And then, as if all of that wasn’t enough: the bookshop! Lexi would spend hours on the sofa there, people watching, a precocious child, equal parts sweet and vaguely irritating. If she’d known then that this place of wonders in this magical city would be hers someday, she would have been insufferable. Her sister would try to coax her away to museums, and she’d sometimes succeed, because who doesn’t want a chance to gaze at the inauguration gowns of a dozen first ladies? But mostly, Lexi would hang out at the shop, tidying displays, shelving books, learning where a novel goes when its author has two surnames. She’d read books cover to cover and then recommend them to the nearest child even vaguely her age. And then when her grandmother was finally done for the day, they’d go home and eat dinner and bake actual brownies, the chocolate smell filling the town house with blue walls and a red door on East Capitol Street.
It’s no surprise Lexi loves DC and defends it fearlessly from such baseless accusations as its being inferior to New York. Not to be dramatic, but it feels a little like an attack on her when someone badmouths the place. Or perhaps to be a little dramatic, since that is also part of who she is.
‘So if you love New York so much,’ she says to Sam now, ‘how come you’re not living there?’
There’s a pause, and for one glorious moment Lexi thinks she’s won. But alas...
‘I met someone,’ Sam says, like that explains everything. But then he realises it doesn’t, so he elaborates. ‘A woman. Fell head over heels in love with her. She was from here, and she was always trying to get me to move. We’d settled on Philadelphia as a compromise, because it’s easy to get to both places from there, but then she sent me an article about how the bookshop was up for sale and said,Hey, you’re always talking about wanting to do this. How about now?’
Lexi parks her questions about that part for later. Sam has always struck her as an opportunist, not a lifelong dreamer, and certainly not someone who’s always dreamed of owning a bookshop.
‘That was all it took?’
He laughs. ‘No. It took a lot of persuading on her part.’ Lexi tries not to think about what that persuading might have looked like. ‘And a lot of meetings with the bank. And a few arguments with my dad, who wasn’t okay with my not being in the family business. But eventually, I did it. And now here I am.’
‘But you’re not together anymore?’
‘No.’ Lexi is surprised not to hear any bitterness in his voice– only sadness. ‘A few months after I moved here it became apparent that she wasn’t so much in love with me as she was with my family connections and the money she thought I had because of them. Which I don’t.’
This is a lot to take in. Lexi has so many questions. Like,howdid it become apparent? What happened? Who is this woman and how could she be so callous? And, most of all, has Lexi finally hit upon his villain origin story?
Lexi’s pulse is racing. She realises she’s furious at this woman for uprooting him from his beloved New York and then breaking his heart. Although she is surprised to realise that part of her is also grateful that she brought him here.
‘That’s why I need the bookshop to be a success,’ he says, meeting Lexi’s eyes. ‘Otherwise, it’s all been for nothing.’
Dagger: heart. For the briefest of seconds, Lexi is tempted to surrender in the Great Bookshop Wars. But then she remembers all the reasons her bookshop matters to her. The reasonssheneeds it to be a success.
Nice try, she thinks, but she’s not callous enough to say it, even as a joke.
‘That sounds hard,’ she says instead, holding eye contact. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks.’ And then, as is so often the case with him, the moment is over as quickly as it came. ‘Anyway, speaking of which.’ They’re standing on their 7th and Penn corner now, and he gestures in the direction of Great Expectations. ‘I better get going.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ She pauses to think of the right thing to say, and definitely not because she’s thinking about what it might be like to kiss him, right here on this street corner. ‘Thank you for telling me all that.’
Sam’s voice modulates back to the softer tone it takes on when they’re in his apartment and it feels like he and Lexi are friends. ‘You’re a good listener– you know that?’
Lexi did not, in fact, know that. She gets called a chatterbox a lot. But having to be careful what she says around him leaves more room.
‘Thank you,’ she tells him, still not breaking eye contact.
And then, unexpectedly, he opens up his arms, inviting her in for a hug, and just as unexpectedly, she doesn’t hesitate. He smells of clean clothes and cedar and possibly old books. Lexi could stay there forever. They fit just right, her head under his chin. It feels natural, like home. Like belonging.
‘Have a good day,’ she says. She wants him to have an excellent day, not just a happy one or an easy one, but a productive and lucrative one. She wants him to feel like it’s all been worth it.
She just doesn’t know what that means for her yet.
Or her shop.
Or her heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When Lexi walks into the shop that Wednesday morning, it’s obvious that Tessa and Hazel are deep in discussion. The furrowed brows and crossed arms tell her that this isn’t the usual chit-chat about books. Lexi knows they’re not arguing; they get on well, and Hazel especially is not confrontational. She’s the kind of person Rudyard Kipling was no doubt thinking of when he wrote ‘If’: the kind of person who can keep their head when all around are losing theirs. Sensible haircut, kind voice, secret recipe for the world’s best lemon drizzle cake, which she brings into work on special occasions and sometimes just because. Tessa loves Hazel, even asking for early shifts specifically so they can work together. When Lexi walks in, smiles replace the frowns in the kind of falsely breezy way that suggests they didn’t realise that she had seen their postures through the door.
‘Morning,’ they say cheerfully from behind the counter. People working in customer service know to do this regardless of what’s on their minds.
Lexi worries, briefly, that her betrayal is all over her face– that she’s been spending time with their arch-rival, the threat to the bookshop, the threat to all their jobs– and not only that, but actually enjoying it. Struggling, if she’s entirely honest, to pull herself away. So Lexi can’t really blame them for their secrets; she has plenty of her own.
