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Chase stands, narrowing his eyes at me. "Not sure, but I can take a hint." Pepper follows Levi while Chase leans toward us. "By the way, if you two are going to 'fight' again, could you at least pick a room that's not directly above the bar?" He walks away with a smirk.
Charlie's cheeks turn bright red and she buries her head in her hands. "Oh my God."
I laugh and reach for Jackson's backpack. "Yeah, it's kind of why I told you not to bother confronting Beth. She was very much aware we made up."
Charlie groans. "I guess there's that."
"And…here's this." I pull out Charlie's folder with her plans for the children's wing at the library.
"What is this? What did you do to my plans?"
"Craig Builders owed me a favor for helping them out with a recent case against them and they reworked some of your plans."
"Are these…blueprints? Just based off my sketches?"
"It's preliminary since we don't have a location yet, but yes."
"Yet?" She looks up at me.
I flip to the storefront sketch. Which is a larger version of the mobile booth Levi and I built her. I started working on the bigger plans after I saw her in action that day at the street fair. This is her spark, her passion, her purpose. And no matter where it ended up, here in Hideaway Springs or anywhere else in the world, I was going to build it.
"Charlie's Web," she reads the gold letters over the storefront.
"That's what we'll call it."
"A bookstore? Noah. I don't have—"
"My brother and I are funding it. And we'll ask the hockey MVP to pitch in too. He's been trying to find a way to repay you for bringing Pepper back last year."
Her eyes mist. "I don't know what to say."
"You just have to agree to sell books. Not give them away." I laugh. "They'll be new, of course."
She looks over the plans. "It's everything I envisioned. What's this?" She points to another floorplan.
"The second level. For story hour, tutoring sessions, or just a place people can…escape for a while."
She shakes her head and covers her face briefly. "I suppose you're having the children in town paint it too?"
"At the soft opening, yes. But not the walls, we'll leave that to the pros. The reading circle on the second level." I point to it on the plan. "They can go nuts on that."
"Did you leave anything for me to do?" she laughs.
"Just say yes to it all. Say you'll stay."
She looks at me thoughtfully. "How could I say no?"
"Charlie, I spent most of my adult life afraid of losing a good thing. The yes is very necessary here."
"One condition. No two."
"Wow, ballsy."
She laughs. "Do you still have your camera?"
I slide over. "What did you have in mind?"
"I want to fill the store with all your photos. Not just from town but all our favorite places."
