“I’ll take care of it,” I told them. “You’re due for your lunch anyway.”
“Speaking of lunch, guess who I saw eating lunch at Petal last week?”
My nose wrinkled. Petal was the latest in a string of food carts that had set up shop across the street from the stadium. Rose City had brought in a lot more than fans when they’d inked the deal with the Roasters, major league baseball’s latest team—they’d brought in vegan food carts, too.
As a lifelong vegan, Xan was thrilled with this development. Personally, I preferred my food with a bit more . . . animal byproduct.
“Who?”
“Jared Pink,” they said, hearts practically bulging out of their eyes like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Le sigh.
I longed to remember a time before I knew his name—the one that seemed to follow me everywhere I went. To my brother’s bar, which had become the unofficial, post-game watering hole for Roasters’ fans and players. At the high school, where I volunteered twice a month for an after-school romance book club. Most of the students ate, slept, and breathed in their Jared Pink jerseys. He had even managed to infiltrate more than one of my Dungeons & Dragons sessions, at the behest of my friends.
Apparently, I was the only one in Rose City he hadn’t charmed the pants off—and I planned to keep it that way.
“That’s nice,” I mustered. The lie left a bitter taste in my mouth. “Not too surprising, though, since it’s right by the stadium.”
“He said he liked my shirt . . . right before I spilled my tempeh burrito bowl all over it.”
Oh, to be twenty-two again.
To be fair, twentysomething Nessa probably would have swooned over a casual compliment from a stranger, too, especially one as handsome as Jared Pink. She’d been a lot lessexperienced then, less jaded. She knew better now, ten years, two degrees, and four-and-a-half relationships later—because that summer with Pedro didn’treallycount.
Thirtysomething Nessa had standards, one of which included being born in the twentieth century.
Fuck, that makes me feel old.
“What shirt?” I asked them, shaking myself out of my own inner thoughts.
“The ‘fuck the patriarchy and your dad’ one.”
Okay, so the guy had good taste in T-shirts. That didn’t make him any less of a bad bet, no matter how attracted I was to him.
I grew up around guys like Pink—arrogant man children who traded in dick jokes and devilish banter—and in my experience, they were one in the same. That hadn’t stopped me from dipping my toe in the jock pond a time or two, but what teenage girl hadn’t? Personally, I blamed early 2000s teen movies and late-night reruns ofSaved by the Bell.
“Talk about the perfect meet cute,” Xan added.
They rested their head in their hands, staring off into space or, more likely, the future they had envisioned with the Roasters’ star pitcher. I nudged them out of the way and tore into the box of books. L.J.’s latest romantic suspense novel had been on the top of my to-be-read list for months, so I couldn’t wait to dig into it. First access to upcoming releases was one of the best things about owning a bookstore.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It sounds like you’ve been reading too many romance novels.”
Xan snorted, their eyes wrinkling with amusement. “Says the woman who owns a romance bookstore.”
“That’s right. And as ‘the woman who owns a romance bookstore,’ take it from me—romance novelsalwaysdeliver a happily ever after; the same can’t be said for relationships.”
“Why are you trying to burst my bubble?”
My lips kicked up. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I shooed them toward the front of the store, past the table of snarky candles and greeting cards that never failed to makemesmile and the church mice gasp. “Now, please go get your oat milk latte and get back to vision boarding your wedding.”
“Do you want anything?”
I waved my hands, gesturing to the rows of shelves on either side of me. “I’m good. I’ve got everything I need right here.”
I wasn’t lying. While some people had children and others doted on their fur babies, I had books. Shelves upon shelves of time-traveling adventures, sword-wielding pirate queens, and modern-day princesses, stories that transcended the page and lived rent-free in my head—and heart—long after the book ended.
Over the past few years—first with my blog and then with the store—I had cultivated a community for introverted romantics like me everywhere. One built on a foundation of acceptance, love, and a shit ton of pink glitter.
