Nora peels herself off the cushion. “Of course. What are they this time?”
“Kittens,” Cecily says. “Someone left a box of them outside the clinic. I’ve been up every few hours bottle-feeding for the last four days.”
“Cecily fosters anything with fur,” Nora explains. She catches sight of me lingering at the end of one of the shelves, drawing me into the conversation. “Though there was that turtle once.”
“Tilly the tortoise,” Cecily says. “An older couple from the next town over adopted her. Which was a relief. I couldn’t buy enough lettuce to keep up with the thing.”
“Our very own bleeding heart,” Nora says. She takes one of the posters from Cecily and heads for the corkboard.
For a moment, it’s Cecily and me, staring at each other, the air getting thicker by the second. I know I should say something, ask her about college or how her dad is doing, but I’m too out of practice.
“How are you settling in?” Cecily asks eventually. Her gaze keeps flicking away, to Nora attempting to find space on the full corkboard, to the new displays, to the darkness outside the front window.
“We’re pretty much unpacked,” I say, a nonanswer. But Cecily doesn’t push on it.
“My dad said Paige and your mom are having a cookout this weekend.”
It’s the first I’ve heard of it, but admitting how little attention I pay in my own house makes my skin tight. So I nod.
“I guess I’ll see you on Saturday, then,” Cecily says.
“See you on Saturday.”
—
By the time closing rolls around, I’ve restocked the front tables, showing off the new releases and popular titles, as well as made decent progress on a few endcaps. Nora, of course, pipes in with suggestions, though I’m pretty sure it’s all her personal preference. She has a thing for romance novels, I gather. She and Margot would get along swimmingly.
I may have fallen out of the reading habit, but there’s a comfort to being surrounded by stories. A quiet, calm peace. It’s hard to feel alone in a bookstore.
Once I’ve finished at the cash register, Nora sidles up to the counter, bag slung over her shoulder. She shakes her key chain at me. Hanging off it is a little cartoon avocado with a face. “Want a ride?”
I wouldn’t put it past my aunt to bribe Nora to keep me from walking home alone. Book bribes are easy to do when you own a bookstore—and effective.
“Don’t tell me Paige got to you,” I say.
She frowns. “Paige?”
“She and my mom flipped about me walking home alone the other night.”
While I almost expect her to agree about their overprotectiveness, she shrugs. “Can’t say I blame ’em. It’s dangerous after dark.”
I groan. “You can’t honestly tell me you believe in this Shadow Man nonsense.”
“No,” she says. Pauses. “I don’t know. But even if I didn’t, it’s dangerous out there. Finn wasn’t exactly a bodybuilder, but he was taller than me. Stronger. And he never made it home.”
I deflate. Shame snakes up through my limbs, burning up to my skin. “I—”
“I don’t have to buy the ghost stories to be careful,” she says, and she’s trying at teasing, but it falls flat. One side of her mouth twitches up. It’s the same smirk I saw on Finn but sadder. A bit more serious. “So,” she says. “Ride?”
I want to say no. Already, the idea of climbing into her car makes my skin crawl. “Fine,” I say.
“There’s the spirit.”
Nora’s car, a cute little vintage Volkswagen Beetle, complete with a yellow daisy attached to the top of the antenna, may have the aesthetic going for it, but to me it feels like a death trap. If my sturdy car couldn’t survive an accident, I doubt this tin can will do much to protect us. Fortunately, most of town is a twenty-five miles per hour zone, and Nora doesn’t push above it. She flicks glances at me every minute or so, noting my death grip on the door, but she doesn’t comment. She is making an effort to be as safe as possible.
A few minutes later, we pull up in front of the house. I thank Nora for the ride and climb out, bag slung over my shoulders. The second my feet hit the curb, some of my anxiety subsides.
Nora doesn’t pull away until I reach the door. Her quiet engine fades away.
