“Sorry.” I speak in a low voice while holding my hand out. She slaps it away declining my help, getting herself up. Standing in front of me so close, she barely reaches my chest. She has to be only five foot six and that’s in her heels, so I’m guessing she’s really around five foot three normally.
Fuck, I would break her.
I can smell her perfume again and I inhale deeply while feeling the blood rushing straight south again.
I’m brought out of the slip back into my thoughts by a light smack to my chest and her voice again.
“Unbelievable. Are you even paying attention to me? You’ve ruined my dress and broke my fucking phone.” She says angrily while looking me directly in the eyes with absolutely no fear.
“Sorry?” I say again, more as a question this time while blinking down at her.
“You said that already.” She huffs while attempting to smooth her dress down.
“I’ll replace your drink and give you money for a replacement phone, and for the dry cleaning for your dress too.” I open my suit jacket to pull out my wallet still unsure of what the fuck is going on right now.
“No it’s fine, I’m not a charity case. I can sort myself out. I don’t need your help.” She turns around quickly, heading back towards the booth her and her friend have for the night. I take a step instinctively towards her, to follow her and the scent of her perfume when I realise a few people from the other booths are staring. They are watching the interaction in both fear and wonder.
The people on this floor who pay for our booths mostly know who we are, what we do and that we should be feared. To see a five foot nothing female shove me and talk to me the way Willow just has, I know they are waiting to see what I will do.
I take a deep breath and continue on my journey to my office. I unlock my phone and text Mikhail to have two bottles of Vodka instead of one waiting for me now.
It’s going to be a long night.
Chapter Eight
Willow
“Arghhhhhhh!!” I shout as I smack my phone against the arm of the sofa.
“You should of just taken his money Wills. It’s not like it would of made a dent in his bank account.” Alina says while pouring our coffees into two travel mugs.
“No. It’s the principle. He knocked me down and basically ignored that he had done it, all while watching me like I was a freak show he was amused by. I didn’t want to humiliate myself further by taking cash from him in the middle of a busy club.” I grumble getting up from the sofa.
“C’mon, I don’t want to be late to work and make this day any worse.” I lift my travel mug from the counter and start packing my bag for the day.
“We have the last book in the ‘Darkened Love’ trilogy arriving to the shop today, it’s obviously going to be a good day.” Alina replies with a mischievous grin while slinking her arm through mine as we make our way towards the front door.
“Am I terrible for hoping we don’t get customers today so we can sit and read it undisturbed?” I laugh.
It’s our favourite series and we have been waiting a year for the final book to come out.
It’s your standard spicy, dark romance book with a happy ending and we love it.
The bookstore is my second home. I always read growing up and I love finding parts of myself in all the different characters I read. Reading was an escape for me when I was being bulliedin school, because no matter how bad my life was made by those girls, I was able to live a different life in the books I read.
It was as much of a comfort then as it was when I left Fred and a comfort I need again right now after the disaster I had last night and after waking up this morning remembering my phone screen got smashed up. So badly smashed up in fact that I can’t even use my phone properly.
“Hmmm how mad would Lisa really be if we just kept the closed sign up?” Alina laughs along with me as we make our way towards her car.
——————————————————
Our drive to work consisted of what it does every day we make the drive across the city. Drinking our coffees, listening to our favourite guilty pleasure music which happens to be K-Pop, and singing along badly in a language we don’t even know.
This morning was slightly different however because Alina kept pausing the songs to give me all the details of yet another night in bed with Lev.
She has never talked about guys she hooked up with to this extent before, mostly because she never saw them again after the first night, but right now I know far too much about the pretty fuck boy that’s turning out to not be so fuck boyish as she’s continued giving me all the juicy details in-between customers coming into the shop.
“He wants to take me out for dinner tomorrow night. Do you think I should say yes?” She asks looking a like a deer caught in Lev’s full beam headlights.
