Page 55 of Touch My Shelves

Thankfully, everything is jumping and I don’t have the brain space to do anything but deal with the rest of the afternoon.

Everyone pitches in and we tidy the store, restock for tomorrow, and still have time to go to the craft fair. I try to keep myself on the opposite end of the group from Brax because I don’t know how I would deal with any of his smoldering glances or zapping touches. It’s too new. Too raw.

Halfway through, Freeya complains of an upset tummy. Probably brought on by the amount of fair food she’s had today. Brax takes her home, but insists we all stay. As much as I want to take care of Freeya, especially when she isn’t feeling well, I need time.

Shortly after they leave, I make the excuse of forgetting to do something at the store and take my own leave. Of course, Naudi gives me the eye, but I beg her to let me go with the promise of talking tonight at the castle.

Once I’m upstairs in the apartment, I sink down onto the couch and cry. Because, in all reality, my time with Brax and Freeya is over.

I’m all in for a pity party of one until the door opens and Naudi walks in. She takes one look at me, grabs a box of tissues, and sits beside me on the lumpy couch and gives me a hug.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asks as she hands me yet another tissue.

I lean against her shoulder and, with a heavy sigh, I admit, “I messed up.”

“Oh, sweetie, loving someone isn’t a death sentence. It’s a treasure.”

I pull back to look at her. She has no room to talk about relationships and love. “How did you know?”

She smugly grins and hands over more tissues. “Well, I’ve known for weeks that you’re in love with the man so that isn’t a shocker, but Hannah spoke to me tonight. She’s worried about you.”

I blow my nose and sniffle. “What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to allow yourself to be in love and have all those marshmallow, glittery unicorn poop feelings.”

I snort loudly. “So not an option. I see it playing out one of two ways. I can end things now, which isn’t going to make his leaving any easier, or I can go with option two where I forget about, you know, and just have the most fun possible for the short amount of time before he leaves.”

“Oh, my gosh, Pop. You can’t even say the word. How about go with option three—tell him how you feel.”

I shoot up from the couch as if it were on fire. “Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m admitting how I feel about him. He doesn’t want a relationship any more than I do.”

“Sometimes, Poppy, you are clueless. The man is head over heels in love with you. All it takes is one look at his face when he sees you. Admit it. Now that you know you love him, can’t you see a life with him?”

I wipe sweat from my forehead and brace my hand against my rapidly beating heart. Just imagining…no, that’s the way it starts. Thenpoof,Poppy is only a distant memory. I try to make myself think of my mom always deferring to my dad, but all I can see are smiling faces around the dinner table or recall their laughter as they sit on the front porch in the evenings sharing a glass of sweet tea and conversation, and an occasional kiss if they thought we were all in bed. The secret touches. The furtive glances.

Just like me and Brax.

That thought brings on a new level of panic.

“Poppy, come sit down. I need to say something and I need for you to listen.”

A knife held to my throat couldn’t get me to that couch. Exactly zero conversations in the history of conversations start that way.

That made no sense. Am I losing my mind?

“Excuse me, but I’m a little freaked out at the moment.”

She glares and pats the couch cushion beside her. Reluctantly, I drop into place, my head still buzzing.

“I’ve known you a long time and I’m getting ready to give you a hard truth. Sweetie, you have a major problem with committing. We had a plan after college. We were going to New York together to take the fashion and publishing world by storm, but you backed out because you were offered a job at your hometown paper.”

“That was a smart—”

“Stop,” she interrupts sharply with a dangerous scowl. “No, it wasn’t a smart decision. It was a copout. You went with the safe option. The option with less chance of failure.”

I scrunch my lips. How can she think that? “That doesn’t hold water. I moved away from home and opened my bookstore.”

She nods in agreement. “Yes, you did, after the newspaper closed, forcing you to make a decision. But I wonder if you hadn’t found the Faire Island business incentive package online, would you have gone out on your own or fallen into another convenient job? Like working for your dad.”

---