Page 53 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘They forgot everything the minute they were together again.’
When Noah arrived at Happy Ever After the next morning, Nina nodded her head vaguely in his direction as he came through the door then went back to informing Posy that she couldn’t do any book shelving until her tattoo healed.
‘I suppose I could shelve at chest level but anything higher and I have to stretch my arms and stretching my arms hurts too much,’ Nina explained.
‘Really?’ Posy asked sceptically.
‘Really,’ Verity confirmed from the office. ‘I had to help her put her bra on this morning. I’m still traumatised.’
‘Can we not talk about mypersonal itemswhen there are men present!’ Nina snapped because Tom was on one of the sofas, face first in his usual breakfast panini. But Tom barely counted as a man (Nina had once sent him out to buy cranberry juice when she had a UTI) – she was more concerned about Noah, in the process of hanging up his jacket, who winked at Nina and permitted himself a small smile.
‘Sorry!’ Verity sing-songed. ‘But no heavy lifting for Nina. Honestly, Posy, her arm’s all scabby and sore.’
Nina proffered her arm at Posy who shied away from it. ‘Urgh! I don’t want to see.’ She sighed. Posy seemed to sigh a lot lately. ‘It’s a pity ’cause we do have a lot of new stock that needs shelving.’
‘I can do it,’ Tom offered, through a mouthful of panini. ‘Nina can serve. It’s all good.’
‘Anyway, I was planning to spend the morning working on the shop Instagram,’ Nina said brightly. ‘I met a woman on Saturday night who started an Instagram account for her French bulldogs and now she has over fifty thousand followers and people send her free stuff. I know we don’t want free stuff but we definitely could do with fifty thousand followers. And also, though I haven’t quite worked out how, people can click through and buy the items, which in our case would be books. Lots and lots of books.’
‘I don’t know … selling books from an Instagram post sounds amazing but it also sounds very complicated and techy,’ Posy said, her brow furrowed.
‘Just as well you’re married to someone very complicated and techy,’ Nina said as everyone, including Posy, gathered around Nina’s phone to coo over photos of Eric and Ernie. Then it was time to go about their respective businesses – Posy popping out for the monthly meeting of the Rochester Street Traders’ Association and Noah taking out his iPad and retiring to a quiet corner.
He’d only said two words to Nina: ‘Good’ and ‘morning’, but once Verity was back in the office and Tom was sorting through the delivery of new stock, he smiled at her.
‘How’s the arm? Apart from scabby and sore?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘Scabby and sore just about covers it,’ Nina whispered back. She sidled closer. ‘So, now that we’ve been on two datesandhung out, are you going to show me all the mean things you’ve been writing about us?’
‘Never!’ Noah put his iPad behind his back. ‘And I would never write mean things about you.’
Nina smiled a little coyly. ‘I should think not.’
‘Maybe some constructive criticism though,’ Noah said and Nina sidled even closer so she could pretend to punch him. She was close enough to feel the warmth of his body, which made her feel warm too. Maybe she could lure Noah into an anteroom later on, if the shop was quiet, and they could sneak a few illicit kisses.
‘What are you doing for lunch?’ she asked.
‘I have to go and meet a client.’ Noah sounded quite regretful about it. ‘Then I’m back in Soho this afternoon.’
‘Shame …’
‘What are you doing, Nina?’ Tom was suddenly on the other side of the counter with a huge pile of books in his arms and a quizzical expression on his face. ‘Are you harassing Noah?’
Nina broke away from Noah as if she’d just been scalded. ‘Of course not!’ she scoffed and put as much distance between herself and Noah as she could. ‘We were just talking about hashtags, actually. Success on Instagram is all about the hashtags.’
‘Is it?’ Tom pretended to yawn and Noah made a note on his iPad and it was business as usual, nothing to see here.
Though once Nina started on her mission to improve Happy Ever After’s Instagram page, she found it quite engrossing. Under Sam’s benign neglect, they’d only posted one picture and gained twenty-seven followers.
Mindful of Dawn’s advice, in between a desultory flow of customers, Nina followed anyone who had anything to do with book writing, book blogging and book selling, even a couple of book binders, and as many lovers of romantic fiction as she could find on Instagram, liking their posts and leaving comments. It was a massive two-hour sucking-up session but gratifyingly, it didn’t take long for Happy Ever After’s Instagram followers to swell in number.
‘We’re up to a hundred and twenty-three followers!’ she announced at one point during the morning.
‘If you’re going to keep refreshing the page and giving me follower updates every five minutes, then I’m going to hurl myself from the top of the rolling ladder,’ Tom snapped, but Noah smiled encouragingly.
‘I bet you’ll get even more followers once you start posting pictures,’ he said, and that was Nina’s cue to go on a picture-posting spree. She posted a picture of a stack of new releases artily propped against Lavinia’s chipped cut-glass vase that contained her favourite pink-edged white roses. She posted the Happy Ever After shop sign swinging gaily in the February breeze. She even persuaded a couple of customers to be photographed holding up their purchases and was just cajoling one of them to climb up the rolling ladder when Posy got back from her traders’ meeting.
‘We have almost two hundred followers on Instagram,’ Nina said, once the woman was back on terra firma with her books bagged and paid for. ‘One hundred and ninety-three to be exact. I was thinking, can we do a giveaway when we hit five hundred?’
