True to their word, the book club ladies rallied round, determined to make the first Blind Date with a Book session a success, despite the incredibly last-minute notice. By Thursday lunchtime, Carrie had ordered express delivery of extra copies of the books she was planning to use, and designed and printed posters advertising the Friday evening event. Several book club members had been in to collect them to distribute. Carrie knew she was leaving things ridiculously late and that without the book club members none of this would have been possible. She really wanted to see it through before she handed back the reins to Auntie Mary though.
Aware of the size of the venue, Carrie needed to limit how many people could come and so had asked people to book, hoping there would be enough interest to make the evening fun and for at least a few books to be sold at the end.
With the posters done, she was now wrapping the books she’d carefully selected with Seren, who had, somewhat reluctantly Carrie sensed, agreed to work the event. They tied the brown paper with twine and Seren’s beautiful handwriting looked lovely on the descriptions she wrote out and attached to each book to give people a bit of an idea of what it was about.
En route to pick up Poppy from her club, Carrie popped into the coffee shop on the way, smiling at the poster already up on the door.
Lucy was serving behind the counter. “Hi!” she said, “What can I get you?”
“I wanted to put in that sausage roll order for tomorrow night. Could you do some vegetarian ones as well?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Lucy said. “I’m happy to donate them to support the shop.”
“Absolutely not,” Carrie said. “I need enough for twenty people. You’re running a business too, and I expect to be invoiced. The entrance fee I’m charging will more than cover it.”
“Fine, but I’m giving you a discount for a bulk order,” Lucy insisted.
“Thank you,” Carrie said with a smile. “Can you make something sweet as well? Just something small?”
“How about some cake pops? I could make some white and some pale pink ones?”
“That sounds perfect!”
“Great, book me a place for tomorrow night, and I’ll bring everything over about half an hour before it’s due to start.”
* * *
Poppy was placated about not being able to attend the Blind Date event by the news that Layla was going to be looking after her again; she’d began planning their evening together as soon as she found out.
By midday on Friday, all the tickets had been sold. The book club ladies really knew how to advertise an event it seemed! Rather unexpectedly, Michael had ordered two tickets and so was presumably bringing someone, despite saying he didn’t date. That would definitely be weird, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She had to admit, it was a pretty good idea for a first date if you knew the other person liked romance books, but seeing Michael with someone... She took another deep shaky breath. She was an adult; she’d deal with it. Somehow.
Thankfully her mind was necessarily distracted from Michael’s love life by the sheer amount she had to do. She drove to the supermarket to buy sparkling cordial and napkins, rented glasses from a local pub, and, as soon as the shop was closed for the day, Poppy helped her to bring in the tables and chairs from outside and set them out around the shop with littlevases of lavender flowers on each table. They divided the piles of wrapped books among the tables and when Lucy arrived with the food, it was set up on the counter. Layla whisked Poppy upstairs soon afterwards and, at seven, the first book lovers arrived.
Almost everyone from book club was there, and they all seemed to have brought at last one friend with them. Carrie greeted everyone and offered drinks, but her focus was on the door. Who would Michael bring? How was she going to handle this?
Carrie was talking with Lucy when the bell over the door jingled. Michael entered... followed by Dylan. Her sigh of relief would most definitely have been audible. Lucy muttered, “Oh great, what’s he doing here?”
Michael caught Carrie’s eye and smiled as the men walked over.
“Good evening, ladies,” Dylan said, smoothly. “You are both looking lovely.”
“Thank you,” Carrie said, while Lucy rolled her eyes.
“I can understand why Michael’s here,” Lucy said, looking pointedly towards Carrie, “but Dylan — I cannot for the life of me imagine what you are hoping to gain from this evening?”
“A deeper understanding of romantic fiction for one thing, and for another, you know I love your sausage rolls,” Dylan replied.
“Don’t damage your remaining brain cells,” Lucy snapped. “I feel the concept of romance is more than a little beyond them. Just leave some sausage rolls for everyone else.”
“I’m making no promises,” Dylan said, meeting Lucy’s glare with a wink.
* * *
The next couple of hours seemed to pass in a blur of books and happy readers. Michael and Dylan joined a table with Sam and Nat, and the four of them definitely seemed to be having the most fun out of everyone with Dylan taking his judging of the various books very seriously, especially if he flicked through and managed to find a spicy scene.
Carrie was a little nervous running things, but it helped that every time she looked over, Michael was watching her and ready to give her an encouraging grin. On one occasion he provided a cheesy thumbs up which almost made her burst out laughing.
Carrie left Seren in charge during one reading session and went upstairs to tuck Poppy into bed. Unsurprisingly, Poppy and Layla had been having a wonderful time together.
