Page 6 of Battle of the Bookstores

I should say something to break the tension, but I don’t have a clever bone in my giant, awkward body. Especially around a woman who’s as intimidating as she is striking.The Hating Gamecomes to mind, and I wonder what Josh Templeman might say to Lucy Hutton in this situation. But I’m no Josh, and I don’t have Sally Thorne drafting my dialogue.

My silence seems to annoy Josie even more. She stands in a huff and hurries back to her store, leaving me with a table full of dirty dishes and a familiar, soul-deep discomfort.

Growing up as the youngest of four boys,everythingwas a competition. Who could eat the most the fastest, who could hit the hardest, who could pee the farthest from the toilet bowl. Who was the oldest (that one didn’t make any sense).

I came in last for every single one.

Not that I ever really tried to win. I’ve always gotten more pleasure from doing an activity than coming in first. What was there to even win? Bragging rights?

Now, though, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

I glance at the wall dividing my store from the coffee shop, which currently displays artwork for sale by local artists. I try to picture it gone, seeing right through to Happy Endings,looking in on my employees, all blissfully unaware that everything is about to change.

Eddie and the new girl both look busy, so I bus the table and leave the dirty dishes on the counter before leaving.

—

The bell onthe front door of Happy Endings chimes as I enter, and a wave of nostalgia hits me. Elaine, the store’s original owner and my first and only boss, created this little corner of the world to be a haven for the tenderhearted: those who love love but don’t always feel deserving of it. She’d be proud of how we’ve grown, carrying the books to back up our motto—Everyone deserves a love story.

If Happy Endings closes…No other bookstore in Boston carries such a diverse selection of romance. Our customers won’t have anywhere to browse without judgment, to sit and read in cozy nooks, to connect with themselves and each other.

There’s so much at stake, and not just for me.

“Boss!” my assistant manager shouts, even though I’m steps away from her.

“Cindy!” I say back in mock excitement. Her eyebrows furrow, and I realize my mistake. “Cinderella!”

For the life of me, I can’t get used to calling my buxom, middle-aged, bottle-bright-red-haired assistant manager Cinderella. And it’s not like she identifies as a humble, hardworking woman waiting for her prince—she just got a free name change after her divorce was final. Most people, I assume, change back to their original name, but Cinderella isn’t most people.

“I got you something,” she says, her eyes sparkling.

Cinderella places a light blue pin on my open palm with such tenderness you’d think she was handing over the Heart of the Ocean.

The white letters read:Nonpracticing Romantic.

“Get it?” Her smile lights up her face. “You’d be a practicing romantic if you ever went on a date.”

“How about I’ll start dating when you do?”

Cinderella blushes and shakes her head. I don’t think she’s been on a single date in the seven years since her divorce—right about the time she started coming into the store. Every day, she’d sit in a nook and read, crying over the happy endings. She treated her book therapy like a job, and eventually we gave her one.

I don’t regret hiring Cinderella, but I do regret telling her I loved theBoss Bitchpin she gifted me on her first day. Last I counted, I had nearly two hundred pieces of “flair.” I fear the day she gives me a second lanyard.

“I saw the pin on a customer’s jacket and knew it was meant for you,” Cinderella says. “She didn’t want to part with it, but she finally agreed to a little barter.”

Persephone purrs at my feet until I pick her up. She always seems to know when I could use cheering up—unlike Hades, who keeps his distance unless I pop a can of tuna.

“A barter?” I ask, afraid to hear the details.

Cinderella shrugs. “I gave her the ARC of Ali Hazelwood’s next book. I figured since we’d both read it already…”

“Absolutely,” I say, grateful she didn’t trade a book we could’ve sold. This penny-counting stuff is new for me—we’re going to have to step it up. Tighten our bootstraps. Our belts?Whatever the metaphor, we need to do better than Josie’s store and all their hardcover books with price tags as big as their authors’ vocabularies. With those profit margins, she’ll only have to sell half what we will.

The bell on the front door chimes, and two regular customers walk in, laughing and smiling.

“Hey, handsome.” Michael is dressed as himself today, not as his alter ego, Ginger, the star of our monthly Drag Queen Story Time for teens. “I’m ready for a new book boyfriend.”

“I know just the guy!”

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