My entire world spun on its axis. Marlene had never evenhintedat that.
Sure, she’d turned down my idea of redecorating the place last year, telling me it would cost too much.
And shehadsaid she was thinking about shortening the hours since sales dropped off in the evenings.
It felt like my foundation was shaking, a tiny earthquake opening up beneath my feet.
Bookish waseverythingto me. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else. I’d always thought I’d be like Noreen, working here until I was seventy years old.
God, I missed Noreen.
“Are you telling me the truth right now?” I asked quietly, meeting his hazel eyes with my own for the first time today.
The granite-hard expression on his face softened, and I could see a hint of kindness peeking out. “Yeah, hon. Sorry to be the one to tell you. Haven’t you noticed Marlene acting a little rattled lately? Sheissixty-nine. It’s probably time for her to retire soon. This place has been good, but unless something big changes, I think Bookish has run its course.”
I stood there for a moment, unable to speak, my heart shattering as the afternoon light caught dust motes floating between us.
Then, as my emotions rode so high they almost drowned me, I became acutely aware of how close he was standing.
Close enough that I caught his masculine scent again. Earthy and grounded, andentirelytoo appealing.
I took a step back, unable to process all this change at once, and bumped into a display table with my butt. I wasalwaysdoing that.
Books tumbled, and we both stooped to pick them up.
“The resumes,” I said, grasping for something practical to focus on while I tried to absorb the bombshell he’d dropped into my life. “I printed all the applications from Indeed and organized them for you.”
I walked to the counter and retrieved the stack I’d prepared. The papers were sorted into three neat piles, with colored sticky tabs marking each section. Green for top picks. Yellow for maybes. Red for the least likely to work out.
I’d spent two hours on this last night, reading through every application, cross-referencing experience with our needs, making notes about scheduling availability and relevant skills, even checking their social media profiles.
Flint took the stack from my hands, and his fingers brushed mine in the transfer. Just a whisper of contact, rough calluses against my smooth skin, shooting tingles through me.
And then he started flipping through them, completely ignoring my careful organization. He shuffled the green tabs in with the red, mixing everything together.
“You’re messing up my system,” I huffed.
He laughed, a low rumble that I felt in my chest. “I’m running the interviews, not you. I need to see them my way.”
“I should sit in. I know how Bookish runs. You don’t. And it’s going to be hard to replace Gwen and Noreen. They kneweverything.”
I thought about Gwen, my friend who’d worked here briefly before deciding to chase her dream of opening a hair salon. She was finally doing it, and I was happy for her, but I missed having her here even though I still got to see her on weekends.
And Noreen. Sweet Noreen, who’d been the expert in our history section. She could recommendexactlythe right book for any customer’s obscure interest.
She’d retired after she hit seventy, and the store had felt emptier ever since.
I missed them both. I wished things could have stayed the same forever.
Flint studied me for a moment. “I’ll let you sit in. But if a customer needs you, you step away to take care of them.”
“Obviously.”
“And the final decision’s mine,” he nodded, apparently satisfied with himself. Then he went back to shuffling through the resumes.
I watched his hands as he worked, his knuckles scarred and weathered from years of outdoor work. These were hands that had built things, fixed things, survived things.
But theyweren’thands that fit in a bookstore.
