Page 4 of Sawyer and the Bookworms

I turn off the faucet, wring the rag out, hang it to dry.

That’s when I see the guy at the back of the shop, where the reading area is, reorganizing the books on my shelves.

And I see red.

The guy is standing close to the reading area, with its used leather chairs and small tables, a book in his hand. From his height and the width of his shoulders, he’s definitely an alpha. He’s gazing at the shelves as if considering where to put the book, and already he’s made a mess of my perfect system.

“Hey,” I start, “what do you think you’re…?” I stop in my tracks, my voice catching in my throat as he turns around to face me.

Whoa. Who is this? How… how do you make a man so handsome? How…? Okay, my brain has ground to a stop, only firing random question marks at me.

Jeez…

The blond alpha standing in front of me is a goddamn vision. Any omega’s wet dream. From his short blond hair to his frosty blue eyes, that cut jaw and high cheekbones, the broad chest and the muscular arms, a chest that promises to be sculpted as fuck, he’s mouthwatering.

“You…” I start, lose my train of thought when he licks his lips. “You are…?”

“Kyrian,” he says. He looks down at me from his considerable height. “And who are you? Do I know you?”

“I’m… Sawyer. I’m the owner of this place.”

He arches a brow as if he doesn’t believe me. “Really.”

And that does it, ladies and gentlemen. My brain is pre-wired to see red when people dispute my abilities to do anything any non-omega can do.

“Seriously?” I snap. “You think I’d lie about that?” I grab the book from his hand—and it annoys me that I have to go on tip-toe to reach it. I’m not short but these alphas are fucking ridiculous. Ridiculous height, ridiculous muscles. “Give it here. Questioning me, really?”

“You really are the owner?”

I let out a very alpha-like growl. “Yeah.”

I get that a lot, unfortunately. This mistrust when I say that this store is mine. I look every bit the omega that I am, and omegas are often considered incapable of running a business on their own. It annoys me and my patience is worn thin already these days.

But he only shrugs those broad alpha shoulders as if this whole convo that got my hackles up doesn’t matter one bit. “I was only reorganizing the books.”

“Yeah, don’t… don’t do that. Just don’t.” I carefully reshelve the book in its rightful place. It has a nice purple spine, so it goes in the purple section.

Ah. There. What a relief.

“I didn’t realize it was such a big deal,” he says, his voice deep and pleasant, although it says annoying things. “They seem to be randomly placed on the shelves.”

“They are perfectly organized by color?—”

“By color? That’s useless, isn’t it?”

“The fuck.” I splutter. “If you’d let me finish… They are organized by color, and size, placed at the exact same distance from the edge of the shelf… But also by genre, if you didn’t notice.”

And okay, organizing books on esthetic grounds may be useless in a café where customers are supposed to grab books off the shelf and read, then shove them back somewhere and go on their merry way, but this is… for me.

How to reconcile my need for order and the raison d’etre of this café?

“I don’t care for books anyway,” he says, driving the final nail in his coffin, handsome as hell or not.

“If you don’t like books,” I grunt, “then why are you here? Criticizing my shelf organization as if it’s any business of yours?”

Fuck, I shouldn’t be treating customers this way. I know it, and yet he’s pressing all my buttons. Red buttons. Alert. Danger.

He says nothing. Doesn’t react to my words. Which should be a relief, but feels like a dismissal.

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