Page 25 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

If she’d had feathers, the little girl would have puffed up as round as a robin. She grabbed up her dad’s hand and tugged.

“Come on! We gotta go see what he likes!”

The dad allowed himself to be led, and Rory wondered idly how she was going to assess her brother’s acceptance of the books in question. What constituted approval?

The mother, who offered Max a tired smile, headed off towards the mysteries.

The bell jangled again, and this time it was an older woman. She wanted romances, and she also wanted to talk to Max about his opinion on them, which Rory could see he wasn’t very comfortable with. Rory didn’t think it was that they were romances but that the conversation wasn’t serving directly to help Max find a book for her. It was more like chatting, which Max didn’t seem to be the best at.

So Rory swooped in. “You know, it’s been several years since I last read a romance,” he confessed. “But one of my favorite tropes—is that the right word?—is that one where the two main characters are stuck together.”

The woman’s face lit up, the skin crinkling around her eyes as they twinkled at him. She nodded vigorously. “Forced proximity! Who doesn’t enjoy being snowed in with a stranger and needing to share body heat for warmth?”

Max looked appalled. “Why would anyone want—?”

Rory looped his arm through the nice lady’s and began to lead her towards the romance section. There were plenty of books there. This area did a brisk business. Lots were sold, but Max also got lots to sell. They were a hot commodity.

Rory said, “I always enjoy seeing how the author pulls it off, making it seem reasonable that strangers get close so quickly—or making us not care that it’s not reasonable.”

She laughed. “Yes, I think you need to bring a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief to many romance novels. But it’s nice to have a guaranteed happily ever after, so you know it’s going to end well even if the set-up is a bit ridiculous.” She patted his hand. “You know, I have six siblings, and when we were growing up, I shared a bed with my two sisters. From romance novels, you would think that no one had ever shared a bed platonically in the history of ever.”

Rory snorted. “Right? People seem to be overcome by their feelings when they really could have used self-control.”

She countered, “But when you know they’re going to get together, that they’re meant to get together, it seems inevitable that their feelings would get to them like that. It seems like the whole reason the power is out, they’re running out of wood, and they have to cuddle for warmth.”

Laughing, Rory agreed, “Exactly. What are you looking for today?”

She gazed at the shelf. “I’m not quite sure. Sometimes, I don’t know it until I see it. I know it’s a bit early for Christmas, but I do enjoy those cozy holiday romances.”

“Let’s see what we can find!” Rory said enthusiastically.

By the time Anabelle left with a half dozen different romances, the store had filled up with another handful of customers. Rory had missed the family leaving, but he trusted that they’d found appropriate reading material for the little girl and her baby brother.

Rory happily wandered around the store and started chatting with anyone he encountered, curious to know what they were there for as well as trying to help them find what they wanted if he could. He got into a protracted discussion about cookbooks and the best way to learn to cook, mysteries and whether true crime was creepy or not, atlases and whether or not they were being replaced by the internet, and the best resources for a friend who had a terrible boyfriend—but not, like, abusively bad, just kind of a jerk, only she didn’t seem to see it.

Rory offered his advice whenever he could or simply listened. At one point, he half heard a phone conversation between Max and who Rory assumed was his sister as he talked about hiring Alex and explained why this was a purely business decision and she needed to stop thinking in terms of meet-cutes.

Sometimes, Rory wandered up to the cash with the customers, and if Max wasn’t there, then Rory punched in the sale. Now that he had fingers, he could do that.

He had no idea where the time went, and he was taken aback when Max swung the open sign to closed.

“Oh,” Rory said, looking outside. He couldn’t see the sun given the proximity of the other buildings, but it was no longer overhead. “Is it time to close already?”

“Yes,” Max said. “It’s just after five.”

“Did you have a good day?” Rory asked. “It’s much easier for me to spend time with you when I’m perched on your shoulder.”

Max spluttered a laugh. “Yes, I had a good day. You seem to be good at talking to people.”

Rory beamed at him. “Yes, I love talking to people. It’s always interesting to learn about their lives and where they come from and what they’re looking for.”

Max’s lip curled up. “You’re an extrovert, aren’t you?”

Rory pondered this. “Oh, that’s that test on the internet, isn’t it? Where people get different letters and it tells them about themselves?”

Max laughed. “The Myers-Briggs personality test, yes. All of those sorts of tests are invented ways of categorizing people, but the labels can help people express what sort of personality they have or understand where others have differences. In the case of an introvert versus an extrovert, an introvert is drained by interactions with others. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily shy or don’t enjoy those interactions, but it tends to tire them. An extrovert, by contrast, is energized by people. They’re usually very good at customer service and people-centric jobs. They’re more likely to have lots of friends. But like I said, it’s just a way to think about it, and plenty of people are a mix of the two, or act more one way but behave differently in their work environment, and so on.”

Rory pondered this for another moment and then declared, “I’m definitely an extrovert. I love spending time with people, and you’re my favorite.”