Page 73 of The Mended Hearts Bookshop

George’s face relaxed.

“I just… I don’t know what’s going on. This is hard, being apart is hard.”

With a sigh, George leaned on the counter. “Alright, here’s the big question then. Do you love her?”

Pen opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again. Did she love Ash? Is that what all this was? Is that why this was so difficult? Not because they were far apart, not because things were falling apart, but because she loved her.

“Pen,” said George softly. “You love her, don’t you?”

Pen didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded.

George laughed. “Don’t look so distraught about it.”

“But… but how did it happen?” Pen asked.

He laughed again. “Sneakily, apparently. Oh Pen, this is a good thing. Did you honestly not realize?”

“I knew I had feelings, I… I just didn’t expect them to get so big so fast. I didn’t expect Ash not being here to make them stronger, I suppose.” She began to smile. Things were starting to make sense. Pining after someone leaving was one thing, but actually falling in love, that was quite another. Falling in lovewas more than enough to stop one feeling like oneself. “I love her,” she said wonderingly.

“Good,” said George. “Because like I said, I’ve had an idea.”

“Go on then,” said Pen. “What’s your big idea?”

“We rent the shop.” He stood back with his arms open like he was expecting applause.

“We… rent the shop?” asked Pen.

“Yes,” said George, as though the rest of the plan was obvious.

“Alright, okay, you’re going to have to take me through this one a bit, I think.”

George rolled his eyes but pulled out a chair and sat down, gesturing for Pen to do the same. Fabio screeched as she withdrew the chair he’d been sleeping on, and fled back into the kitchen.

“Okay, so we know that this girl, this niece, has inherited the shop, right?” George said.

“Yes.”

“And quite conveniently, we also know her name since it’s the same as Ash’s,” he went on. “Plus, we know from Jesús that she’s a recent uni graduate on her gap year. So I started asking myself, what are the chances that someone like that wants to take over a dusty old bookshop?”

“It’s not dusty,” Pen said. “You dust it all the time. It’s lovely.”

“Not my point. My point is that the girl probably wants nothing to do with the place. Which means we might be able to rent it from her. At least for the short term.”

“Rent it,” Pen echoed.

“Listen, it could work out for everyone. The girl won’t have to worry about anything until she’s back in the country, she’ll have time to think about things, and in the meantime, we can rent the place, install Ash in the flat and have you two together.”

Pen thought about this. “Ash would hate us doing this,” she said. “She doesn’t like asking for help.”

“She’s not asking for help. But come on, Pen, this ticks a lot of boxes. We get to keep the shop, keep it open, I keep my job, Ash can potentially move back in next door. It’s not a bad plan.”

Pen nodded then slowly, slowly started to smile. “It’s not a bad plan,” she said.

“And it’s not a fantastical plan either,” George said. “It’s a realistic one. We’re not talking about buying the place, just renting it for a while. It’s a short term solution to give everyone time to come up with something better. And a few months from now, well, maybe we’ll have come up with the cash to actually buy the place.”

Sunshine was growing inside Pen as the idea warmed her. It was actually quite a brilliant idea in that everyone could get what they wanted. She had no idea why she hadn’t thought of it herself. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, so where do we start?”

George flushed. “That’s the thing, we’ve sort of already started.”

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