I could actually tell her the exact amount of days it’s been since my parents’ marriage imploded and I was removed from their custody, and this town. Or, at least, I could have at one point. My therapist has advised against this particular counting of days. It apparently keeps me rooted in the past instead of being able to plant roots in the future.
My eyes subconsciously flick toward the only nonfiction book on my table. I know I can’t hide my past from her and Idon’tgo out of my way to hide it. Not when it’s a literal book. But part of me hopes she doesn’t see and make a snap judgement.
I hand the book back to her. “For you.”
“Thank you,” she says. She glances at the watch on her wrist. “I think I’m next. Do you think I can convince them to Q&A me instead of making me do a reading?”
“You’re very convincing.”
Adelaide grins and I die a little. She’s beautiful. I have to remember how to breathe. I forget there are other people in the library. She leaves my book on her library-provided rolling chair as a librarian comes to collect her. It takes less than a minute of conversation for the librarian to agree to change the program for her. Adelaide shoots me the dorkiest thumbs up I’ve ever received and I find myself laughing.
Over the course of ten minutes, and several questions about writing, I slip into dangerous territory. I openOne Train in December, the book she signed for me.
Z, You’re my demographic now
I hold her eyes from across the room. She doesn’t need to spell it out. I know I am.
Chapter Three
Zander
I’m trying not to admit to myself I’m sad this book is almost over.One Train in Decemberis, quite possibly, one of the most riveting books I’ve ever read. I haven’t dived into much historical fiction. When I was in a book club, once upon a time, the books were mainly literary or general fiction, with a few historical sprinkled in. None were like this. I’m a man that works in words. It’s my job to know what to say. But I don’t have words for this.
It’s that good.
Adelaide Ramsay is a literary genius. I have to figure out a way to tell her that isn’t too forward or creepy.
I started reading her book on Sunday, after I’d grabbed a pizza on the way home post-event. And now, two days later, I’m back in my apartment, back in my designated reading chair, and twenty pages fromthe end.
I put the book down on the slate grey coffee table in front of me, page 353 folded down. I can’t finish this book until I have her next book, and then I need the upcoming book, and then Ineed to know the inner-workings of her mind that made these glorious books happen.
I exhale in the silence of my one-bedroom apartment. Silence that immediately becomes unbearable without Adelaide’s words to keep me company. I’m getting ahead of myself, I know. But nobody has ever made me feel this adrift. Unless we’re talking about the unmooring that happens when you lose your parents and make a series of terrible choices.
But this kind of unmoored is not one I’m familiar with. It’s like she threw my world off its axis with one smile.
Instalove. That’s what I’m told this kind of feeling is in the romance world.
Fate. Destiny. Soulmates. It’s all a bit much for me. But as I sit, listening to the ticking of the wall clock anchored next to my front door, I have to wonder.
Lucy, my golden retriever, rises from her dog bed—the one she only uses out here. She sleeps curled at my feet otherwise. Her little toes tippy tap on my laminate hardwood floor until she stops in front of me. She sits, then shifts her front legs and whines, somehow reading my mind.
I laugh. “Don’t worry, Luce. You’re still my number one girl.”
Her mouth drops as she pants, tongue lolling as if she’s smiling. I bend and scratch her underneath her light blonde chin. She’s an old girl. Nine years my soul dog. She turned my whole life around, if not entirely saved it. I tap my knees and she hops up as though she’s still my little baby dog. She throws her full weight against me and ravishes my face with kisses.
“Oh, I know,” I say, rubbing behind her ears. “You’ve had a long, hard day of resting and you need a little love.” She thumps her feathery tail against my legs and lets out a low, rumbling purr, a quirk I discovered many goldens do during our first month together.
Lucy gets settled, somehow managing to curl herself in my lap. She nudges at my hand with her nose until my fingers splay over her belly and I resume the pats. Content, she rests her head and shuts her eyes.
I tip my head back against the armchair’s cushion and sigh. I won’t be finishing the book tonight, Lucy’s made sure of that. But she’s also made sure I’m alone with my thoughts, again, and those thoughts turn back to Adelaide. My free hand itches to pick up my phone. My last remaining rational thought says,hey, don’t do that. Which then spirals to,she’ll never like you.
Who could ever like me once they know what I’ve done?
My fingers close around my phone.Don’t do it. I tap in my passcode and scroll through apps until I get to Instagram.Nothing good can come from this. I swipe to my tagged photos and click on the one Beaver Creek Library posted of the Festival of Local Authors yesterday morning.She’s going to be disgusted by you. I find Adelaide’s tag, a photo of her grinning at the podium, holding up one of her ARCs.Last chance to rethink this.
Instead of listening to the creeping doubt, I click “message”.
Zander
