Lauren groans. “Shit.”
“Oh, it gets worse,” I tell her. “She not only put it on the floor—she also sent the email I’d drafted to notify customers who’d preordered it that it was available for pickup. I had to take all the books off the floor, then contact everyone she’d emailed andsay, ‘Hey, just kidding, that book we told you was ready for early pickup isn’t out for another five days, so please don’t come in and try to pick it up, because we can’t sell it to you.’?”
“That,” Lauren says, “sounds like a nightmare.”
“I had so many customers show up and ask for their book today, I was thinking of turning it into a drinking game.”
Lauren laughs.
A laugh jumps out of me, too.
Our laughter fades, and after a beat Lauren says, “Thea, can I ask you something?”
I nod as I suck down another gulp of peanut-butter-chocolate milkshake.
“You said you’ve been dreaming about banging the heck out of Hot Chef, owning and running a bookstore exactly how you want, and you told me that means you’re stuck.” Lauren leans in, eyes holding mine. “What I’m wondering is,whydo you feel stuck at work, and with Alex, when you have choices you could make that would change things?”
The milkshake feels too thick as I swallow. I clear my throat. “Because I’m scared.”
“Of what.”
“That wanting more could cost me what I already have. Fern might reject my business proposal. She could be deeply offended by my ideas. She might fire me, and then I’d lose my job, that community, my happy place.”
Lauren stirs her milkshake with her straw, eyes still holding mine. “And Alex?”
I stare back at her, my throat tight. I’ve never told Lauren how much I love Alex, how hard I have to work to keep that love from tumbling over, spilling out, risking our friendship. Because to tellher, I’d have to face it myself, feel something I can manage only in my dreams.
But she knows, I think. She has to.
“I’m scared I’ll lose Alex,” I tell her, “if we become anything more than friends. If we tried being romantic and things fell apart, it’s not like we could go back to being best friends—”
Lauren clears her throat.
“Localbest friends,” I amend.
“Thank you.”
A weary laugh jumps out of me. “You’re ridiculous.”
She grins. “You were saying, about your friends-to-lovers dilemma with Alex?”
Just the thought of it makes my chest ache. “If we fell apart romantically, I’d lose him, and Mia, and…” My eyes well. “I’d be devastated. That’s why I’m stuck. Because there’s no safe way to grow beyond where I am. It’s too risky.”
“Have you considered,” Lauren says quietly, “that you’re already losing, by staying where you are?”
My heart twists. “Yes. But then I tell myself to be grateful for what I have instead of pining for what I don’t.” It’s an easy and familiar response, what I grew up hearing when I wanted and dreamed and reached.
“Thea, I think that’s bullshit—you can be grateful for what you haveandwant more. Sure, at one point, you were happy with where you are, comanaging The Bookshop, just being friends with Alex, but you’re not there anymore, not here.
“You keep saying you can’t change things because of the risk. But Thea, I think you know in your heart that change has already happened in you. I think that’s why you’re miserable—because you’re fighting it. It’s like trying to shove your feet into a pair offavorite shoes you already outgrew. They used to fit you perfectly. They made you feel like a million bucks at one point. But they don’t fit anymore, and no amount of shoving yourself into them is going to make them feel how they used to. It’s just going to hurt.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat. “You would use a shoe metaphor to talk about feelings.”
Lauren smiles wryly. “I got that from Frances, actually. She figured out that shoes are the way to my heart. Therapy now consists of alotof shoe metaphors.”
I laugh. “She sounds like a great therapist.”
“She is. Not many therapists will do daily sessions, let alone speak my love language of shoes.”
