Page 57 of Own the Eights
“Who’s in your book club?” he asked.
“A couple of spry octogenarians,” she answered with a little smirk.
He tossed her a smirk of his own. “You don’t think I know what octogenarian means.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged. “Easy, it’s a gathering of octopi.”
She gasped, thinking she’d caught him being a dumbass.
He held up a finger. “I’m just messing with you. An octogenarian is a person lucky enough to live into their eighties. And I know that octopi isn’t a real word. The plural of octopus is octopuses, but that just sounds like something you’d find on a porno site.”
“That’s right,” she chuckled.
What the hell had gotten into him? His inner nerd hadn’t reared its nine-dollar bowl-cut head in years. And why did she look so pretty with that damn messy bun, little denim capri pants, with you guessed it, those Birkenstocks, and that same cardigan over a white tank top? Was she like Mr. Rogers? Did she enter the bookstore and change into it every day? Did she sing a little bookstorewon’t you be my noveltune? It didn’t matter. He’d grown fond of those stupid shoes.
He checked his watch. It was nearly seven thirty. “When do you start?”
She tugged nervously at the hem of her cardigan. “Around seven. It’s strange for them to be late.”
“What’s the book?”
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “There’s not just one book this time. We’re doing our annual Jane Austen discussion. We’ll talk about her novels, but tonight, we’ll also dive into the parallels between Elizabeth Bennet’s life inPride and Prejudiceand Jane’s own life.”
He picked up a book and mindlessly paged through it. “You’re right, there are many similarities between their lives, like how Jane and Lizzy both grew up in busy, boisterous households. Except, Jane had brothers and a sister where Lizzy had only sisters.”
He glanced up to find her looking like the cutest fish he’d ever seen, with her mouth opening and closing as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t.
Look at that! It was usually his abs that rendered women speechless. With Georgie, his English degree did the trick.
“I…” she stuttered when the phone near the cash register rang. “Hold on,” she said with a minute shake to her head.
He glanced down and noticed he was holding a paperback copy ofPride and Prejudice.
“Not bad, huh?” he said, speaking to the picture of the Bennet sisters on the cover.
He set the book down. What the hell was he doing? Was he talking to fictional characters in books now?
Georgie hung up the phone and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, joining her at the counter.
“That was the husband of one of the women in the book club. He just told me that they’re not coming.”
“Why?”
“Michael Bolton.”
“The singer, Michael Bolton?” he asked as his brows knit together.
Was that a legit reason to cancel plans these days?
She drummed her fingers on the counter. “Yeah, he’s here in concert tonight, and they forgot to let me know they had tickets.”
He scratched his chin. “There are eighty-year-old Michael Bolton groupies?”
She shrugged. “I hate to admit it, but who hasn’t belted out the lyrics to “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You” in the shower?”
