My pulse spikes at the buzz of my phone. Mercifully, the message isn’t from Charlie.
It’s from Brendan. Which is rare. When you scroll through our thread, it’s a riveting back-and-forth of Happy birthday! interspersed with cute pictures of Bea and Tala.
Hi, Nora. Hope the trip is going well. Is Libby all right?
“What’s this about?” I hold my phone out, and she leans forward to read, her lips tightening to a purse.
“Tell him I’ll call him later.”
“Yes, ma’am, and which calls do you want forwarded to your office?”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to go upstairs and get my phone right now. The world won’t end if Brendan doesn’t hear from me every twenty-five minutes.”
The impatience in her voice catches me off guard. I’ve seen her and Brendan argue before, and it’s basically like watching two people swing feathers in each other’s general direction. This is real irritation.
Are they fighting? About the apartment, or the trip, maybe?
Or is this trip happening because they’re fighting?
The thought instantly nauseates me. I try to put it out of my head—Libby and Brendan are obsessed with each other. I might’ve missed some things over the last few months, but I would’ve noticed something like that.
Besides, she’s been calling him every day.
Except you’ve never seen her call him. I’ve just assumed that somewhere, in those nine hours we’re apart each afternoon, she’s been talking to him.
A cold sweat breaks along the back of my neck. My throat twists and tightens, but Libby doesn’t seem to notice. She’s smiling coolly as she hauls herself out of her Adirondack chair.
You’re overthinking this. She just left her phone upstairs.
“Anyway, let’s go,” she says. “Goode Books isn’t going to save itself. Goode Books aren’t going to save themselves? Whatever. You get it.”
I type out a quick reply to Brendan. Everything’s good. She says she’ll call you later. He answers immediately with a smiley face and a thumbs-up.
Everything’s fine. I’m here. I’m focused. I’ll fix it.
* * *
I would like to say that, having realized everything at stake on this trip, the spell of Charlie Lastra instantly lifted. Instead, every time his eyes cut from Libby to me, there’s a flash in his irises that makes me wonder how long it would take to peel off my clothes.
“You want,” he drawls, eyes back on my sister, “to give Goode Books a makeover?”
“We’re giving it a head-to-toe revitalization.” Libby’s fingertips press together in excitement. Her skin is sun-kissed and the bags beneath her eyes are almost entirely gone. She looks not only rested but downright exhilarated by the opportunity to mop a dusty bookstore.
Charlie leans into the counter. “This is for the list?” His eyes tick toward mine, flashing again. My body reacts like he’s touching me. Our gazes hold, the corner of his mouth curving like, I know what you’re thinking.
“He knows about the list?” Libby asks, then, to Charlie, “You know about the list?”
He faces her again, rubs his jaw. “We don’t have a budget for ‘revitalization.’？”
“All the furniture will be secondhand,” she says. “I have the thrift-store magic touch. I was grown in a lab for this. Just point us in the direction of your cleaning supplies.”
Charlie’s eyes return to me, pupils flaring. If I were to look down, I’m confident I’d find my clothes reduced to a pile of ash at my feet. “You won’t even know we’re here,” I manage.
“I doubt that,” he says.
* * *
Another “universal truth” Austen could’ve started Pride and Prejudice with: When you tell yourself not to think about something, it will be all that you can think about.
Thusly, while Libby’s running me ragged cleaning Goode Books, scrubbing scuff marks off the floor, I’m thinking about kissing Charlie. And while I’m reshelving biographies in the newly appointed nonfiction section, I’m actually counting how many times and where I catch him looking at me.
When I’m poring over the new portion of Frigid back in the café, tugging on its plot strings and nudging at its trapdoors, my mind invariably finds its way back to Charlie pinning me against a boulder, his rasp in my ear: It’s hard to think in words right now, Nora.
It’s hard to think, period, unless it’s about the one thing I should not be thinking about.