The store is quiet now. Not one customer—that’s the whole problem. And now she’s in a bad situation, without many options.
“Tell me what to do,” Cassie whispers to the silence bookstore. “Grandma Bea?” She pauses. “Grandpa Marv?”
There is no response. The bookcase doesn’t open up a giant mouth and start dispensing wisdom. She still doesn’t know what the hell to do.
“Excuse me? Miss?”
Cassie hadn’t even heard the customer come into the store. She wipes her hands on her jeans and flashes her most friendly smile. She needs to make a sale. Selling anything would make her feel better. Since the New Year, things have been abysmal. And those gift cards that seemed like such a great idea back in December mean people are coming in here and leaving with books but not giving her any money.
“Can I help you?” Cassie asks the young man at the door.
He rubs at his red nose. “I hope so. Do you have a copy of Lippincott’s Microbiology?”
She should have known. When she saw this kid, she should have assumed he was just another med student looking for textbooks.
“Does this look like a medical bookstore?” she snaps at him.
“Uh…” He looks around. “It looks like a bookstore.”
She shoots him a look. “Do you want any actual books?”
He takes a step back. “I guess… not?”
The kid leaves the bookstore without buying anything. Her one customer of the day and she managed to yell at him. Great.
And then Cassie’s phone starts to ring. She pulls it out of her purse and looks at the number.
Her heart races. She shouldn’t take this call. She definitely shouldn’t. This is not a joke—she could end up behind bars. But what else can she do? If she doesn’t go through with this, the store is done.
She presses the green button to take the call.
Chapter 39: The Ex
It’s about that girl. Your ex’s new girlfriend.
What is Nick talking about? I’d always thought there was something sinister about Olive, but I didn’t expect his investigation to actually turn up any information. I was half-kidding when I told him to investigate her. And especially now that things were starting to happen with Dean, I had been considering telling him to forget the whole thing. It’s time to move on.
This is the last thing I expected.
“What’s going on?” I say.
“You sitting down?”
What is he talking about? Is Olive a man? Because that’s where my mind is going right now. Unless he tells me otherwise. “Nick! Just tell me!
“Okay, okay…” He chuckles darkly. “So you know she’s got that business of hers, right?”
“Yes…”
“You may have noticed that the place isn’t exactly successful.”
I’m not going to lie. I walked by about a million times since Joel started dating Olive. And yes, it never looked like business was jumping.
“Well, it’s worse than it looks,” he says. “That girl owes a ton of money to every bank in town.”
That’s not good, for sure. And it confirms my suspicions that Olive sees Joel as a meal ticket. But it’s not “sit down because you’re not going to believe this” kind of bad. I’m disappointed. Olive being a man would have been much better.
“Is that it?” I ask.
“Shit, no, that’s not it,” he says. “You think I’d have all this buildup to tell you she’s going to declare bankruptcy? Who cares?”