Page 55 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘You mean dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,’ he corrected gently. ‘And this week is just a follow-up before I present my recommendations.’
‘Will there be recommendations about staffing levels?’ Tom asked anxiously. ‘Again, have I mentioned the size of my student loans?’
‘You have,’ Noah said and Nina didn’t know how he could maintain the same calm, even tone. She’d be getting screechy by now. ‘And like I said, I am just following up. In fact, I’m working on another project this afternoon and I really should be going.’
And then he was gone, taking his calmness and his twinkling green eyes with him, so that Nina felt strangely bereft.
Noah was back the next morning though. They exchanged cordial ‘good mornings’ and polite smiles then Noah retreated to a quiet corner of the main room to do his still-a-bit-creepy silent observer thing and Nina continued with her mission to Instagram every single object in the shop (and it was a bookshop, so there were a hell of a lot of single objects) in between serving customers and sketching a poster with her lovely new pencils to advertise their summer opening hours.
Mattie had completely embraced staying open late and was planning a special after-hours summer menu featuring cakes bursting with exotic fruit flavours and boozy ice-cream floats though Verity kept muttering darkly that they needed a special licence to serve alcohol.
‘Let’s not get bogged down in minor details like that,’ Posy had said and because Posy was quite fired up about their extended opening hours and this morning was emailing editors she knew to see if she could scrounge up some stray authors to come and do signings, Verity had let it go.
Posy also rubber-stamped Nina’s first draft of a poster and was obviously in a decision-making frame of mind because she wanted to know if Nina had any ideas for their Easter window display.
‘I was thinking of ginormous Easter eggs with books inside them,’ Nina said, though she’d been thinking no such thing as Posy had caught her by surprise.
‘I’m not entirely sure how that would work,’ Posy said tactfully. ‘I was hoping for something more along the lines of springy bright colours and lots of books.’
‘Though if we did Easter eggs, we could get Strumpet to pose in one of them,’ Nina persisted, because Posy’s idea wassovanilla. ‘He’d like nothing better than to sleep in a comfy egg all day if I lined the egg with fleece and bribed him with tuna bites.’
‘No, I really don’t think so,’ Posy said firmly, with just the merest hint of a flashing eye, which meant that Nina shouldn’t push her luck any further. ‘I want something spring-like and Eastery that also says, “Please buy a shedload of books from our shop.” I certainly don’t want to have to put up a sign that says “No cats were harmed in the making of this window display.”’
‘Though Strumpet slumbering in an Easter egg would be cute,’ Verity said, as she walked past them on her way to the tearooms with a sheaf of invoices in her hand.
‘See, even Very agrees with me … Oh! Oh! Oh my God! How could I have been such a fool?’ Nina exclaimed. She seized hold of her phone.
‘What have you done? Have you run out of credit?’ Posy asked in a concerned voice.
‘Strumpet! We’re sitting on a goldmine with that fat tabby and I haven’t taken even a single shot of him for our Instagram. That’s a way to grow followers right there.’
‘But he’s a cat and we sell books so I’m not really seeing the link …’
‘Instagram loves a cute pet,’ Nina said. She waved her phone wildly. ‘Look at Eric and Ernie the French bulldogs.’
‘Also, I’m pretty sure that there must be a big crossover between cat lovers and readers of romantic fiction,’ Noah piped up as if he couldn’t bear to be a casual observer any longer. ‘I have a friend who works at Buzzfeed. The hits they get on anything to do with cats …’
‘There isn’t a second to lose,’ Nina decided, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees in her agitation.
‘What about the window display?’ Posy reminded her.
‘I’ll do something teeth-achingly sweet and spring-like,’ Nina said. ‘It will be the basic bitch of Easter window displays. But first I need to take some pictures of Strumpet and post them on Instagram.’
‘Don’t forget the hashtags,’ Noah reminded her. ‘Shall I run a quick algorithm to see what the most popular cat hashtags are?’
‘You can do that?’ Nina breathed. ‘It sounds very difficult.’
‘It’s not that difficult. Sebastian runs quick algorithms all the time,’ Posy said, because it must have been all of fifteen minutes since she last mentioned her husband.
‘Yeah, it’s quite simple,’ Noah agreed. ‘I’ll do that, while you come up with some different Strumpet scenarios.’
‘I love it when you go all “man with a plan” on me,’ Nina said happily, already envisaging Strumpet balancing precariously on a pile of novels. Or maybe Strumpet posing coquettishly on their new ‘I love big books and I cannot lie’ tote bags.
Of course, Noah had to help with the impromptu photo session because Strumpet was far too rotund and heavy for Nina to lift with her sore arm. Also, Strumpet responded so much better to the touch of a man, even better if the man was armed with some cat treats.
Nina got several shots of Strumpet lolling in gay abandon on shop merchandise and even some video of Strumpet attempting to scale the rolling ladder then getting scared and mewling piteously until Noah rescued him.
Usually Strumpet wasn’t allowed downstairs because sooner or later he’d mount an attack on the tearooms. Or more specifically mount an attack on the cakes, sandwiches and pastries people were trying to eat. But Strumpet loved being snuggled in manly arms even more than he loved stuffing his fat furry face and it seemed that he loved snuggling Noah most of all.
