close tonight. And pick your head up. You can’t see the sun if you’re always staring at your feet.”
“Yes, Nan.”
It was one of her bite-size pieces of wisdom, tossed so casually over her shoulder as she departed, yet it stuck in Daniel’s brain. She’d said the same thing to him since he was a child, over and over again through the years. That encouragement formed and shaped him into the man he was today. He’d been turned down many times before. Sure, not by someone who he’d shared a spark with and definitely not by anyone who’d given him a song, but still. He could live with the heartbreak.
“Now,” Angie said, throwing down her empty teacup and leveling herself at Daniel. She was clearly trying to play the intimidating manager card. “Where’s my song?”
A stone sank into the base of his stomach. His future was on the line here and he was stuck thinking about some woman.
“It’s not finished.”
“Not finished? But you were going on and on like mad about it yesterday.”
“Isaidit’s not finished,” Daniel snarled.
The wind, which was definitely in Angie’s favor only a second ago, now died between them.
“Oh, shit.” She winced, visibly bracing herself for the worst. “I was right about the Ashbrooke girl, wasn’t I?”
“We both know how much you love being right,” he said, simply. There wasn’t anything elsetosay.
“Yeah, but not when your career is on the line here. Alanis Trent wants to hear new songs.”
“I know that.”
“Then, finish your song.”
It’s not my song. It’s her song, which is why I can’t finish it.
“Yeah,” he said, mustering up a small smile even when hope cratered in his chest. “I’ll try.”
“A lot could happen between now and Sunday. Who knows? You might get your song yet.”
Angie wished him the best and retreated from the shop as quickly as she’d come. She muttered some excuse about not being late to a date, leaving him alone with his worry. Here he was, faced with the biggest opportunity of his life, the chance to capture his dream, and he was so busy thinking about Samantha Dubarry that he didn’t have any room in his mind for chords and lyrics.
For the next few hours, nothing much of consequence happened. Daniel worked himself into a stupor, sweeping rhythms with his broom and returning misplaced paperbacks to their places on the tight shelves.
By the time a timid ring of the front desk bell roused him from his worries about the future, the sun sank far beyond the hilly Oxford horizon, leaving the bookstore a beacon of hot light in the sea of darkened streets around it.
Daniel looked up. And had to fight to keep himself from laughing. There, on the customer’s side of the long wooden counter, stood a woman. At least, heassumedit was a woman. He couldn’t exactly tell as the top half of the figure’s body was obscured by a leaning tower of books balanced precariously on her forearms. It was like a half-human, half-book cyborg had wandered into his shop.
“Hello? I’m so sorry, but I could really use some help,” came a brittle, struggling voice from behind the wall of books.
“Here”—the broom in his hands clattered to the floor—“let me help you.”
“Thanks.” An American. Her voice, stronger now, told him everything he needed to know. Daniel picked books off of the precarious pile until her smiling face appeared. Her familiar, hesitant, shy smile. “I think my arms are going to fall off.”
