‘I wasn’t playing games.’
‘You were doing weird Jane Austen role play. I got caught up in the middle of it.’
He’s not entirely wrong, so she doesn’t bother arguing. ‘I really liked you. But now I see you’re just a callous and cold-hearted businessman after all, I realise I was wrong.’
Sam winces. He tries to cover it up, but it’s too late. Lexi’s seen it.
‘Is that really what you think of me?’
It isn’t. She’s a hurt person, hurting another person. She knows that.
‘It didn’t used to be.’ She pauses. ‘But now I see I was wrong.’
It unnerves her, how he can just stand there and let silence just– be.
‘Okay,’ he says eventually. ‘If there’s nothing else, we’re actually closed for business for the evening, so...’
Lexi bites her lip to stop from yelling,Why are you like this?To stop from yelling,Get off my patch!To stop from yelling,Using romance novels to hurt someone is a new low– you know that?She swallows all those things down.
‘All right,’ she says instead. ‘Bye.’
Her hand is on the door, and she’s almost gone, when he calls out to her.
‘Oh, and Lexi?’
She turns to look at him, and her heart does an unhelpful somersault.
‘You should probably see someone about that Jane Austen obsession. It’s not healthy.’
If this was a film, she would leap across the counter and slap him hard. Instead, she tries not to visibly wince from the blow and she keeps it together just long enough to get around the corner and away from his line of sight.
How could she have got it so wrong? How could she ever have thought that they could coexist on Capitol Hill, not just as booksellers but as human beings? How can she hope to keep her shop alive when it seems like Sam’s made it his mission to put her out of business?
So much for her new-found vim and vigour, her great ideas, her Jane Austen Day. Thanks to a rabid and callous capitalist who now hates her for breaking his heart, she doesn’t stand a chance.
And how could anyonenotbe obsessed with Jane Austen, anyway? Maybe it’s the people who aren’t who should see someone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Erin’s not home when Lexi gets back, so she has no choice but to stuff down her feelings, rewatch an episode ofDerry Girlsto cheer herself up, and then get her laptop out to do more work, because now more than ever, she needs to get her act together. She won’t let Sam and his stupid bookshop win. She brings up a list of most anticipated romance novels for the next few months and drafts an email asking Natalie to contact the publishers of as many of them as possible for events. Pemberley Books needs to cement their reputation as The Most Romance-Friendly Bookshop in DC, so that nobody thinks of Sam’s shop first when they need their latest fix of Talia Hibbert or they’re putting in a pre-order of the just-announced new Emily Henry.
She brainstorms ideas for romance-themed merch, but being full of rage isn’t exactly conducive to this kind of creativity. The best she can come up with is I Pemberley Books, and while she is pretty sure that many of her customers would wear that proudly around DC, it doesn’t seem very original.
She drafts an all-staff email asking for romance-themed ideas: merch, competitions, displays, anything. She knows some people will roll their eyes, and not just because she forgot to hitscheduleand so she’s sent this email out at 10p.m.
Romance never used to be this much of a big deal in the shop, but the section has grown and grown, and Tessa and Natalie are big fans, always making sure there aren’t gaps on the bookshelves. Restocking, putting books face out, and lovingly tending to what they see as their patch.
But there are still plenty of Pemberley Books staff with other preferences, and those who like to remind Lexi of the importance of being a general bookstore, and not just a place to hang out for young professionals in need of good vibes and light relief.
And Lexi wants that too! Of course she does. She loves all books (except, perhaps, for the Very Important Nonfiction beloved by Washingtonians and sold by the truckload by Sam). Also, to be very practical about it, there’s a bigger profit margin on literary fiction in hardback than on paperback romance novels. It’s just, romance is more... fun? Lexi has been out with some of the shop’s regulars to bemoan the state of DC dating and mentally cast their favourite actors in theoretical adaptations of the novels they’ve enjoyed. She also loves the aesthetic vibe of romance novels: the bright colours, the fun covers, but also, crucially, the fact that they’re all the same size so they look great on the shelves together.
Some of her staff are impatient with her increasing emphasis on romance novels. But needs must: she’s taught them that particular British expression. This isn’t just about her predilection for happy endings or the genre her perhaps-distant-relative arguably invented; it’s also about survival. She includes a line in the email to that effect, because she doesn’t want them to think that she hasn’t heard their concerns or doesn’t care about them. A happy bookseller is a good bookseller, because enthusiasm is about eighty per cent of the job.
Not just that, but she values them as human beings. Bookish people really are the best people, and meeting one always feels a little like coming home. Lexi isn’t naïve enough to buy into the notion of workplaces being like families, but still, her booksellers feel like a little bit more than just employees: kindred spirits, at least. And that might not be family, or it might be more like distant cousins than brothers and sisters, but it’s pretty damn valuable all the same.
Lexi is still at the dining-room table with her laptop when Erin comes home, but she mutters hi and walks straight past her, wanting, probably to stay in her loved-up bubble.
Two hours later, Lexi hasn’t moved. Is she filling every minute with work so that she doesn’t have to think about Sam and how much she misses what they so briefly had? Obviously, yes. But also, because of him, sheneedsto work every hour God sends so the shop can stay afloat, running not to get ahead but instead not to fall too far behind.
