Miles’s face lights up, and I suddenly know why people use that phrase. It’s like a literal light is shining from his cheeks. “In the church?”
I nod, not able to keep myself from smiling. “It was almost a nightclub. When the church decided to sell, there were two bids. They thought the bookstore was a better option.”
Across the street, a woman yells, “Miles!”
A young girl in a tiny red skirt waves, and Miles graciously waves back. He puts a hand on the small of my back in a protective gesture that sends electric pulses through my sternum down to my toes. He leads us through the open forest green door as the young fan screams, “I love you,” with her phone held in front of her face.
Miles looks embarrassed. “Comes with the job, I’m afraid.”
I nod, dipping my toe into dangerous territory. “I bet you get a lot of fan mail, too?”
He shrugs. “I guess. My assistant Jake goes through it all. Sends them a nice reply.”
Thank the heavens. He doesn’t read them. Maybe he never even saw mine. Maybe the reply was from his assistant. “So, you never read any of them?”
“I used to when I first started out. But I haven’t for years. It’s better for my mental health.”
Shit.Years. How many years? Like ten?
Miles walks through the small entryway of the two-story masterpiece that is Leakey’s Bookshop before I can ask any more questions. I see it with new eyes, just as Miles must be seeing it now. The space is open and covered from floor to ceiling in books. A balcony that wraps around the entire building, making up the second floor and a rickety iron spiral staircase leading up to it. The walls are all mint green, purple, and light blue, softening the immense interior. It’s like walking into a fairytale castle. Smack dab in the middle of the enormous space is a wood-burning stove filling the space with a cozy campfire smell.
Miles turns to me. “It’s incredible.”
A secret thrill rushes through me just like when we saw the rainbow. Like I’m responsible for how amazing this place is.
I head off to find another book and leave Miles to wander. The romance aisle is full to the brim with colorful spines. Orange, fuchsia, plum, sapphire, sea green. It’s like walking into a rainbow. So different from walking through the crime fiction aisle. I look through the A’s and find a mint green cover with a football player and a ballerina on it. I read the back, and it sounds fun. While holding on to it, I pick up a few others, reading the back. There are so many to choose from. All with a variety of scenarios, ranging from realistic to fantastic. Some, the couple are old friends turned lovers, some are enemies turned lovers, and some are strangers turned lovers.
Little pinpricks tingle the back of my neck as the idea forms. I could write one of these books. I could write a romance.
I don’t believe in love at first sight like in the books, or a lasting love of any kind, really. Look at my parents—madly in love, my mother gave up her dreams for my father to live out a fairytale in acastle no less, and my dad still ended up alone. Exhibit B—my one foray into love ended with me alone, heart shattered, worse off than when I began. But just because I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean I can’t write it. It’s fiction, after all. I wrote a book where multiple people were murdered, and I don’t actually want to kill anyone—well, most of the time. I can write about love without believing in it. Clearly, there’s a market. Look at all these books.
I find my way to the craft-writing books. So many already grace my shelves,Save the Cat Writes a Novel,Bird by Bird,On Writing, but if I’m going to write in a completely new genre, I’m not pompous enough to think I won’t need a little help, especially since I just started reading the genre myself.
Happily Ever After, Beat by Beatby Trudy Lamour looks amazing. It’s a beat sheet for romance novels, exactly what I need. Another one catches my eye, and I’m pullingWrite Nakedby Jennifer Probst off the shelf to read the back cover, when Miles walks into the aisle.
“There you are. This place is incredible. Look at this cool copy ofSlaughterhouse-Five.” He holds up a black, white, and red cover with a large bomb in the center. In a wacky font under the title, it has the best line in the novel: “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”
Miles steps forward, bringing with him the heady scent of cinnamon and clove. He takes the book out of my hand before I even realize what he’s doing. “What did you find?”
Color rises in his cheeks as he reads the title. “Oh, are you a writer?”
My mind spins with how to answer. My imposter syndrome snarls loudly in my ear. I take the book back and add it to my stack. I always hate this question. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I write, but it’s not anything serious.” Just my passion, my dream, the reason why I get out of bed some mornings. “Just for fun.” And so I don’t spiral into an existential black hole.
In an attempt to end the conversation, I start off toward the register.
“That’s awesome. What do you write?”
My second most dreaded question. I wrote a cozy mystery about a woman who owns and operates a landscaping business and also stumbles into solving a murder. I wrote another, more serious mystery about a woman living in Cornwall who stumbles upon some remains while on a run and solves the murder. I wrote a time-traveling cozy mystery where the protagonist stumbles upon a time machine and goes into the future to find they were murdered, then has to travel to the past to solve it. It seems stumbling is a big theme in my work. All of the stories sound ridiculous when I try to explain them, so I say, “Crime fiction, mostly. Or I guess you say it’s the mystery genre in America.”
Miles steps up as I place my books on the counter. “My treat, I insist. I ruined your other book.”
I think about protesting, but I can’t deny how nice it feels to have someone, particularly an extremely handsome, nice-smelling someone, buy me a book. “Thank you.”
MILES
