“This place is incredible,” she says softly. She’s already forgotten me—her eyes are sliding across the shelves as a smile spreads across her face.
Feeling happy, I make my way through the crowd and find Lily and J.B. are by the door with a bunch of other kids that must be their schoolmates.
“Hi, guys,” I say. “Thank you so much for coming to my opening.”
“We didn’t know it was an opening,” J.B. says, looking around nervously before pulling her headphones up over her ears.
“We just wanted to see if you had more copies ofStarhoof?”Lily says hopefully. “We finished it, and we’ve been passing around our copies, but now everyone wants to read it, and we only have two.”
“I just gave that to you a few days ago,” I say in amazement.
“It’ssogood,” Lily says.
J.B. gives me two thumbs up.
“Do you have more?” one of the boys with them asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, of course. This way.”
“Meg-short-for-Margaret,”Lily exclaims when we reach the table.
Meg is smiling ear-to-ear when Lily embraces her.
“Did you start this yet?” Lily asks her, pointing to the books on the table.
“Finished it,” Meg tells her proudly. “I started re-reading it again right away.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Lily agrees. “I should have known you would love it.”
The kids are all grabbing copies, and one boy has a whole stack of them.
“It’s for the guys on my floor,” he says defensively when he catches me looking.
“Buy as many as you want,” I reassure him. “I love this book and I’m so happy to know people will enjoy it.”
“Taylor discovered it,” Meg says proudly. “She got the author a contract to get it published.”
“No way,” Lily says, spinning to look me in the eye. “You didn’t tell us that the other day.”
“Oh, I’m not working for the publishing company anymore,” I say, feeling awkward.
“Why not?” the boy with the stack of books asks.
“It’s complicated,” I say, not exactly wanting to tell them that I was fired for buying their favorite book.
“Excuse me, miss,” a man says, leaning over the table to catch my attention. “What’s this about?”
But the kids are answering him before I can open my mouth, telling him how cool the book is and what a great message it has. He grabs a copy too, and I’m practically glowing when Roan’s mom calls my name from the register.
“Thanks, guys,” I say quickly before heading to see what Ellie needs.
“You have a call, dear,” she says, indicating the landline by the counter.
It’s way too noisy out here to talk.
“Can you send it to the back room?” I ask her.
“Of course,” she tells me, tapping on the buttons.
