This Book Made Me Think of You(96)
“Well, we should be getting back to the Airbnb,” declares John. “But first, perhaps the moment calls for a toast?”
He fishes a bottle of champagne out of his messenger bag.
“I’d been saving the bottle for tomorrow, but I think you could probably all do with some now. Alfie dear, do you happen to have any glasses?”
Alfie nods and returns with a stack of paper cups. When he passes Tilly hers, she tries to catch his eye, but he has already moved on, handing cups to Cécile and Bertrice. Once the champagne has been poured, John looks pointedly toward Alfie, the others turning to look at him too.
Alfie coughs, running a hand through his hair.
“Thank you, everyone, for today. I can’t tell you how much this has all meant to me. I’ve always thought this bookshop was special, but mostly because it was my dad’s. I had no idea it meant so much to so many people. Thank you, all of you, for helping me feel so proud.”
He looks at Tilly then, and her heart dips and dives.
“So I’d like to raise a toast to Book Lane,” Alfie continues, raising his glass.
Tilly swallows hard, trying to stop the tears from overspilling again as they all raise their glasses too.
A smile spreads across Alfie’s face. “And to our next chapter.”
Blue spits out her champagne. “What?!”
“Alfie, what’s going on?” says Tilly.
She is pretty certain she’s stopped breathing.
Alfie and John share a look.
“Do you want to tell them, or shall I?” says John.
“Go ahead,” Alfie says, glancing briefly at Tilly before looking back at John, who adjusts his bow tie and addresses the group.
“I’ve decided to sell the apartment in Paris and move to London. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, given I’ve been spending more and more time here. I got talking to Alfie earlier, and he told me about the apartment above this shop and the fact it is up for sale along with the rest of the building. I find this area quite charming, and I couldn’t think of anything better than living above a bookshop. So I’ve decided to buy the building.”
Tilly draws in a sharp breath. Prudence and Blue have both leaped on Alfie, throwing their arms around him.
“John has kindly offered to let me keep renting the shop, at an affordable rate,” Alfie says once he’s managed to peel himself away from them.
“On the basis that I can come down and use the shop as my own personal library on occasion,” John says with a twinkly smile. “Given I’m not sure my entire book collection will quite fit into the flat…”
“Of course,” Alfie replies warmly. “And I’m going to use the money from the crowd funder to do some renovations to the shop. It’s about time I put my own stamp on the place.”
Tilly feels as if she’s dreaming. The shop is saved. Alfie is smiling. The shop is saved!
“You’re really leaving Paris?” Lola asks John once some of the excitement has died down a little.
“I am. I’ve decided to take a chance on love.” At this John meets Tilly’s eye and winks.
Fifty-Nine
After more champagne, hugs, and laughter, the Parisian contingent heads off to their Airbnb, and Prudence and Blue wish them a happy Christmas and head off for home, leaving Tilly and Alfie alone in the quiet of the bookshop.
There’s so much that Tilly wants to say, but now that they’re alone together, she feels hesitant and acutely aware of her hands. Not knowing what to do with them, she settles for placing them onto the shop counter to steady her. The shop is still softly lit by camping lights and glowing fairy lights despite the fact the electricity came back on a few hours ago.
“I meant what I said earlier,” Alfie says gently. “Thank you for all of this. Before you go, I have something for you.”
“I have something for you too.”
She hands him two parcels, one hard and one soft. He passes her a parcel, too, his small, weighty, and rectangular.
“Hmm, I wonder what this could be,” Tilly says, turning it over in her hands. “A football?”
“OK, so maybe it’s not the most original gift ever. But I hope you’ll like it…”
“You open yours first,” says Tilly, feeling suddenly nervous.
“All right, thank you.”
He unwraps the soft parcel first, pulling out an olive-green hand-knitted sweater.
“I hope it fits OK, I had to guess. And if you hate it, you don’t have to wear it…”
He is already pulling off the one he is wearing, his shirt lifting as he does and giving her a brief glimpse of skin, which makes her cheeks grow hot. He pulls the sweater down over his broad shoulders.
“I know how much your dad’s sweaters mean to you. But I thought maybe you should have some things that are yours too.”
“Thank you,” he says gruffly. “It’s perfect.” He begins to tear the paper on the other parcel too.
She watches as he pulls out the large hardback book with the Lonely Planet logo at the top of a cover that shows a picturesque sunlit lake and two people leaping into the water, arms outstretched.
“You Only Live Once,” he reads aloud with a smile.
“It’s full of suggestions of adventures, some big and some small,” Tilly explains as he flicks through the pages, beautiful photos of beautiful places flashing past. “There are some that are far away but others that I thought you could do here in London too. You deserve to have adventures, Alfie. To go to places as well as reading about them. The book is right, we only get one life.” It’s something that her head knew before Joe got sick but that she feels in her heart since losing him. Some days the fragility of life and the knowledge that we will all lose people we love feels too much to bear. But on other days, it feels like a precious, remarkable gift. And thinking of Joe makes her determined to live her one life well—to make it one filled with books, adventures, and love.