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“Yeah, but the percentage is so low it barely counts. The ratings have to back it up. Same with books. Just because it’s hyped up on social media doesn’t mean I’m reading it. It has to have good reviews. Or if somebody I trust recommends it, then I’ll ignore the reviews and read it anyway.”

“And if somebody you trust recommends it and it’s bad?” I put out a hand to take her bag while she pulled on her hoodie.

“Then I don’t trust them again,” she said, pulling her head through the neck hole.

“Do you have someone who’s never failed you?”

“Nope. Why? You want to recommend a book to me? You think you have what it takes?” She grinned.

“I don’t know, that sounds like a pretty high-stakes game. What are you reading right now,” I asked.

“You wouldn’t have heard of it,” she said, taking her backpack.

“Try me.”

She gave me a cocked eyebrow. “You read that much?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Are you one of those people who reads a five-hundred-page book in three hours?”

“I actually am one of those people,” I admitted. “Only it’s more like a three-hundred-page book in three hours. I’m fast but not that fast.”

She gawked at me. “How?”

“I just process things quickly? I don’t know. I got faster over the years.”

“How many books do you read a year?” she asked.

“Between two and three hundred?”

“Chris!”

“What?” I chuckled.

“That is so many.”

“Yeah. I like reading. I read instead of TV.”

“Okay, now I do want you to recommend a book to me.”

“Okay,” I said. “You recommend one to me too.”

“Cross Stitch by J. C. Vale,” she said without thinking about it.

I stopped walking to blink at her. “You’ve read Cross Stitch?”

Now it was her turn to look surprised. “You’ve read it?”

“Yes.” My heart was actually pounding.

“I read it twice,” she said. “I loved it. I’ve never had anyone to talk to about it.”

Cross Stitch was an out-of-print sci-fi novel from 1986. A mass-market paperback I’d found on my dad’s nightstand. It was one of the first books I remember loving as a kid. I felt like she’d just unlocked some secret door into my soul.

“Where’d you get it?” I asked in complete disbelief.

“Yard sale. This lady had a big box of old paperbacks. I bought the whole thing for five bucks.”