Page 11 of Booked Up with the Mountain Man Firefighter

I open the shop at nine. Go through the routine. Signs, lights, register, coffee. The Trading Post courtyard wakes up around me, and I watch it from behind the glass. Everything is where it should be.

The bell rings at 10:15.

Mack walks in grinning. Same energy, same volume, same everything. He heads straight for the display like it’s any other morning.

“Okay.”

He picks up a book. Reads the first line out loud, pitched low and dramatic—the full performance. He looks at me, waiting.

“It’s a family saga,” I say. “Three generations. The prose is dense but rewarding.”

He waits. I don’t say anything else.

“That’s it?” he says. “No ‘you’re reading it wrong’? No ‘the first line is a door, not a room’?”

“That’s the book.”

Something shifts in his face. He sets the book down and picks up another one, reading the first line with exaggerated drama.

I don’t correct him. I don’t take the bait. I give him a polite nod and turn to the register like I have something to do there. I don’t. He knows I don’t.

“Ellie?”

“Hmm?”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m right here.”

“No you’re not.”

I line up a row of pens next to the register. They don’t need lining up.

“Did you need a book?” I ask.

He stares at me. I can feel it without looking up, the weight of his attention on the side of my face. I keep my eyes on the pens.

“What happened?” he asks.

His voice is different now. Quieter. The pretense is falling away, and I can’t let it because if I look at the real version of him, I’ll crack.

“Nothing happened.”

“Something happened. Last night⁠—”

“Last night was nice.”

The word does what I need it to do. Nice. Small and polite and final. I watch it hit him. I watch him hear it the way I heard “restful”—a word that sounds like a compliment and functions like a wall.

He stands there for a long time. I keep my eyes on the counter. Eventually, the bell rings and he’s gone.

The shop is quiet. The courtyard is quiet. I pick up my coffee mug, and my hand is steady. I’m fine. I’m fine because this is where I belong, behind the counter, behind the glass, in the quiet. This is what I’m built for. Not bookstore floors. Not four-sentence speeches that make men stop smiling. Not whatever I was last night.

I was restful before him, and I’ll be restful after him. That’s not a tragedy. It’s just a fact.

I believe it for about an hour.

Then I see him through the window.