Page 69 of Silver Linings
“Too far.”
He nods his head. “I sensed that was maybe too far.”
I chuckle as I reach to grab another fork from the drawer. Laurel and Jae would be great together if there wasn’t a country between the two of them. That, and the fact that my sister seems to barely tolerate him for reasons unknown to me.
“Do you want to come to the studio later and get a new piece? I had my noon appointment bail on me, and if I don’t fill the time, I’ll be relegated to doing all the tourist walk-ins. If I have to do one morelive, laugh, love, I’m going to walk into traffic.”
My gut reaction is to say no, to hold on to that memory of Maddie and not have another experience like the one I shared with him on his birthday. But something about the idea feels right. I don’t know if it’s because I feel at home in New York, or if it’s the effect Silver has had on me these last few weeks, but Ifind myselfwantingto do it. I can almost hear Maddie joyously whooping in my ear at the idea. “Yeah, that would be cool.”
A wide smile stretches across Jae’s face and crinkles the corners of his eyes in excitement. “I know just the piece.”
nineteen
. . .
I’m still ridingthe high of this morning when I step inside Brownstone Books and immediately into a disaster.
At least two inches of water is covering the floor and rising by the second in time with my panic. How the hell has this happened? The only thing that could be more detrimental to a bookstore than flooding is fire. As grateful as I am that I’m dealing with an inch or two of water as opposed to bonfire kindling, this is the absolute last thing I need on a Saturday. It’s our most profitable day of the week, and I can’t afford to close to deal with this.
Racing over to our stockroom to access our bathroom where I assume the water is originating from, I stop short when I see the damage to our back stock. Storage in New York is a dime a dozen, and my little shop has always severely lacked the proper space needed to house all our inventory. As a solution, we resorted to stacking on the floor—the same floor now covered in fluid.
Holding back tears, I rush into the staff bathroom and shut off the water valve before grabbing my phone and calling an emergency plumber.
Half an hour and one hastily written“opening late”sign on the door later, Steve the Septic Savior is finishing up his assessment.
“From what I can tell, it’s a combination of your pipes being older than God and a pretty nasty blockage. All the pressure coalesced and ruptured.”
Has anyone in the history of the world had the same shit poor luck as I’ve had with pipes lately? Did I piss off some vengeful plumbing deity?
“And how much is that going to cost me?”
Bracing for the impact of his estimate never could have prepared me for his answer.
“My estimate is somewhere around five grand.” My heart sinks down to my feet, through the floor, and straight into the Earth’s core, where I currently wished I was instead of here.
Five grand means depleting the rest of the money in my savings and giving up my dreams of the second floor. That’s just for the cost to fix this catastrophe; it doesn’t include replacing the damaged inventory, renting industrial fans to dry out the shop floor, or the potential damage caused to the floorboards.
Fuck. What brand of misplaced confidence did I have, thinking I could pull this off? I had nothing in my life I could point to to indicate I would be able to accomplish something of this magnitude, and that stupidity is going to bleed me dry.
I am Icarus, and this store is the sun burning my wings.
“Can you start today?”
“Yup, I’ll just need to go grab some supplies. I can be back in around an hour.”
Steve heads out as I grab a mop while wondering if it’s too late to start selling feet pics online until I’ve come out the other end of this renovation period.
The pressure sitting on my shoulders feels so immense, I think it might crush me. I am the sole provider for Holly andCarmen’s income now; this isn’t just about me. It has to work out. There is no other option. People are counting on me for the first time ever. Still, I can’t deny that the feeling of others relying on me makes me feel cagey, like I need to cut and run.
But my insecurity is a Hydra, and that bitch is rearing its nine heads right about now in every aspect of my life. My ability to run a store—let alone rebuild it—coupled with my fears surrounding Hendrix and this…relationship has me on pins and needles.
It’s just after noon, and I haven’t heard from him since he snuck out of my apartment this morning. I’m loath to admit it, but for the first time in my life, I’m anticipating when I’ll see him again. The fact that I haven’t heard from him yet makes me feel like maybe I shouldn’t have divulged so much to him last night.
Either way, it’s not what I need to focus on right now.
Maybe more than the business would come to bite me in the ass by the time we got to the re-opening in a few weeks.
If I’m even able to pull it off at all.
