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I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Sometimes being an adult was the worst.
I heard the front door rattle, then knocking. I waited for whoever was there to get the idea and go away.
My phone rang.
I glanced down and in spite of everything, my heart leapt. Cody.
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Cody. Are you at the bookstore?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you let me in?”
I blew out a breath. I didn’t really want to. As much as I didn’t love the weird limbo we were in right now, I didn’t want him to officially end things between us. But I’d answered the phone and he was waiting for me to speak. “I’ll be right there.”
I ended the call and dropped my phone on the desk. I looked at my sweatpants and long-sleeved T-shirt from college and wanted to crawl in a hole. But we were closed today. No one was supposed to come by.
Whatever. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen me ratty before.
I headed toward the front door, ominous music thrumming in my brain, and flipped the locks. “Hey.”
Cody’s eyebrows lifted. “Hi. Are you doing inventory or something?”
I shook my head and relocked the door. “Let’s go to the office. I don’t want anyone to think we’re open.”
“Sure.” Cody tucked his hands in the pockets of his khakis. “I should have called first, right?”
“No, it’s fine. I put up an ad for some part-time help. Between the holidays coming up—yay, retail—and the fact that I can’t keep doing this all on my own, it was time. So I wanted to check the store email. And I figured I’d do some apartment hunting here where maybe it wouldn’t be as hard.”
Cody sat across the desk from me and cocked his head to the side. “Apartment hunting?”
“Yeah. Austin and Kayla want the townhouse. Her lease is ending at the end of December.”
He frowned. “So they’re kicking you out?”
I shrugged. “It’s not exactly like that. But also kind of. Yes.”
“That seems dumb. Austin can afford to buy a place.”
“He offered.” Half-heartedly. And it had been obvious he would have been disappointed in me if I took him up on it. So I hadn’t.
“Uh-huh. Did he do it in that ‘no really, it’s fine’ way that makes you realize you can’t actually say no?”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “I didn’t know he did that with his friends, too.”
“Oh, yeah. He doesn’t pull it out often, but man. It’s effective.” Cody reached out like he was going to take my hand, then pulled back and clasped his hands in his lap.
My vision blurred and I looked away. I wasn’t going to cry. Not now. I could hold it in until he left. Probably. “If you’re here to officially break up with me, could you just do it fast? I thought I could play it cool and just be friends, but…”
“Oh, baby.” This time, Cody’s hand did cover mine. “I don’t want to break up with you. I came to say I was sorry and ask if you’d forgive me.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked over at him. “Really?”
He nodded. “This thing with my parents…I don’t know how to handle it.”
“That’s reasonable.”
