The only thing in the email was an attached text file.
What the fuck was I supposed to do with that?
“That the pretty boy?” Mrs. Kwan asked.
“Uh. Yeah. He, umm, sent me a book,” I said, still confused. Ididwant to read the last book in the series—I’d powered through book six, since it was on the short side—but…
“Not sure what to do with it.”
“Read it,” Mrs. Kwan said, like I was an idiot.
That was fair, I clearlywasan idiot right now.
“Your sink should be fine now,” I said distractedly, downloading the file to my phone.
“Good boy,” Mrs. Kwan patted me on the arm. “I’ll go get you some cash.”
“Pay me in takeout,” I said, like always. I was pretty sure that if I evenhintedI needed a new mom, Mrs. Kwan would have just adopted me. “I’ll see you later,” I added, distracted, heading for the front of the restaurant, Felix’s latest book opening as soon as the download finished.
She was right. I needed to read this.
* * *
“Morgan,”I called out as I banged on the shop door. “I can see a light on in there, I know you’re here.”
A shadow passed over the light, and then a moment later the front door of the florist’s was opening in front of me, Morgan’s frame taking up most of the door.
“It’s six a.m.,” Morgan said, yawning widely.
“Ten minutes after, actually.”
“We don’t open until eight,” Morgan said, blinking at me.
“I need your help,” I said, holding out two takeout cups of coffee and a breakfast roll from the diner out in offering. “And I bring bribes.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow, but stepped back from the door to let me in.
“What the hell do you needmyhelp with?” he asked, accepting the coffee and the breakfast roll all the same.
“You’re an English major,” I said.
Morgan’s eyebrow climbed a little closer to his hairline.
“I’m serious, I need to know book stuff.”
I’d spent all night reading Felix’s book, then skimming over the whole series again, trying to decide if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.
“At six a.m.?”
“It’s about Felix,” I admitted. I’d have to tell him the whole story sooner or later. “It’s… do you think… could Alex be me?”
“Alex who lost his dad at fourteen, has two younger brothers to take care of, and a best friend who’s a little quiet and bookish but obviously in love with him that he’s protected at the risk of his own life multiple times? Well yeah, now that I know the author is your childhood best friend, my educated opinion is that those books are about you.”
I swallowed.
That was the conclusion I’d started to come to, too.
I’d hated book six. It was well-written, it was beautiful, but Alex and Eliot had beenapartand they’d missed each other so much. The parts that were from Eliot’s perspective, especially, had brought me close to tears a few times.
