Page 19 of Delay of Game

“Ready to peruse?” I say, getting my phone out and setting a five-minute timer.

“I was born ready,” she says, pulling off her coat and leaving it with her tote on one of the high-back chairs in front of the cozy fireplace.

As soon as I tap the start button, she’s off, all but running from one section of the bookstore to the other. She starts in the general fiction, skimming the shelves and nodding to herself.

“When you nod, does that mean you saw something you want?” I ask, following her around the store, smiling politely at the people around us as she speed-walks to the next section.

“Shh!”

“No interrupting, got it,” I say. I can only imagine she’s mentally cataloging where each book is located on the shelves so she can come back to it later.

She spends most of the time—three minutes to be exact—in the contemporary romance section, and I’m about to remind her there’s a whole other story of the building when she takes off running up the stairs.

I laugh and follow her up two steps at a time, my long legs allowing me to catch up with her. Her short sleeve tee rides up, giving me a glimpse of skin above her high-waisted jeans, and I do my best not to stare at the spot. Except the only other place to look is down—at her ass.

Groaning, I look anywhere but at her as soon as we reach the top of the stairs. Alice heads for the fantasy section and nods to herself a few more times. She’s about to turn to the YA section when the timer goes off.

“Damn, that was five whole minutes already?” She looks at me, eyes wide and cheeks a little flushed.

“I guess so,” I say, blushing a little and trying not to think of how great she looks in that tight little yellow T-shirt with the words “romance girly” on it.

“Okay. I think I got it handled, I know where most things are,” she says, rubbing her hands together and grinning like the little villain she is.

I shake my head and reset the timer to one minute. “So how do we do this? Do you want to start up here or go back down?”

“We’ll start here, there’s not much I need to grab from this area anyway.”

“Okay, and … go!”

Alice zooms past me, grabbing three fantasy books from the shelf and bounding down the stairs, giggling. I smile as I continue to follow her and snap a few pictures, careful not to disturb the timer.

Fifteen seconds left on the clock, and she’s already got a stack of books from her hip all the way to her neck. But my girl is determined to get more as she balances the stack and reaches up to grab a couple more, tucking them under her chin.

“And … time,” I say, right as the alarm goes off. Everyone in the store is looking at Alice with impressed expressions on their faces and it makes me beam with pride.

“Little help now?” she squeaks, and I hurry to put my phone away, easily grabbing the stack from her hand and taking it up to the register.

“This is—wow. You got fifteen books,” I say, impressed.

Alice looks up at me, expression beaming with a smile. It dies down as the cashier starts to scan the books and she says, “You know,I don’t have to get them all. It was fun to do it, regardless.”

“What are you talking about? You’re getting them all,” I say, brows furrowing at her words.

“That’s just—a lot of money, and I didn’t actually mean to put you out …” she trails off, biting her lip in the process.

“Hey, I don’t care about the price. I wanted to do this for you, okay? So just accept it, please,” I say low enough only she can hear me and bump her shoulder with mine.

Her eyes shine when she looks back at me and says, “Thank you, J.”

My heart skips and I wrap an arm around her shoulder, bringing her into a side hug.I missed her calling me that.

“Happy birthday, Al.”

CHAPTER 6

Three Years Ago – All Star Break

Alice

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