‘I’m very clean,’ she tells him. It seems important to clarify that.
‘Nevertheless.’
Lexi bites her lip again, because who saysneverthelessin conversation?
‘Okay.’
His soap smells of honey and milk, and she immediately recognises it from that time he scooped her off the ground, his unexpectedly soft hand on hers.
‘Why do you want to learn?’ he asks, Lexi’s back still to him as she diligently counts to twenty seconds as we have all so recently been taught to do.
‘I love that question.’ She is stalling. She doesn’t know what to say. So she takes another page out of Jane Austen’s many books. ‘I suppose I want to be an “accomplished young lady”.’ She hopes the air quotes she uses will make it sound a little less weird.
Sam laughs, through his nose. ‘You really do live inside a novel, don’t you?’
‘Best place to be.’ Speaking of which, she does another quick spin. She can’t help noticing something else:where are the books?And then she says it out loud. ‘Where are your books?’
He picks up an e-reader from his dining table and holds it at eye level. Lexi almost has a heart attack.
‘Relax,’ he tells her. ‘It’s a Kobo.’
Another trick she has developed since 2020: Lexi breathes in, holds it, breathes out. Slowly. How can a bookstore owner have no respect for the actual printed word? Lexi spends most of her time looking at, touching, smelling books. Her superpower is that she can tell the difference between a British paperback and an American one by scent alone. And then there’s the best thing about American paperbacks: those matte, scratchy covers, rough to the touch. She’s been known to read British books in their US editions–Never Let Me Go, for example– simply for the feel of their covers.
Lexi knows she’s, well,special. But that specialness is why she has built her life around a bookstore. She’s wondering now if falling in love with a soulless rival is really all it’s cracked up to be.
Not that she’s falling in love. Not with Sam. Just, like, hypothetically.
The shock must still be written on Lexi’s face, because Sam continues to justify himself. ‘A book is about the content. I just don’t think the format is that important. It’s the words inside that matter. Don’t you agree?’
She opens her mouth, goldfish-like, and closes it again.
‘I’m teasing,’ he says. ‘I know you don’t agree.’
‘I bet you dog-ear pages too,’ she remarks. She says it with so much vehemence that a tiny bit of spit escapes with thepof pages.
He’s kind enough not to point it out, or to wipe his arm, where it’s landed. She’s dying anyway, though.
He shrugs, as if none of this is calculated, as if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing to her. ‘Sure. When I read galleys or whatever.’
Lexi is tempted to turn on her heel, to leave here and now. She’s heard enough. ‘You know that’s worse than not washing your hands before touching a piano, right?’
Sam shakes his head. ‘If you say so.’
Lexi narrows her eyes at him, scowling.
‘You’re going to kill me with your bare hands, aren’t you?’
‘I was considering it,’ she says. ‘Yes.’
‘You should learn some piano first. Use me before you dispose of me.’
She has a brief flash of how, exactly, she’d like to use him.
No, no. This won’t do.
‘What, and leave my DNA on your piano?’
‘Ah, yes. I see the flaw. Maybe you’d better not kill me today.’
