Page 37 of Silver Linings
I look up from my phone and see Holly staring at me from behind a table of stacked bestsellers, a knowing smirk on her freckled face.
I didn’t even realize I had been grinning down at my phone like a maniac. I couldn’t seem to help it. But whatever this emotion roiling around in my gut is, I need to lock it down. I still can’t get a read on him. One second, he’s avoiding me, and the next, he’s offering to help me renovate my store. It’s confusing, and this is starting to feel like it’s breaching territory I’ve worked my whole life to avoid. Still, I can’t deny that there is a persistent pull, tugging me closer even as I try to pull away.
“In the state of Missouri, it’s illegal to worry a squirrel.” I smile sweetly. We both know I’m lying.
“Liar.”
“It’s true! You can look it up.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.” She levels me with adon’t bullshit meglare. I don’t respond and start to sort through a stack of books I’m prepping for a local author to come in and sign when she decides she isn’t going to let it go. “Hendrix was really nice. Jae, too.”
I take a long pull from the iced coffee I picked up from Respect the Drip before coming in today. “Mhmm.” I bob my head neutrally at her statement, neither confirming nor denying how I feel. That’s my strategy. Another sip of delicious cold brew.
“From where I was sitting, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off you.”
I sputter a little, taken aback. What is she talking about? He barely looked at me the entire night, and he certainly didn’t speak to me.
He talked to everyone else, though.
“Oh, well…you know—a sparkly top makes it hard to not grab attention,” I reply, brushing off her earlier words.
“Interesting.”
“What?” I’m getting flustered now.
“It’s just peculiar that you would be so nonchalant about this, considering you couldn’t stop staring at him too.”
“Did you know it’s also illegal to wrestle a bear in Missouri?”
Deflect. Deflect. Deflect.
“Silver James, what is wrong with you?” Holly throws up her arms in exasperation. “A few weeks ago, you were being dramatic and calling this manthe one that got away, and now, you’re acting like there isn’t something between you two. Explain yourself.”
“Thereisnothing between us.” She settles her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side while waiting for me to elaborate. “Look, he’s hot. Really,reallyhot. But anytime I’ve tried to flirt with him, he doesn’t seem into it. Sometimes, I think we might be having a moment, but then the next, he’s being stoic again. I can’t get a read on him. Most guys are pretty direct about what they want from me, but he’s all over the place, and it’s messing with my head.”
She takes that all in and marinates over what I said.
“He also doesn’t seem like the casual hook-up type,” I add. No, Hendrix definitely doesn’t seem like a casual kind of guy at all from what I’ve gathered about him. I’m confident he would be singularly focused on whoever he was with. He would give her all his focused attention. He would listen to her when she speaks—not because he has to, but because he genuinely cares what she has to say. He would be kind and compassionate and?—
“And that’s all you want?” There’s a challenge in her tone.
“Obviously.” I turn away, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention she’s giving me in conjunction with the mental gymnastics my brain is doing conjuring up Hendrix as a boyfriend.
I have to change the subject.
“So, the sign up for our first book club is live, and already, a couple spots are filled. We should have a great turnout for the first meeting in a few weeks.”
She and I both know I’m changing the conversation, but she doesn’t push me on it. Holly has always been good at knowing when to challenge me and when to leave me to my thoughts.
“So posting about it in local coffee shops has been working?” Holly shifts around some books in our non-fiction section.
“It would seem sending Carmen around to the neighborhood cafés armed with fliers and the spirit of a honey badger will do the trick.”
“She’s really going to go places,” Holly says fondly as I chuckle in agreement.
I’ve never met anyone more fearless than Carmen. Those honey badger tendencies will come in handy when she’s kicking opposing counsel’s ass as an attorney.
“Do you mind just unpacking those boxes?” I point at the shipment of new stationery we received this morning in the corner of the store. “I have to call the web designer because they’re dragging their feet, but I need those boxes cleared for the contractor coming tonight.”
