Page 56 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘He’s the neediest cat I’ve ever met,’ Noah complained as Strumpet happily draped himself around Noah’s neck. ‘I’m used to cats who are silent and judgemental.’
‘We don’t know any cats like that,’ Nina said. She put her arms out, wincing a little as her tattoo protested. ‘Here, Strumpo, come to Auntie Nina.’
‘Is your arm still hurting?’ Noah asked, his face creased with concern. ‘Have you been remembering to put that special gunk on it?’
Noah never seemed to forget anything pertaining to Nina. Not even the pot of special gunk that Claude had given her to put on her tattoo while it was healing.
‘Yes, Dad,’ she said with a little eye roll.
‘Hardly your dad,’ he said and shuddered. ‘Please don’t say that you see me as a father figure.’
It was Nina’s turn to shudder. When Nina thought about kissing Noah, there was no way that she wanted to be thinking of her dad. A world of no.
‘Hush your mouth,’ she said huskily then she looked at the mouth in question, currently curved into a smile. Noah had a lovely mouth and a full bottom lip that Nina would quite like to nibble on if they ever got round to kissing again.
‘I will,’ Noah said. ‘If you promise that you’ll slather on that special tattoo gunk and take some painkillers if it’s hurting.’
‘I promise,’ Nina said and all this promising seemed invested with a deeper meaning than Nina remembering to keep her scabby arm gunkified.
Noah held her gaze and Nina marvelled again that when he looked at her it was as if he saw the real her, beneath the hair and the make-up, the tattoos and the piercings, and that the real her was A-OK with him. Even Strumpet squirming between the two of them couldn’t spoil the moment.
‘Excuse me, but whatareyou doing with my cat?’ asked a strained voice behind them because Verity was much more adept at spoiling moments.
Nina turned and to her surprise saw that the shop was busy and that a very beleaguered-looking Posy was on the till as a long line of customers waited to pay for their books.
How odd! She could have sworn that she and Noah were the only two people in the room.
‘We were taking action shots of Strumpet for the shop Instagram,’ Nina replied as Verity took custody of her cat. ‘Will I have to get his signature on a photo-release form?’
‘Or his paw print,’ Noah said and Nina giggled while Verity smiled tightly.
‘You know Strumpet’s not allowed downstairs,’ she panted because now that Strumpet was no longer getting snuggles from a man, he was trying to wriggle free of Verity’s firm grip on him. ‘I’m amazed that he didn’t dash out of the door and head straight for the chippy.’
If he couldn’t get into the tearooms, Strumpet had been known to hang around outside No Plaice Like Home on Rochester Street and once lovely Stefan had even found him trying to batter down the door of the little smokehouse in the backyard of the deli where he cured his own salmon. Except Strumpet hadn’t escaped this time so there was no need for Verity to be standing there with a sour look on her face.
‘I don’t know what you’re getting so snippy about,’ Nina said. ‘Strumpet was more than happy to be exploited in the name of publicity. Wasn’t he?’
‘He was,’ Noah agreed, but now his smile was tense because of the sudden atmosphere that had descended on the shop: even the customers still queuing shifted uncomfortably and looked down at their feet. Noah glanced at his watch. ‘I should go. I was meant to be in Soho half an hour ago.’
He quickly gathered up his belongings and was still shrugging into his navy peacoat as he hurriedly exited, a muttered goodbye cut off by the door slamming behind him.
Nina watched Noah stride across the mews, a little hurt that he didn’t look back once. Then she remembered that it was at least ten minutes since she’d last checked to see how many more Instagram followers they’d added.
‘Nina! If you’re not too busy a little help would be great,’ Posy called out pointedly when she saw Nina looking at her phone because even though she’d married a digital entrepreneur Posy still thought that anything to do with social media was just messing around in work time.
‘We’re at just over six hundred Instagram followers,’ Nina reported as she joined Posy behind the counter. ‘And over three hundred followers on Twitter now. But Noah says that Twitter has slowed down a lot lately and that I’d be much better off concentrating on our Instagram and just cross-posting to Twitter instead of …’
‘Thank you, do come again soon,’ Posy said to the customer she was serving. It sounded a lot like she was saying it through gritted teeth.
‘Please take a picture of your new books and post them on Instagram with the hashtag FoundAtHappyEverAfter,’ Nina called after the lady. ‘All one word! Y’know, I love Bertha, but if we had a computerised till and not one dated from before the Industrial Revolution then we could programme it to print messages on all the receipts, including our social media handles and hashtags.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Bertha.’ Posy gave the temperamental contraption a loving stroke. ‘Anyway, I thought you liked old stuff.’
‘There’s vintage and then there’s just plain knackered,’ Nina pointed out and then she was pretty sure that she heard Posy mutter something under her breath.
Uncharacteristically and pleasingly, there continued to be a steady stream of customers intent on stocking up on romantic literature. For twenty unprecedented minutes, even Verity had to come on to the shop floor to do the bagging up while Posy was on the till and Nina helped people look for books.
It was nearly three before the shop briefly emptied out and Nina’s stomach was growling in protest at having to postpone lunch until the rush died down.
