‘It’s what I’ve always dreamed of for this place,’ he says when we pull back. ‘More books, a café, an art gallery, and an open roof terrace where people can bring their cakes and books and sit in the peace up here watching the river trickling by.’
‘It sounds perfect.’ Up here in the darkness, lit only by the bright crescent moon and the warm orange glow of the oil lamp on the table behind us, I can’t imagine anything nicer than sitting here on a warm sunny day with a pot of tea, a good book, and a pretty cake, listening to birds chirp and watching the swans float by on the river below.
‘Your belief in the love in those notes made me believe in love again,’ Dimitri murmurs. ‘It made me want to prove to you that love exists in real life too. It made me realise that I still believed in love. I’d been alone for long enough to convince myself it was better that way because I didn’t have anyone to lose. I never thought I’d let anyone in again, but I had absolutely no choice with you. Not from that very first day when you didn’t make me feel like the clumsy oaf I am … I felt like I’d found a part of me that I hadn’t realised was missing until that moment.’
‘Me too,’ I mumble, trying not to cry again. ‘And what about you? You’ve made me believe I can run a bookshop. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. You’ve brightened up my life every day you’ve been in it.’
‘This is what I want, Hal. All that matters is how being with you makes me feel. And that’s like I can live again for the first time in years.’
I rest my thumb in the gorgeous dip in his chin and let my fingers stroke his face, tucking the ends of his hair back. ‘And you make me feel unafraid to live. For the first time in my life, it doesn’t feel like everything’s about to go wrong.’
One of the railings behind us creaks ominously, and Dimitri leans his forehead against mine and laughs.
His hand slides down my jaw and tilts my head up until his lips press against mine, softly at first, like he’s waiting for me to object, and I push back, silently letting him know how desperate I’ve been to kiss him, and it’s all he needs. The kiss gets stronger as we clutch at each other, and he picks me up and sits me on the table, and some part of me is almost definitely about to catch on fire from the lamp but none of it matters when his hands are everywhere, holding me, pulling me impossibly closer, tangled in my ponytail, my T-shirt, as my fingers wind in his hair and the other hand curls into his shoulder hard enough to leave nail-shaped indents in the skin under his T-shirt, and I feel light-headed and dizzy and like I never want it to stop.
Time disappears as we kiss – a kiss that feels like not just a kiss but a promise of forever. A kiss with no holding back, no secrets between us now.
Somehow two people as awkward as us can have the most perfect kiss ever.
When we pull back, I can’t bear to take my hands off him. He hugs me from behind and I hold his arms around me as we stand next to the railings at the edge of the roof terrace, looking out over the darkened river and the grassy bank, and there’s only one thing I can think – how did I ever get this lucky?
His arms tighten around me as his chin rests on my shoulder and we stand there looking out, the rustle of summer trees and the gentle lap of water below. Above us, the stars are out in the clear night sky, twinkling brighter than usual in their thousands.
It feels like a scene straight from a romance novel. And the best thing about romance novels is that they always end happily. For the first time, it feels like real life is better than any book I’ve ever read, and like all love stories, even the unlikeliest ones, deserves a happy ending.
***
Swept away by Hallie’s story and the Once Upon a Page bookshop? Don’t miss The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea, another gorgeously uplifting romance by Jaimie Admans. Available now!
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Acknowledgements
Mum, this line is always the same because you’re always there for me. Thank you for the constant patience, support, encouragement, and for always believing in me. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Love you lots!
Extra special thanks to an amazing author and one of my very best friends, Marie Landry, for being wonderful in general and brightening up my life every day, and particularly in this book for sharing her love of Anne of Green Gables with me and letting me shamelessly borrow her gorgeous descriptions! Caru chi!
Bill, Toby, Cathie – thank you for always being supportive and enthusiastic!
An extra special thank-you to Bev for always asking about my writing, and being so caring, kind, encouraging, and for all the lovely letters – a bright spot during dark times!
Thank you, Charlotte McFall, for always being there for me, a tireless cheerleader and brilliant friend.
Thank you, Jayne Lloyd, for all the fantastic emails that make me smile, whatever the weather!
The lovely and talented fellow HQ authors – I don’t know what I’d do without all of you!
All the lovely authors and bloggers I know on Twitter. You’ve all been so supportive since the very first book, and I want to mention you all by name, but I know I’ll forget someone and I don’t want to leave anyone out, so to everyone I chat to on Twitter or Facebook – thank you.
The little writing group that doesn’t have a name – Sharon Sant, Sharon Atkinson, Dan Thompson, Jack Croxall, Holly Martin, Jane Yates. I can always turn to you guys!
Thank you to all the team at HQ and the two fabulous editors who worked on this book – Charlotte Mursell and Belinda Toor!
Thank you to all the friends and family who shared their favourite books with me for this project because I wanted to make sure that every book mentioned meant something to me or the people I love!
And finally, a massive thank-you to you for reading!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea …
Chapter 1
Why does every man in London think that eight o’clock on a warm June morning is the ideal time to remove their shirt and get on the tube? I consider this as I peel myself away from a sweaty back and turn around to find myself face to face with someone’s wet armpit. There’s often a good time for shirtlessness, but the middle of rush hour on a crowded train is not it.
I sigh and stare at my feet. Every morning I get on this train and get off feeling like a floppy sardine that’s just been let out of a tin and probably smelling worse. All to go to the soulless office block of the women’s magazine where I work as a fact-checker, and then do the exact same thing at half past five with all the other sweaty, irritable commuters who would really love nothing more than to poke their boss in the eye and run away to a beach somewhere.
Someone stands on my toe and a handbag hits me in the thigh as someone else swings it over their arm. Ow. Only four more days to go until the weekend, and then I can have two whole days of not having to leave the flat and face the crowds of London. Two whole days of uninterrupted Netflix, apart from when Mum calls to update me on my ex-boyfriend’s latest news, which she knows because they’re still online friends even though I deleted him over two years ago.
I jump back as a briefcase threatens to take out my kneecaps. There’s got to be more to life than this.
I look up and my eyes lock on to a man near me. Train Man is going somewhere today. Usually he only has a backpack with him, but today there’s a huge suitcase leaning against his leg, rucksack straps over both shoulders, and a holdall bag hooked over one arm. He’s standing up and holding on to a rail like I am, his attention on the phone in his hand, the lines around his eyes crinkled up as he looks down at it, and the sight of him makes something flutter inside me.
I see him quite often, but he’s always already on the train when I get on, and we’
re usually much further apart. Up close, he’s even more gorgeous than I’d always thought he was. He’s got short brown hair, dimples denting his cheeks, and the kind of smile that makes you look twice, which I know because he’s one of the rare London commuters who smiles at others.
The noisy tube train full of other people’s body parts in places you don’t want other people’s body parts, the noise of people sniffing and coughing, an endless medley of beeps as people play with their phones, snippets of conversation that aren’t meant for me … they all fade into the background and the world turns into slow motion as he lifts his head, almost like he can feel my eyes on him, and looks directly at me. If it was anyone else, I’d look away instantly. Staring at strangers on the tube is a quick way to get yourself punched or worse, but it’s like a magnet is holding me, drawing my gaze to his, and his mouth curves up a tiny bit at each side, making it as impossible to look away now as it is every other time he smiles at me.
I feel that familiar nervous fluttering in the deepest part of my belly. It’s not butterflies. My stomach must have disagreed with the cereal I shoved down my throat before rushing out of the flat this morning. Even though it’s the same fluttery feeling I get every time I see him and he sees me. Maybe it’s because I’m never usually this close to him. Maybe those dimples have magical powers at this distance. Maybe I’m just getting dizzy from looking up at him because I’m so short and he’s the tallest person on the train, towering above every other passenger around us.
His smile grows as he looks at me, and I feel myself smiling back, unable not to return his wide and warm smile, the kind of smile you don’t usually see from fellow commuters on public transport. Open. Inviting. His gaze is still holding mine, his smile making his dimples deepen, and the fluttery feeling intensifies.
I feel like I could lean across the carriage and say hello to him, start a conversation, ask him where he’s off to. Although that might imply that I’ve studied him hard enough on previous journeys to work out that he doesn’t usually have that much luggage. And talking to him would be ridiculous. I can’t remember the last time I said hello to a stranger. It’s considered weird here, not like in the little country village where I grew up. People just don’t do that here.
He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, and he tilts his head almost like he’s trying to hold my gaze, and I wonder why. Does he know that I spend most journeys trying to work out what he does, because there’s no regularity to his routine? I’m on this train at eight o’clock every morning Monday to Friday, I look like I’m going into an office, but he’s always in jeans and a T-shirt, a jacket in the winter, and sometimes he’s on this train a couple of times a week, sometimes once a week, and other times weeks can pass without me seeing him. I don’t even know why I notice him so much. Is it because he smiles when our eyes meet? Maybe it’s because he’s so tall that you can’t help but notice him, or because London is such a big and crowded place that you rarely see the same faces more than once.
His dark eyes still haven’t left mine, and he pushes himself off the rail he’s leaning against, and for a split second I think he’s going to make the move and talk to me, and I feel like I’ve just stepped into a scene from one of my best friend Daphne’s favourite rom com movies. The leading couple’s eyes meet across a crowded train carriage and—
‘The next station is King’s Cross St. Pancras.’ An automated voice comes over the tannoy, making me jump because everything but his eyes has faded into the background.
I see him swear under his breath and a look of panic crosses his face. He checks his phone again, turns around and gathers up his suitcase, hoists the holdall bag higher up his arm, and readjusts the rucksack on his shoulders.
I feel ridiculously bereft at the loss of eye contact as the train slows, but I get swept along by the crowd as other people gather up their bags and make a mass exodus towards the doors. He glances back like he’s looking for me again, but I’m easy to miss among tall people and I’ve moved from where I was with the crowd. He looks around like he’s trying to locate me, and I want to call out or wave or something, but what am I supposed to say? ‘Hello, gorgeous Train Man, the strange short girl who’s spent the entire journey staring at you is still here staring at you?’
I’m not far behind him now, even though this isn’t my stop and it’s clearly his. I can see him in the throng of people, his hand wrapped around the handle of the huge wheeled suitcase he’s pulling behind him as the train comes to a stop.
As if the world turns to slow motion again, I see him glance at his phone once more and then go to pocket it, but instead of pushing it into the pocket of his jeans, it slides straight past and lands on the carriage floor at the exact moment the doors open and he, along with everyone else, rushes through them.
He hasn’t noticed.
Without thinking, I dart forward and grab the phone from the floor before someone treads on it. I stare at it for a moment. This is his phone and I have it. He doesn’t know he dropped it. There’s still time to catch up with him and give it back.
Zinnia will probably kill me for being late for work, and I’m still a few stops away from where I usually get off, but I don’t have time to wait. I follow the swarm as seemingly every other person in our carriage floods out, and I pause in the middle of them, aware of the annoyed grunts of people pushing past me as I try to see where he is. I follow the crowd off the platform and up the steps, straining to see over people’s heads and between shoulders.
I’m sure I see his hair in the distance as the crowd starts to thin out, but he’s moving faster than a jet-powered Usain Bolt after an energy drink.
‘Hey!’ I shout. ‘Wait up!’
He doesn’t react. He wouldn’t know who I was calling to, if the guy I’m following is even him.
‘Hey! You dropped your—’
Another passenger glares at me for shouting in his ear and I stop myself. I’m already out of breath and Train Man is nothing more than a blur in the distance. I rush in the same direction, but those steps have knackered me, and the faraway blob that might still be the back of his head turns a corner under the sign towards the overground trains, and I lose sight of him.
I race … well, limp … to the corner where I saw him turn, but the station fans out into an array of escalators and glowing signs and ticket booths, and it’s thronging with people. I walk around for a few minutes, looking for any hint of him, but he’s nowhere to be seen. In the many minutes it’s taken me to half-jog half-stumble from one end of the station to the other, he could be on another train halfway across London.
I pull my own phone out and glance at the time. I’m twenty minutes late for work, and still three tube stops and a ten-minute walk away. Zinnia is going to love me this morning. I put my phone back in my pocket and slide his in alongside it.
I’ll have to find another way to get it back to him.
I could just hand it in at the desk in the station, but he’ll probably never see it again if I do that. If I dropped my phone, I’d like to think that a stranger would be kind enough to pick it up and attempt to reunite it with me, rather than just steal it. Why shouldn’t I do that for Train Man?
There’s something about him, there has been since the first time I saw him standing squashed against the door of a crowded train, right back in my first week at Maîtresse magazine. I know Daphne’s going to say that this is the universe’s way of saying I’m supposed to meet him after all the smiles we’ve exchanged, although she regularly says that when she’s trying to set me up on dates, if she’s not too busy reminding me of how long it’s been since my last date.
But it doesn’t mean anything. He isn’t even going to know that I’m the girl he smiles at sometimes. I’m sure I can just get an address and pop the phone in the post to him.
Simple as that. It won’t be a problem.
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Thank you so much for reading The Little Bookshop of Love Stories. I hope you loved getting lost in books with Hallie and Dimitri as much as I did while I was writing it, and enjoyed a spring escape to Buntingorden too!
The idea for this story sprung from a news article about a bookseller who gave away his bookshop to a customer, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to suddenly find yourself in charge of a bookshop – surely every book lover’s secret dream? It’s definitely mine, and I loved getting to fictionally play with the idea through Hallie. As I’m generally unlucky myself, I also loved the idea of this character who never has anything go right for her suddenly winning the best prize she can imagine. Everyone’s luck has to change sometime!
If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It only has to be a line or two, and it makes such a difference to helping other readers decide whether to pick up the book or not, and it would mean so much to me to know what you think! Did it make you smile, laugh or cry? What would you do if you suddenly won a bookshop? Have you ever found a secret message hidden in a book or written one yourself?
Thank you again for reading. If you want to get in touch, you can find me on Twitter – usually when I should be writing – @be_the_spark. I would love to hear from you!
Hope to see you again soon in a future book!
Lots of love,
Jaimie
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The Little Bookshop of Love Stories: A gorgeous feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 34