He shakes his head. “I’m not that decent. I like money, and I like picking winners. This is just me gambling.”
I privately think he’s decent anyway.
“You’re not going to change your mind,” I ask, “right?”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” Paul confirms. “You’re not going to leave my office and go sign with one of my competitors without talking to me about it first, right?”
“Right.”
He nods. “Go on, then. If I don’t hear from you in two months or so, I’ll call to check in.”
I walk to the door and pull it open, fully aware I’m being dismissed. More as a joke than out of an expectation that he’ll offer agenuine answer, I ask, “Any suggestions on where to start for lyrics with depth?”
“Yeah.” Paul opens his laptop. Without sparing me another glance, he says, “I suggest you start with whoever song number twelve is about.”
Chapter 3
August, Six Years Ago
“This one,” Zara says, pulling a gold-spined book off a shelf. “You should readthisone.”
“What’s it about?” I grab the brick of a novel from her and inspect it. “Star Daughter?”
“It’s about Galileo’s middle child.” Zara’s cool brown eyes sparkle as she faces me, her hands wrapping into passionate fists between our faces. “It’sso good,Paige. So. Good. She’s locked away in an Italian convent, but she makes a deal with this bad boy to break her out, and together, they discover Galileo’s research on stars can be converted intomagic.”
I pass the novel back to her. “I told you I don’t want another fairy book.”
“You specified you didn’t want anotherfaebook,” she retorts, “and this isn’t that.”
“I need a change of genre, Z. Can’t you recommend something from the real world?”
“I cannot,” Zara admits.
The ding of a customer entering the bookshop pulls my sister’s attention off me. I escape the fantasy section while I still have a chance. My fingers run over book spines as I migrate into hobbies. Mindlessly, they tug on a book about musical composition for beginners. I leaf through it, quickly ascertaining there’s nothing hereI didn’t learn in AP Music Theory, before replacing it on the shelf and wandering on.
I notice the top of his head first. It’s just visible from the next aisle over, bobbing along as he walks behind Zara. His hair is dark brown, raindrop speckled from the deluge outside. If I can see him from here, he must be well over six feet tall.
“It’s a fantasy epic with dragons,” Zara begins, and I snort from my aisle, slapping my palms over my mouth.
“Shut up, Paige!” Zara calls. “He said he wanted something fast-paced and full of adventure!”
That’s when our eyes catch.
Not mine and my sister’s. Mine andhis. Somehow, he manages to stoop and find me through a sliver of empty space on the shelf.
He has thick brown eyebrows, a jawline that isn’t quite sharp but somehow finds plenty of definition. His eyes are, at first glance, simple brown, but the fact that I noticed them so quickly is a true credit to his features. His mouth is cut off from my view, but I think he might be smiling.
“Didn’t say a word!” I shout back to Zara, cutting the cord of connection between her customer and me while I wander deeper into the bookshop.
I grab a thriller with a pair of bloody scissors on the spine and settle into an oversized armchair near the foggy window, the damp heat outside held at bay. I pull my headphones over my ears and thumb over to a Spotify coffeehouse playlist.
Time lapses as I read.
Only once the chapter is finished do I look up and realize he’s beside me.
Sitting in the other armchair, reading too.
But while I’m curled up with my knees drawn against my chest, my chin resting in the valley between them, and the book dangling in front of me, he’s all sprawling limbs—long legs bent, gangly elbows resting on his thighs as he reads with concentration. Asquare-shaped face. Sun-drenched skin. His hair is curly, too, even more so than mine. His body looks too small for him, like he’s growing out of it by the day. He must be my age or thereabouts.
