by Maisey Yates
“I... I don’t know what you mean.”
It was only when she realized that he was walking toward her, and she was backing up, that she stopped.
But now she was out in the main room of the shop. The lights were on and the street outside was dark, so all she could see were romance novels everywhere she looked. Love. Vulnerability. Hope and happiness.
And Browning West, moving toward her with a lazy accuracy that made her understand, maybe for the first time in her life, how easy it would be to topple right over into a full-on swoon. How preferable it would be to...this.
“I think you know exactly what I mean,” Browning said quietly. “The difference between you and me is that I don’t care what anybody thinks about me. But you do, don’t you? You care a lot.”
She tried to find her temper. She wanted desperately to ride the flare of it. “If you mean that I don’t like disappointing my father, I think you’ll find that’s not an unusual way for a daughter to feel. Everyone has family stuff.”
“Now you’re frowning again. Ready to argue. Emotions are scary, right? But if you can scowl at something, chop it up into little pieces, think your way around it, that’s when you really feel good. In control. Safe.”
She took another step back, no longer caring if he saw her shaking. “Stop it.”
“I love you, Kit,” Browning told her, resolutely. “And yeah, it’s fast. I’ve always known, my whole life, that one day I was going to meet the right woman and that would be that. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting snooty Miss Princeton with her summer scarves and weird obsession with black. But here we are.”
“Browning. You can’t...”
Kit felt like she was having a panic attack. She couldn’t think of any other explanation for the chaos happening inside of her. “Why are you doing this? Everything was fine, and fun, and now—”
“Now what?” Though he didn’t get loud, or cutting the way her father did, Kit understood that the storm in her was in him too. “You think you can argue me out of my feelings, Kit? Is that how your father does it?”
“You don’t understand. You don’t understand me. You don’t—”
Browning’s dark eyes blazed. “I understand you perfectly. And I like every prickly, funny bit of you, Kit. I like the shrouds. I like when you frown and get into your lecturing mode. Hell, I like the lectures. I like how unafraid you are of confrontation when you can use your words to dive right in. I love that you’re the kind of person who would hold on to old friends, honor a twenty-year-old pact, and when it came down to doing it, not half-ass your way through the promises you made.”
He looked around the store, and opened up his hands as if he was trying to hold it—and her—between them. “I like these books. They’re proof that no matter how much black you wear, how sharp and blunt you cut those bangs, how many big old vocabulary words you use, at heart you’re sweet inside.”
Kit felt like she was some kind of melted, sugary thing all right—and he’d left her out in the hot summer sun.
She couldn’t seem to breathe.
But Browning wasn’t finished. “I know what makes you smile. I know what makes you sad. I know the difference between the way you flush when you’re mad and how bright red you get when you want a taste of me. Don’t tell me I don’t know you, Kit. I’ve done nothing but study you since the day we met.”
The storm inside her howled, raging through her until that was all she could hear, even while his words seemed to punch through her like bullets.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” she threw at him, though she was shuddering. And she couldn’t tell if she only felt like she was crying, or if she actually was. “You’ve been nothing but kind to me and I love that, I do.”
“Is this the part where you patronize me? The fun never ends.”
“I’ve spent my entire life being serious about things,” she hurled at him. “Deeply, deathly serious. And the store is one thing, but you—”
She had to stop, because her voice was too loud. She hardly knew if she was standing upright any longer. Everything hurt, and the worst part was that she could see she was hurting him too.
“Say it,” he invited her, and broke her heart.
“Browning,” she whispered. And hated herself. “You’re not serious about anything. Especially not me.”
Before he could respond to that—before her heart could abandon her too, before she let her sobs take over—she turned and flung herself out the front door, into the summer night.
Away from him.
Away from love.
Away from what she’d said to him and that look on his face.
Away before she did the stupidest thing yet, and stayed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN KIT MADE it back to the farmhouse, still in pieces, her heart sank when she saw the lights on and all her friends sitting in the living room.
It was okay, she told herself. She would sneak in, head upstairs, and avoid the inevitable grilling that would occur if her friends caught sight of her.
She took off her shoes and tiptoed up the stairs of the front porch, then eased her way in through the door. From there it would be easy enough to move quietly to the stairs, head off to shower, then hide beneath her covers for the rest of her life. Or maybe just hurry up and hide, and worry about showering later.
But as she set off for the staircase, the floorboards in the front hall, which had never made a single creaking sound since she’d arrived, suddenly burst forth in a symphony of noise, drowning out the Bing Crosby record on the Victrola in the living room.
“Stop it, house,” she muttered.
In response, a book that had been sitting on the hall table seemed to catapult off for absolutely no reason and hit the floor. Loudly.
Kit swore under her breath, and froze.
But it was too late.
“Kit? Is that you?” came Hope’s voice from the living room.
“It had better be Kit,” Charity said dryly, “because otherwise, there’s an intruder situation that we should maybe investigate. You first.”
“Bite me, Charity,” Hope suggested in a syrupy tone.
“It’s me but I’m going upstairs,” Kit called. “I need a shower.”
She bent down and swept the book up, because she was constitutionally incapable of ignoring a book, even a supernatural book like this one clearly was. And when she straightened, she found herself face-to-face with Pru, who was coming out of the dining room that led into the kitchen holding a bowl she could smell from where she stood. It was homemade caramel-covered popcorn.
Her favorite. Damn it.
“Nice try,” Pru said, eyeing her a little too intently. “You’re not going upstairs.”
Kit tried to summon her umbrage. “I’m a grown woman and I will go where I want, Prudence.”
“You’re a disaster, Katherine,” Pru replied. She jerked her chin toward the living room. “Go on. Get in there.”
Kit didn’t bother to argue. Maybe, secretly, she was glad she’d been caught. Still, she turned dramatically and made her way into the living room, very much as if she was walking a plank. And because it made Pru roll her eyes—very nearly audibly.
Charity and Hope were sitting on the floor on either side of the huge coffee table with what looked like every board game in the house arranged in front of them.
“We can’t decide what game to play,” Hope said. “So we’re playing them all.”
Kit sniffed. “I don’t really like games, so.”
“You like games just fine,” Charity said reprovingly. “What you don’t like is losing.”
“Who likes losing?” Kit demanded. “Why does everyone say that like somewhere out there, swathes of people are sitting around thinking, what I’d really like to do tonight is lose a game that only the winners will find fun?”
&
nbsp; She realized she’d yelled that in a potentially unhinged manner when Hope and Charity finally looked up from the board game smorgasbord and stared at her.
“I’m fine,” Kit muttered.
Beside her, Pru snickered. “Yeah, you’re fine. You seem fine.”
Kit surrendered. She let Pru not so subtly nudge her further into the room, then made her way over to the couch and flung herself across the cushions. Possibly like an opera heroine.
“Kit’s fine,” Pru announced. “Perfectly fine, as you can see. She said.”
They all looked at her in a considering sort of way that made Kit feel even more aggrieved. “My father dropped by to share with me that he does not approve of the bookstore or, you know, my life.”
Hope shrugged. “I thought that that was the entire purpose of the bookstore. You knew perfectly well he was never going to be happy unless you opened a chapbook stand.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kit muttered. “That’s far too commercial.”
Hope rolled her eyes. “A fate worse than death!”
“If Lawrence Hall approved of a romance bookstore, that would be a clear sign that the world was ending,” Pru said. “He’s a snob. He’s always been a snob.”
“I think your father always imagined a different life for himself,” Charity said. With far more compassion in her tone than the other two. Kit didn’t know how to feel about that, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to feel compassionate toward her father just then. “He made you think that was the only path. And if it made you happy, that would’ve been great. But it didn’t, did it?”
Kit sat up from her full-on opera sprawl. “I wasn’t unhappy. Really. It was that I wasn’t—”
“Happy.” Charity arched a brow. “I know.”
Kit leaned forward and grabbed a handful of the gooey, buttery caramel corn then shoved it all inelegantly into her mouth. It was sublime, as always. A couple of hours ago she would’ve said there was nothing on this earth that could possibly taste better than Pru’s freshly made caramel corn.
But that was before she’d tasted the full glory of Browning West.
Great, she thought morosely as she chewed. Now everything is ruined.
“So,” Pru said, biting back a smirk. “Why is your dress on inside out, Kit?”
While the other two made delighted sounds and squinted at her in a way she did not like, Kit glared balefully at Pru, taking her sweet time licking the caramel off her hand. She almost wished she hadn’t peeled off her gloves in the car, or she would have thrown one at her so-called friend and possibly demanded a duel.
“Oh,” she said, in the most bored New York voice she could muster. “I had sex with Browning. Twice.”
“Oh my God,” Hope breathed. “Please tell me he lives up to his reputation.”
“He surpasses his reputation entirely.” Kit found she couldn’t hold on to the whole pretending-to-be-blasé thing. “Like...entirely.”
Charity studied her. “Then why do you look so unhappy?”
“Because he ruined it.” Kit thought her face crumpled, maybe, and that was horrifying. But there was nothing to do about it but push on. “He told me he loved me.”
“Bastard,” Pru said loyally.
“I don’t think Browning West runs around telling people he’s in love with them,” Hope pointed out carefully. Her tone suggested that Kit really did look broken. “If he did, there’d be a parade of women prancing around behind him at all times instead of sighing at him from afar.”
Kit rubbed at her sad face, wishing she could regain her equilibrium. Since when had she felt so much? “He’s confused.”
“He is?” Pru tilted her head to one side. “Or you are?”
Kit scowled at her, then at Charity and Hope too, just to spread it around. She opened up her mouth to light into all of them.
But nothing came.
She was definitely broken.
“I’ve never known you to giggle much about a boy,” Hope offered. “Browning makes you giggly. When you came home after that motorcycle ride you were silly for hours.”
“You went skinny-dipping with him,” Charity chimed in. “You literally peeled off your clothes and hung out with him naked. You. Who, until this summer, I would’ve said probably had sex in full body armor behind blackout curtains.”
“No body armor,” Kit muttered, while her heart careened around inside her chest in a manner she was sure had to be medically unsound. “Just, you know, always under the sheets. Like a lady.”
They all hooted at that, and Kit felt herself flush. Which reminded her of what Browning had said about all the different ways she flushed and blushed.
Which made her think about the way he’d moved inside her, his gaze so intent, like he’d been waiting his whole life for this.
For her.
She fought back a shudder.
“Your father has always made you think you’re not good enough,” Pru said. “And let me guess...he doesn’t think much of Browning, either.”
Kit opened her mouth, but again, nothing came to save her. No sharp, cutting remarks that might make her feel better. She blew out a breath instead. “He’s Browning West. He belongs on bathroom walls. He might not have a parade marching behind him but he does nothing to stop all that sighing, either. What does he even do besides waft around his family’s ranch and grin at people in bars?”
“Kit,” Hope said gently. “I love you. We all love you. But you can be such a snob.”
“Hey!” Kit glared at her, then at each one of them in turn, because no one was leaping to her defense. In fact, her three best friends in the entire world looked like they were...in full agreement. “We were all a lot nicer to Hope. Isn’t this supposed to be some girl power thing? Aren’t you supposed to grab the wine and the ice cream and shout about how amazing I am?”
“That’s when someone hurts you,” Charity said apologetically. “I don’t think having someone tell you he’s in love with you—something you should’ve already known because since when does Browning West hang around doing chores and reading romance novels when he could be notching up his bedpost—counts as him being mean to you.”
“Tough love doesn’t come with ice cream, Kit.” Pru shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”
Kit scowled at her. “You make a lot of rules, actually, Prudence.”
“We all know the kind of man you imagined you were going to end up with,” Hope said. She started counting on her fingers. “Smart. Educated. Possibly in possession of his own hidebound volumes of careful, finely-wrought, handwritten poetry.”
Kit swallowed, hard. “That is worryingly specific.”
“Because that’s what you wrote down every time we decided to make lists of our future husbands’ attributes,” Pru reminded her. “Every time, Kit. But if you wanted that guy, I feel like they must have been thick on the ground back East.”
“You came home instead,” Charity pointed out. “Where there’s only one person around who really meets that description, and the truth is, Kit, he’s not very nice to you.”
It was amazing how much that hurt when Kit knew it was true. Hadn’t her father proved it tonight?
“Browning, on the other hand, gets you to ride motorcycles. And loves what you do. And looks at all of this—” Hope waved her hand at Kit, “all of you, all of what makes you Kit, and likes it.”
“Have you all been discussing this?” Kit demanded, outraged.
Or maybe she only wished she was outraged. That would be far better than being called out because she was terribly afraid they were right.
“Obviously we’ve been discussing it.” Charity reached for the popcorn bowl, sounding deeply unconcerned with this betrayal. “Literally every second you’re not in the room. You’re welcome.”
“Great,” Kit said miserably. “I’m a snob. My friends
hate me. I don’t know my own mind and—”
“Do you love him?” Pru asked, in her matter-of-fact, direct way. “Because if you don’t, that’s that. But if you do...”
Kit looked at each of her best friends in turn, and then, miserably, looked away. She couldn’t tell what was happening to her. She was too hot. She thought maybe she was crying. Then she knew she was when a tear splashed down on her hand as she stared down at her lap much too fiercely.
Much too desperately.
And her friends left her to it. They settled around the fifteen board games on the table and launched back into what must have been the mostly good-natured argument they’d been having before she arrived. The Victrola played on.
Kit shifted her position then realized she was still holding that book that had betrayed her in the hallway. She picked it up to squint at the cover but it fell open.
Whoever had read this book before—a big, thick romance novel, if she wasn’t mistaken, and when it came to romance novels she was never mistaken—had underlined a sentence on the page.
How can you love another person if you’re not sure whether or not you love yourself?
It was that sentence that haunted her when she finally left the living room and went upstairs. She stood in the shower, the line still echoing in her head. Then she lay awake in the darling little room that had been hers all summer. She pulled the patchwork quilt up to her chin, though it made her too warm, and stared at the whitewashed ceiling, waiting to sleep.
But she didn’t.
The next morning, she woke up after maybe fifteen minutes of sleep, grumped her way through coffee, and somehow managed to escape the house without having to pull three or four slips as rightful punishment. She suspected that was her friends’ version of the wine and ice cream they hadn’t offered her last night. And as she busied herself with the store inventory, she found herself waiting for Browning in a wild mix of anticipation and apprehension.
But he didn’t come.
He didn’t come and it made her feel hollow.
She walked to her parents’ house a few blocks over at lunchtime, smiling when she saw her mother where she always was on warm summer afternoons—out on the front porch in the swing, reading a romance novel with a cover as bright as the hanging baskets overflowing with geraniums.