Page 99 of Loved Out Loud
“Reading the last page.”
“What?” The word comes from my throat in a screech. “No.” I snatch the book from his hand. “You absolute heathen, you can’t spoil the story like that.” I clutch the book to my chest protectively.
“What?” He looks genuinely confused. “I just need to make sure it’s a good ending.”
I gesture around us. “This is a romance bookstore, every book should have a happy ending.”
“What?”
“Happily ever afters or happily for nows are a genre convention. Romance readers expect the main couple to be together by the end of the book.”
“Huh.” He looks around. “Doesn’t that kind of ruin books for them? Knowing everything will end up perfect in the end?”
“No. Romance is about the relationship between the two people. Who would want to get invested in a romance about a couple that doesn’t end up together?”
“What if they’re toxic together?”
“Readers eat that up.” I look around, looking for a dark romance section to pull some examples. “I’ll show you when we get to the dark romances.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Toxic is what a lot of us live for.”
“We’re not toxic,” he says, closing the space between us.
“We’re not fiction.”
“Damn right we’re not.” He takes my lips in a searing kiss but pulls away before either of us can get caught up. “Time is ticking on our hour.”
I look around, realizing that we’re completely alone. “Where did the owner go?”
“She and Jess, the other employee, went to finish setting up for the signing.”
“They just left us in here?”
“Yep. The doors are locked, she told us to leave through the back door in the other room.”
“There’s another room?”
He points over his shoulder, but all his attention shifts to the mural beside us. “This is amazing.”
“There should be another one of Stevie Nicks somewhere, too. I saw it online.”
He puts his hand over his heart. “Mother.”
I smack his hard stomach with the back of my hand. “Don’t make it weird.”
“Honestly, Stevie is a goddess. So is Florence.” He does a double take when he notices the swing in the corner. “Do you think we can sit on that?”
“Maybe? I think I’ve seen people sit on it on social media.”
He walks over to it and sits slowly. Flowers and greenery hang from the ceiling above the swing, along with books, their pages open and fluttering slightly. A large neon sign with the bookstore’s name hangs perfectly behind it.
“Who’s this guy?” Stone points his thumb at a cardboard cutout of a shirtless man with white hair and tattoos.
“Rowen Whitethorn. He’s a fae warrior from a popular series.”
We meander through the store, Stone occasionally taking the books I pull and carrying them to the register. The next roomis where all the dark romances are as well as fantasy and sci-fi romances. But the thing that grabs my attention first is the rolling ladder.
