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With that, I turned around and headed toward the front before I could stick my foot in my mouth any further. I heard his chair scrape on the floor as he stood to follow me and we weaved our way around the other customers enjoying a casual Saturday among the books.
I joined the line at the register, inhaling the scent of Hayden’s cologne as he came to stand close behind me.
“Hi there,” the young woman behind the register greeted us. “Looks like y’all were successful today.”
“You have a great selection of stuff here,” I said, setting the stack in my arms on the counter and starting to unload the rest from the basket Hayden held.
“It’s one of my favorite parts of working at an indie, that we have control over curation of titles,” the young woman responded. The beep of the scanner created a familiar rhythm, giving me a pang of homesickness.
“It’s one reason I love stopping in every indie bookstore I come across,” I answered, pulling my card out to pay for my purchases. “We can share a bag, or well, bags, by the way. We’re headed to the same place.”
I moved aside so Hayden could pay for his books, putting my wallet back in my purse.
“Are you parked close?” the bookseller asked as she put a bookmark into Hayden’s books and slid them into the bag with some of mine.
Hayden and I exchanged a glance, both of us smiling.
“We’re just on this side of the river for the afternoon. We took the water taxi over. Can you hold these purchases for a little while?”
“We can,” she answered. “But we also have a delivery service, depending on where exactly you live. We can have these delivered to your home in the next couple of days.”
“Let’s do that,” Hayden cut in. “You can put that on my card with my books. It’ll be worth it, even though it means I’ll still have to do arm day tomorrow morning.”
The bookseller laughed, eyeing Hayden’s arms. The hunter-green sweater he wore clung to his muscles.
Had to show those things off, didn’t you, Hayden?
“Charlotte, did you want to grab a book to start this weekend, just in case it’s a few days before the rest get dropped off?” Hayden asked, looking at me expectantly.
He calmed my hackles with a simple question. The bookseller now directed her smile at me, her face seeming to say, you have a man who gets it.
“I would, thank you,” I answered softly. I dragged the bag with my fiction purchases toward me, deciding which one I wanted to bring with me while Hayden and the bookseller worked out the delivery details.
Tucking the witchy rom-com with plenty of spice that was blowing up online right now into my purse, I looked up to see Hayden taking his receipt back from the bookseller.
“We’ll send you an email with when to expect the books. The delivery schedule will be updated tomorrow morning following the weekend. Thanks so much for stopping in.” The bookseller waved goodbye, as Hayden interlaced his fingers with mine, guiding us out of the store.
“That’s a good idea, coordinating with a courier service to deliver books within a certain radius,” Hayden mused, looking at the business card the young woman had attached to his receipt. “We’ve received deliveries from this service at the office before. Anyway”—he tucked the receipt into his pocket—“where to?”
We walked back toward the main drag of town, my hand tucked in his like we strolled hand-in-hand through quaint city streets every weekend. And while that wasn’t true, it strangely felt like it could be.
Chapter
Nineteen
Hayden
It was hard to think of an afternoon more perfect than this one. Charlotte and I had been unintentional roommates for two months now. I knew more than what you could glean from a few conversations with her, like the fact that she was a hell of a prankster or that she sang in the shower. But this afternoon together showed me so much more. She saw people around her, pointing out couples and asking me what I thought their backstory was. And more than once, I saw her take her phone out as we exited a store. After the third time she did it, I had to know and asked what she was doing.
“I have a running file of small business ideas that I think could help Ridge Reads or really any independent bookstore. One of the roadmap ideas for the Independent Bookstore Fund is to offer consulting services along with the grants. When Paula and I meet at the end of my internship to discuss if there’s a position available for me to stay with the IBA, I want to be prepared for all opportunities, including heading up that effort. I figure taking notes when something strikes me out in the real world can’t hurt.”
I stood next to her outside the pet boutique we had just exited, looking between the window display of fall accessories for small dogs and the woman in front of me sliding her phone back into her pocket.
“What?” she asked, smiling shyly.
“I’m just amazed that you can see something in a store like this one, that’s so different from a bookstore and transform it into something useful.”
Charlotte shrugged. “They’re all small businesses supporting a niche in the community. The product may be different, but the target experience to serve the people who patronize and lift it up is the same.”
