Page 20 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“You’re alphabetizing my chaos shelf.”

“I’m not…” He stops. Looks down at the books in his hands. Looks at the shelf, which is now arranged in perfect alphabetical order by author’s last name. “Oh.”

“‘Oh’?”

“I didn’t realize I was doing it.”

You didn’t realize you were alphabetizing an entire bookshelf? You just… accidentally organized two hundred books by author surname?

I should be annoyed. This is my store, my chaos, my system (or lack thereof). I should feel invaded, controlled, criticized.

Instead, I feel something soft and strange unfurling in my chest.

“Do you do that a lot?” I ask, keeping my voice careful. “Organize things without noticing?”

He’s quiet for a moment. His hands are still on the books, long fingers resting against the spines like he’s not sure what to do with them.

“Sometimes,” he admits. “When things are… out of order. My brain doesn’t like it.”

Oh.

I know that feeling. Not with organization, my brain does the opposite, actually, creates chaos faster than I can contain it, but I know what it’s like to have a brain that doesn’t work the way other people’s brains work. A brain that has its own rules, its own compulsions, its own non-negotiable requirements for functioning.

“The chaos shelf is supposed to be chaotic,” I say, but gently. “It’s where I put things I can’t categorize. Things that don’t fit.”

“That’s…” He looks almost pained. “That sounds stressful.”

“For you, maybe. For me, it’s just Tuesday.”

I watch his hands twitch toward a book that’s slightly crooked. Watch him visibly stop himself from straightening it. Watch the effort it takes.

“You can fix it,” I say. “If it helps. I don’t mind.”

“You don’t mind me reorganizing your store?”

“I don’t mind you doing what your brain needs to do.” I shrug. “Mine makes me write things down seventeen times and talk to myself in the mirror. Yours makes you alphabetize. We’re both just… coping.”

His expression changes, opens. A look almost like wonder, or recognition, or maybe just relief.

He straightens the crooked book.

That evening, I find my daily checklist on the counter.

Not the original, the crumpled, coffee-stained sticky note I wrote three weeks ago and have been meaning to replace. This one is on cardstock, neat and clear, printed in handwriting so careful and precise it could pass for a font.

And it’s laminated.

He laminated my checklist.

I pick it up with shaking hands. Read the familiar items: Close register. Deposit in safe. Check back door. Blow out candles. All my little rituals, my coping mechanisms, my attempts to wrangle my ADHD brain into something functional.

There’s a hole punched in the corner, like he expects me to hang it somewhere. Like he made it permanent on purpose.

“What is this?” My voice comes out strange. Thick.

Orion looks up from where he’s doing something unnecessarily thorough to my window display. “Your system. I noticed the old one was falling apart.”

“You laminated my anxiety coping mechanism.”