Page 74 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“And fruit.”

Steven pulled Myles close by the collar of his T-shirt. “And fruit,” he whispered against Myles’s lips.

Myles would forever swear that the bookstore changed that day. When he blinked up at Steven, who had crawled across the space between their chairs to sit in his lap, it took him a long moment to realize the pounding he was hearing wasn’t the blood in his ears, but someone knocking on the front door.

“Shit!” Steven scrambled to his feet. “Coming!” He scurried across the room, adjusting his jeans as he went, to open the door and admit an elderly couple who kindly asked if he was open, and said they could come back.

“No, of course, come in. I’m sorry. I must have forgotten to unlock the door.”

Myles took the moment before they came into the main room to straighten his clothing and get his brain back online. As Steven showed the couple to a shelving stack filled with cozy mysteries, he tidied up their breakfast—which they hadn’t finished, and he wasn’t even sorry about it.

For the rest of the morning, as customers came and went, Myles inventoried the books Steven had unpacked and wiped down for him, and stole as many kisses and touches as he could reasonably get away with.

Around them, the house vibrated with light, the soft chimes of the bells over the front door, and the strains of an eclectic mix of music, always in the background but never silent.

At one point, Steven hung over the back of the couch where Myles had the tablet in his lap and a stack of books he was cataloguing beside him. He wrapped both arms around Myles and clasped his hands against his chest. “Do you know those speakers haven’t worked since—” He gulped and laid his head alongside Myles’s, just breathing for a long minute. “Since Mom and Dad died.”

Not sure what to say to that, Myles just held Steven’s hands until a customer poked their head around a door lintel from a back room where Steven kept reference books and asked about his collection of musical biographies.

“Duty calls,” Steven whispered.

Myles patted his hands. “I’ll be here.”

Right up until Jet pinged his phone to remind him their cooking lesson would be starting in less than ten minutes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next day, a bit to Steven’s disappointment, Jet showed up at the bookshop, Shelly in tow, car keys jingling. Myles had, only moments before that, dragged Steven down from the top floor where they had been eating lunch. Or mostly eating lunch. If someone told him that hadn’t been his primary motive for closing the shop for an hour and taking Myles up there, he could hardly argue with them.

“Jet? What’s going on? Is everything all right?” The sheer panic in Myles’s voice echoed down Steven’s own memory paths, dimming the bright afternoon sunshine. The kind of trauma when someone showed up at your door to give you the worst news of your life never quite went away. It also never warned you it was coming when it showed up again.

Jet held up the keys and shook them. “Just thought if we were still going to the Y today, maybe we should think about doing that before it closes?”

Nothing. Steven gulped in a breath. It was nothing. He reached past Jet to turn the shop sign to OPEN. “Sorry,” he managed in a mostly normal and barely pinched at all voice. “That was my fault. I normally have someone come in for a few hours in the afternoon, but she called in sick today. We were just taking a lunch break.”

Jet scowled. “Not your fault my uncle can’t tell time.”

“Jet,” Myles warned.

“Whatever. Can we just go?”

Steven patted Myles’s back. “Do what you have to do. I’m not going anywhere.”

Myles pointed a finger at Jet. “Don’t be a jerk.”

Jet huffed but turned to Steven. “Sorry.”

He didn’t sound terribly contrite, but Steven smiled anyway. “I get it. You guys go.” He didn’t have to be a jerk back, but he also wasn’t going to let a teenager cow him, so he spun Myles by one shoulder and kissed him soundly but briefly on the mouth. It went some way to calming his jangled nerves.

Watching Myles’s eyes go a bit dreamy, even if it only lasted a heartbeat, calmed him further. He didn’t have to stay stuck in the panic. If he had the power to do that to a man like Myles, surely he had the power to overcome one bad moment that had happened a lifetime ago.

“I’ll see you later?” he asked, catching Steven by the collar before he got too far.

“Of course. You know where to find me.”

“Right.” Myles kissed him again, quick, almost chaste, then herded the kids out the door.

The desire to flip the sign back to CLOSED and lock the door, turn all the lights off in the front rooms almost overcame Steven, once they were gone. He resisted. Barely.