Lately, though, there’s been alothappening, all at once. It’s discombobulating. It’s exhausting. Lexi’s friendship with Erin feels like it’s changing, and not in a good way. Things at the bookshop are fraught and uncertain, and she doesn’t want to worry her staff with any of it, but she’s also never been good at hiding how she’s feeling. Usually, she’d say authenticity is a virtue, and in fact she considers it one of her best qualities. But it turns out that sometimes, it could be useful to be able to hide some things.
She picks up coffee at Peregrine and even Alli notices that Lexi isn’t as bubbly as she could be.
‘Uh-oh,’ she says. ‘Everything okay?’
If there wasn’t a queue, if there weren’t prying ears all over Capitol Hill, she might tell Alli some of it. Maybe even all of it. But there is, and there are, so instead Lexi offers up a platitude.
‘I’ve just got a lot on my mind.’
Alli nods. ‘Understood.’
‘Thank you for asking, though. It’s lonely being the boss sometimes.’
‘Oh yeah,’ she says, disappearing behind the coffee machine. ‘I know.’
Lexi gets out her phone to pay, just as it lights up with an incoming text.
Emergency piano lesson sometime soon?
Her stomach somersaults.Under what circumstances can a piano lesson possibly be an emergency?
I have to stay late at work the next few nights.
Which constitutes a piano emergency... how?
She suspects she knows what he’s getting at, but she’s going to make him say it, or at least type it. To make him put into words how much he wants to see her, so that she can stop wondering if the desire she felt in his kiss was all in her head.
She watches the dots appear and disappear. She imagines he’s trying to think of a witty comeback. She can also feel the brain cogs whirring from half an hour’s walk away.
It’s more of ayouemergency, I guess. I want to see you.
She sends him the raised-eyebrow emoji.
Need, he corrects himself.I need to see you.
In Lexi’s defence, it’s hard to resist that kind of compliment.
Ah. Emergency understood. Tomorrow?
* * *
Lexi gets through the day, somehow. She chats to Hazel about the Jane Austen club, to Marcus about a queer reads club, to Debbie about a nonfiction club. Hazel is delighted to be asked; the other two need some time to process. Lexi reminds herself that this isn’t necessarily bad news, just the way of the introvert who’s often attracted to work with books, even in a customer-facing role.
A few of the staff are off sick this week, so she takes her turn behind the till, beaming smiles and positivity and cheerfully thanking everyone for shopping indie. She lingers by the romance section, checking the alphabetical order and tidying up the face-outs, and, because she’s got it bad, noticing which of the men on the cartoon covers look most like Sam. She recommends books to customers, and generally waits for the day to be over so that she can go home, get under her duvet, and then it’ll be time to get up and see him.
Lexi doesn’t sleep well, of course, so even with the adrenaline it’s a struggle to get up. She’s going to be late. And that’s the thing with people like her: their lateness isn’t necessarily any indicator of their enthusiasm, or lack thereof. Their timekeeping has its own mind. It’s like a wild animal they’re constantly fighting against and struggling to tame. Much, it has to be said, like her libido these days.
I’m late,she texts Sam, so he doesn’t think she’s forgotten– as if she ever could have.I’m sorry. Struggled to get up.
I did not struggle to get up, he says, and it’s hard to tell if he means the innuendo. She isn’t even totally sure that is one that’s used in the US.But I won’t take it personally.Then,Skip the coffee if it’s easier?
Wow. He reallyisimpatient for her to get there. And that impatience is contagious.You don’t want to be around me before 9a.m. if I haven’t had coffee, believe me.
When she gets to his building, he is waiting outside. Lexi is taken aback, maybe a little freaked out.
‘Hi?’ she says, the question mark in her voice obvious. ‘Is this a passive-aggressiveyou’re so late I guess I should come down and meet yousituation?’
She sees it: the smile, just barely there and over before she’s blinked. She’s not entirely wrong, but he denies it anyway.
