Page 9 of More With You

I attempt to read the blurb on the back, but she keeps talking. I can’t be mad at her for it. I think we might be each other’s favorite person in the world, and her enthusiasm for all things book is infectious, to say the least. “I know you’re not a big fan of the genre, but I didn’t think I was, either. You’ll love it! Exciting, fast-paced, and the love story…” She pauses, her eyes rolling back into her head and her hand clasping to her considerable chest. “Oh, it’s gonna make you melt, honey. Just melt all over the place.”

A laugh bursts out of me. This is why her book clubs are infamous. Some of the local ladies don’t even dare to go when they know there’s going to be a sexy novel on the menu, in case Ms. T gets a bit too animated. Me? I’ll go to her book club no matter what we’re reading, because I know I’ll come away feeling a little bit lighter, my cheeks aching from smiling and laughing all evening.

She presses on, granting me no reprieve. “It’ll make your heart… just… explode! And then it’ll put it back together with caressing hands, before melting it all over again. Even yours, Summer.” She gives me a look over the rim of her purple framed, half-moon glasses. “I’ve known you for what—six months? Not once have I seen you with a man! Not once! When are you gonna let a man melt and explode and caress that heart of yours, girl?”

“Six months isn’t that long,” I reply defensively, getting off the stool and heading for the stacks. I have to hand it to Ms. T; she knows how to push my buttons, she just does it in a way that makes me smile at the same time, so I can’t get annoyed.

She snorts. “It is when you’re in your prime, hon! You can’t tell me there’s not a single man all along the coast that hasn’t caught your eye? They’re like crawfish, girl—just wade in and pick a real juicy one!”

“I never liked seafood.” I grin, and she swats the air, cackling. I’m kidding, just for effect, but I love it.

“Don’t be saying that too loud, Summer. That’ll get you kicked out of here.” Still chuckling, she leaves all talk of men behind, rushing on to tell me more about this book clutched to my chest. Ironically, way closer than any man has been in… I can’t remember.

As she rambles on at a mile a minute while I thumb the spines of novels I’ve already loved or loathed, comforted by Ms. T’s voice somewhere behind me, a warmth swells in my chest. A morsel of the elusive happiness I’ve stopped chasing. In truth, Ms. Thibodeaux is like the mother I always wanted. A mother figure who’d swoop in and take me out of that bygone hellhole, and fill me up on stories, fried chicken, and a bombardment of affection, until my past had no choice but to surrender.

“Are you listenin’, hon? I’m gettin’ to the good part!”

I turn back and nod. “Yes, Ms. T. The Russians.”

“Right, the Russians!” She leaps back into the plot, and my ears close up again, but I keep my eyes fixed on her for a few moments.

She’s shorter than me by a head, with a build she’s often described as “doughy in all the right places.” Usually when her husband is around, so he’ll turn a rosy shade of pink to match the name of the place. She’s in her sixties, with the vivacity of someone half her age, especially when she’s charging around the bookstore to toss suggestions into your arms. Beautiful, too, with a dyed-blonde chignon that never has a hair out of place, and makeup that flatters her maturity, though she claims she’s aging “disgracefully.”

“Now, if you could get yourself a man like that… well, I’d miss you because there’d be no time for you to read!” Ms. T explodes into raucous laughter, and I chuckle along, though I’ve got no idea what came before.

Never change, Ms. T. I’ve never told her much about my life before arriving on the coast, but it’s like she just… knows, somehow. When I found myself drawn into the chocolate-box building with the white walls and pale blue shutters, and walked underneath the trellised archway of climbing roses to enter the red door, my first week in town, I knew this was the place for me. The jingle of the chimes when I stepped inside was like a welcome home. Maybe it’s had a Pavlovian effect on me, but whenever I hear that sound now, I feel safe… and hungry for another book.

I’d always been a big reader, tucked under my bed with a flashlight and my latest haul from the school library, but without a friend or even a pet to distract me here, I’ve become voracious.

“You seem distracted, hon.” Ms. T interrupts my musings. “Did you just come in here for a book? Or is there somethin’ else on your mind?”

I stare at her without answering, for a moment too long, which gives away that I do, indeed, have something on my mind. I’m just not ready to reveal to anyone about my chance meeting with Ben. Or what it awoke in me. No matter how much I love Ms. T.

“Let’s forget the book, hon. I’m interested in a juicier story.” She props an elbow on the counter and rests her chin in her hand, looking at me with a not-so-subtle stare. “I need you to spill the tea on that man!”

“The tea? When did you start getting hip with the slang?” I jokingly enquire, though my insides are squirming. “And what man? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She levels me with a withering look. “My name is Ms. T, and that’s no coincidence, hon. I’m all about the tea.” An attempted wink makes her right eye spasm. “So, don’t you leave me in suspense. Ben. Lovely Ben. Tell all. I’ve prattled on trying to give you a little space but I can’t take it much longer! It’s time to let the cat outta the bag!” She gestures to the love seat by the window—a reading nook, strung with fairy lights and dried flowers. Evidently, she wants this to be a lengthy gossip session; one I ought to be comfortable for. When I don’t move immediately, she darts back around the counter and nudges me, physically shooing me in that direction.

As she’s jabbing me in the back, I toss a protest over my shoulder. “What do you mean? What about Ben? There’s nothing to spill.” I know there’s not much in this town that gets by Ms. T’s CIA-level radar, but the only person who saw me and Ben together that night was Levi, and Ben didn’t exactly leave him with a reason to spread the news.

“Do you think I was born yesterday?” Ms. T isn’t backing down as she urges me onto the loveseat, plopping down beside me so I’m wedged in by her shapely figure. “Don’t be gettin’ all coy with me, hon, not when my prayers for your love life have finally been answered! That boy came in here yesterday, thumbin’ some books on fishin’, but I knew he wasn’t here for no fishin’ books. He was castin’ his reel for somethin’ else.”

I don’t dare to ask. I don’t need to. Ms. T fills in the blank a second later, jittering about with an excitement that’s infectious.

“You, hon!” she shrieks, clapping her hands together.

I gape at her. “What?”

“Lord, that boy wanders over, shy as can be, lookin’ like he’s just stepped out of one of my favorite sexy highlander novels—no kilt, sadly, but the build of him was…” She puts her fingers to her lips and puckers out a chef’s kiss. “But you know that already, don’t you?” She waggles her eyebrows, and I wouldn’t mind the loveseat cushions swallowing me up.

“He sets that fishin’ book down, but he doesn’t look the fishin’ type. I tell him as much as I’m ringin’ the thing up, and he smiles—my days, that smile could’ve loosened the weddin’ ring right off my finger! —and asks if I know you. Naturally, I say, ‘Well, of course I know Summer. Know her better than anyone around here, that’s for sure.’ The boy practically leaps over my counter, he was that excited.” She’s grinning like a Cheshire cat, she’s that excited. After all these months of curiosity about my romantic life, she finally has something to latch onto. Though, make no mistake, she’s not trying to live vicariously through me: she’s got her books and her husband satisfying all of her needs, which is something she’ll tell anyone who stops in her shop for longer than five minutes.

Does this mean fate came knocking? I think back to our nighttime walk, trying to remember if I told him about this place. I definitely mentioned spending most of my downtime reading, but there are a few bookshops in this town. None as good as Ms. T’s, but maybe that meant he’d checked all of them, on the off chance someone knew me.

“Well, what did you say? What did he say?” I turn into the skid of the conversation, feeling a nervous thrill prickle through my chest.

Ms. T picks at her fifties-style, rose-printed swing skirt, suddenly trying (and failing) to play nonchalant. “Oh, this and that. Best places to hook a sturgeon, that kind of thing.”

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