Charlie holds out his hand to shake on it. I hesitate before sliding my palm into his, this one careful touch unraveling pieces of the other night across my mind like film reels. His pupils expand, the golden wisps around them smoldering, and his pulse leaps at the base of his throat.
Being able to read each other so well is going to make this “business relationship” complicated.
Where his thigh not quite touches mine, it feels like a piping hot knife held against butter.
Someone near the front of the room gives a hacking stage cough that pops the bubble. All around us, arms are in the air—including Libby’s. Sally is twisted around in her chair, coughing in our direction, her hand over her head.
Charlie jerks his hand free and thrusts it up. Sally’s eyes cut to mine next, almost pleading. When I lift my hand, she grins and spins back around in her chair.
While the red-haired woman is counting the votes, I lean in to ask Libby, “What exactly are we voting on?”
“Weren’t you listening? They’re putting a statue in the town square!”
“Of what?”
Charlie snorts. Libby beams. “What else?” she says. “Old Man Whittaker and his dog!”
A literal statue to Once in a Lifetime.
I turn to Charlie, ready to taunt him, but he meets my gaze with a wicked smile. “Go ahead and try, Stephens; nothing is going to ruin my night.”
My adrenaline spikes at the challenge, but this is too dangerous a game for me to play with him, when my grip on self-control is already so tenuous. Instead I force a placid, professional smile and turn back to face the front of the room.
I spend the rest of the meeting stuck in a worse game with myself: Don’t think about touching Charlie’s hand. Don’t think about the lightning strikes in Charlie’s eyes. Don’t think about any of it. Focus.
17
TO MY SURPRISE, Dusty’s on board with the cuts. Within an hour of promising to get her formal notes soon, Charlie sends me a five-page document on Frigid’s first act.
I examine it in the café while Libby’s reorganizing the children’s book room and singing an off-key rendition of “My Favorite Things,” but replacing all of the listed things with her own preferences: Books with no dog ears and shiny new covers, cleaning and shelving and reading ’bout lovers!
I send Charlie’s document back with sixty-four tracked changes, and he replies within minutes, as if we aren’t twenty-five feet apart, with him at the register and me in the café.
You’re absolutely vicious, Stephens.
I write back, I have a reputation to uphold.
I hear the low laugh in the next room as clearly as if his lips were pressed to my stomach.
In the used and rare book room, Libby’s singing, Shop-cats in windows and full-caf iced coffee.
Isn’t this praise a little overboard? Charlie emails me. Perhaps referring to the forty-odd compliments I inserted into his document.
You love the pages, I reply. I just added details.
It just seems inefficient and condescending to spend so much time talking about things she doesn’t need to change.
If you tell Dusty to cut a bunch of stuff, but don’t make it clear what’s working, you risk losing the good stuff.
We volley the document back and forth until we’re satisfied, then send it off. I don’t expect to hear from Dusty for days. Her reply dings two hours later.
So many great ideas here. A lot to think about, and I’ll get to work on incorporating the changes. Only thing is, we need to keep the cat. In the meantime, I’ve finished cleaning the next hundred pages （attached）。
She sends me a private email, its subject reading But seriously and the body reading can you just be my coeditor forever? I’m actually excited to get started. X
I feel like a lit-up light bulb, all hot and glowy with pride. Charlie sends me another message, and all that heat tightens, like one of those snakes-in-a-can gag gifts being reset for another go.
I think we might be good together, Stephens.
A very small star lodges itself in my diaphragm. I reply, yes, together we add up to one emotionally competent human, a real accomplishment, then listen for his gruff laugh.
But another sound draws my attention to the window—Libby’s voice, muffled by the glass but still half shouting, obviously frustrated. I follow the maze of shelves toward the front of the store, where I can see her through the window out on the sidewalk, her phone pressed to her ear and one hand shielding her eyes against the sun.
Her posture is defensive, her shoulders lifted, elbows tucked in against her sides. She gives a frustrated huff, says something else, and hangs up. I start toward the front door to meet her, but she hitches her purse up her shoulder and takes off across the street, turning to the right and briskly marching off.