by Emma Hart
It rang again almost immediately, and Holley’s arrival was announced by an “Oomph!” as the heavy door bumped back into her. I got up and rushed over to the door and grabbed hold of it to open it.
“Thanks.” She blew out a sigh, her bottom lip directing it up toward her bangs which fluttered. She stepped into the store with a huge cardboard box and a groan.
“What on Earth is that?”
“Books.” She grunted as she put it on the tables at the front of the store.
“Why—never mind.” I shook my head.
“Phew. That was heavy.” She opened the box flaps and pulled out a book to show me.
I frowned as I took it. The cover was an adorable illustrated one with a bright pink background and a cartoon blonde girl texting. The blue title read, “How Not To Matchmake,” and the author’s name, Abigail Lyon, was in contrasting white. “Why do you have like fifty copies of it?”
Holley leaned on the box and looked at me. “She’s a local and contacted me to do a signing here in a few weeks. She started off self-published and hit the big time a couple of years ago, and her publisher is finally sending her on a nationwide tour for her new book after the last one hit number two on The New York Times bestseller list. She said her publicist wanted her to go to Billings or Helena if she insisted on a Montana spot, but she wanted to come back home since her grandma is at the retirement home.”
“Fair enough.” I flipped the book and scanned the back cover. It was a failed matchmaking novel where the heroine fell for her client in the process of getting him a date. “Oh, this is cute. I want one.”
“Have it. When I told her we like to read books together, she had an extra three added for us as a thank you. She said she’ll sign them when she gets here.”
Yay, new books!
“Awesome. Do you want a hand taking that to the back?”
“Please.” She winced. “I think I put my back out.”
Laughing, I set the new book on the counter and moved to help her. Together, we lugged the huge, heavy box out to the storeroom and nestled it safely in the corner.
“Why didn’t you mention the signing? We haven’t done one before.”
Holley grimaced. “I actually forgot. It was only three days ago I agreed. The publisher got the books here superfast. It doesn’t even release until next week, but Andi—that’s Abigail’s publicist—said she was going to email me some promotional posters to put up. Turns out we had the book on order from the seller anyway, so we can promote the hell out of it between now and the signing.”
“Sounds good. How are we supposed to set the store up?”
We both looked at the store. We had a large open area to the front where we had the tables set out and some armchairs, giving it a light, airy feel that was more reminiscent of a library than a bookstore. Our huge windows definitely helped with that, and a glance at each other said we thought this was the best spot.
“I think she’s going to do a reading of the book and take some questions,” Holley said, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. “So we’ll need some seating. I might have to call Andi and see if they can provide us with some extra chairs because there’s no way we can seat fifty people, and we can’t exactly ask them to stand.”
She tapped her chin with her pointer finger, and I didn’t bother to offer a response. I knew she wasn’t looking for one. She was figuring it all out in her brain and was probably ninety percent of the way to a solution by now.
I slipped back behind the register as a group of tourists in hiking gear came in through the door. Holley deftly stepped to the side to give them room, nodding absently when they asked if they could leave their backpacks on the table while they browsed.
They disappeared into the abyss that was Bookworm’s Books, and Holley followed them, veering off to the staffroom at the last second. No doubt she was going to open her laptop and fire off a very organized email to Andi the publicist about what our small-town store needed to pull off this signing.
I, however, checked my phone.
Josh had replied, but he’d completely ignored my question. Just as I’d suspected, to be honest. If there was a genuine answer for it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know it.
Which was why I’d asked.
Obviously.
I was clearly an emotional masochist, because there was no way I was going to let it go.
Even if I didn’t want to know the answer.
I saved the number that belonged to Elliott Anderson, physical therapist to the Montana Bears baseball team, and tossed back a flippant reply that I’d text him later when the store was quiet—like it a was a rave right now—and set my phone back down. His next reply was equally as flippant and dismissive, but I didn’t have a chance to respond again because the phone rang.
“Hello, Bookworm’s Books, Kinsley speaking. How can I help you?”
“Kins!” My brother’s voice crackled down the line. “Grandpa wants a book on ducks. Do you have one?”
I blinked several times in quick succession like I had something in my eye.
Boy, today was wild.
“Fictional or otherwise?” I asked.
“I don’t know, sis. I came to do an evaluation for the summerhouse they want to build and he accosted me at the site. I doubt he wants to read about the ugly duckling, though.”
“All right. He wants an idiot’s guide to raising ducks, basically.”
“Basically.” He chuckled. “Hey, did something happen last night?”
“Aside from the desperately terrible date?” I trapped the phone between my ear and shoulder as I hit the non-fiction section we kept. It was small compared to the fiction stuff, but big enough that we probably did have an idiot’s guide to raising ducks.
“Nah, after Josh went to yours. He’s been in the foulest fucking mood, and I fought with Amber this morning, so I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine myself.”
I paused. “No. Nothing happened.” What? That was only a half lie. “Maybe he didn’t sleep well.”
Colt grunted down the line. “Well, he was texting at lunch, then told me to fuck off. Did you say something to him?”
“Why do you assume it was me?”
“Because he was muttering about ‘fucking Kinsley,’ and correct me if I’m wrong, but your name isn’t exactly common enough to be on keyrings.”
Ah, personalized keyrings and mugs. Or rather, the lack of.
The bane of my childhood.
“I have no idea what I could have possibly done to annoy him,” I replied. Again, only half lying.
Well, a quarter.
Colt grunted again.
“You should get that grunting thing seen to,” I said whimsically, browsing the animal section. Chickens, guinea, more chickens—ah! “I found the duck books.”
“Great,” he said dryly. “Can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“We have one idiot’s guide to ducks. Want me to put it back for you?”
“Is it actually called idiot’s guide to ducks?”
“No. It’s called How to Raise Ducks And Other Poultry, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“Fine. Put it aside. I’ll swing by after work and get it for him. Unless you want to drop it over?”
“That’s a negative,” I replied. “I have to make money, and I have tomato plants to prune and feed tonight.”
“Such a cop out.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m the one carrying an idiot’s guide to ducks through the store.” I stepped back behind the register and tucked it under the counter with my Abigail Lyon book. “Gotta go. Let me know when you’re coming in.”
And with that, I hung up and saw to the hikers who were all holding armfuls of books that varied from how-to guides on the trails locally to romance and even murder mysteries.
I did it all with a damn big smile, too.
CHAPTER TEN – JOSH
rule ten: as hemingway said, ‘write drunk, edit sober.’
rephrased: chat drunk, date sober.<
br />
mostly.
KINSLEY: U mad, bro?
I stared at my phone. What the fuck was that?
ME: What?
KINSLEY: U mad, bro?
ME: You need to get off the internet.
KINSLEY: I know. Even writing that hurt me.
KINSLEY: Colton said you’re in a shit mood. What did I do?
Nothing, I wanted to say. Lie. I wanted to lie.
Tell her she’d done nothing. That all her stupid fucking questions earlier were unfounded, that I was just being nice when I’d said she was beautiful, and the reason I’d said I was glad her date went badly was because I genuinely didn’t like the guy.
“That’s my brother’s line” be damned.
ME: Nothing. Slept bad, that’s all.
KINSLEY: You’re so full of crap even politics doesn’t want you.
Her brain was a strange place. Wonderful, but strange.
ME: Might make a good journalist though.
KINSLEY: Doubt it. You’d get bored in five minutes.
ME: I take offense at that.
KINSLEY: I take offense at you ignoring my questions.
I sighed. I should have known better than to avoid her. She was like a rabid dog with a bone when she wanted to know something.
ME: Fine. It just wasn’t your usual style and it took me by surprise.
KINSLEY: Try again.
ME: It was very revealing.
KINSLEY: Negative, it was actually very demure. Try again.
ME: I didn’t like him. I thought he was a dick.
KINSLEY: Three strikes and you’re out, asshole.
ME: Fine. I thought it was too sexy for a first date and you gave me a hard on.
KINSLEY: Are you serious?
Yes.
ME: Of course I’m not serious. But you might have given him one and it’s not a good look for a first date, trust me.
KINSLEY: You’re lying.
ME: Fine. You gave me a hard on when I saw the picture. It made me uncomfortable.
KINSLEY: Speak for yourself. I feel like I need to burn that dress now. I can definitely never wear it around you.
ME: Not if you want me to rip it off.
KINSLEY: This conversation is getting uncomfortable.
ME: You insisted on it, not me.
KINSLEY: I regret that decision greatly.
ME: All you had to do was accept my stupid lie originally and none of this would have happened.
KINSLEY: I can never look you in the eye again.
ME: The feeling is mutual, trust me.
KINSLEY: I wish we’d never had this conversation.
ME: Well, there you go. There’s your next dating tip. Leave shit the hell alone when someone doesn’t want to talk about it.
I put my phone face down on the sofa and grabbed my beer from the coffee table. As much as I hated that I’d admitted that to her, it’d shut her up. At least I hoped it had. The last thing I need was for this conversation to go any further than this.
I wasn’t lying when I said I’d never be able to look her in the eye again.
I rolled my neck and shoulders, silently pleading with the knots in my shoulder muscles to loosen up. It had been a long ass day at work. Combine that with my frustration over last night, my slight hangover this morning, and having to set Kinsley up with yet another guy…
I was so fuckin’ done today.
I needed a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.
The hot shower I could guarantee. The sleep? Not so much.
I left my phone on the sofa, finished my beer, and headed to the bathroom to do just that. I turned on the shower and twisted the dial to the hottest heat I could stand. It took only a minute for the bathroom to be filled with steam, and I stripped naked before I got into the large, walk-in shower.
The steaming hot water beat down on me like the massage my shoulders so desperately needed. I had no idea how long I stood there, letting it drain over me, before I washed my hair and scrubbed down my body.
I let the water wash the soap off for a few minutes before my crinkled fingertips told me I’d spent long enough in the water.
I got out of the shower and killed the water before wrapping a clean, blue towel around my waist. My house was deathly quiet, and for the first time since I’d moved in, I wished I didn’t live alone.
Or that I wasn’t alone right now.
I padded into my room, leaving wet footprints on the thick hall carpet on my way, then sat on the end of my bed. I had absolutely no desire to get out of this towel and physically dry myself off, so I didn’t.
Kinsley Lane.
She was the bane of my fucking existence right now.
The worst thing was that I’d put myself in this situation. I was the idiot who’d offered to set her up, and now, I had no choice but to go through with it.
I was the idiot who’d been honest with her tonight.
Thankfully not entirely honest. Fuck knows what she’d do if she knew how I really felt. That I was sorry her date was shit because I wanted her to be happy, but I was glad it was shit because I wanted her to be happy with me.
I was one poetic line away from being a lovesick motherfucking puppy.
“Colton’s sister,” I muttered to myself as I got up and grabbed some boxers from the dresser. “Colton’s. Fucking. Little. Sister.”
If I said it enough times, maybe it would sink in, maybe it would smack me in the face enough that I’d forget all of this.
Or maybe I’d throw caution to the goddamn wind and tell Kins the truth,
No.
No, that wasn’t a fucking option, and I knew that.
That was why I was doing this. Why I was her matchmaker. Why I was setting her up with guys I didn’t think were worthy to lick her Ugg boots clean.
If she was happy, I’d be able to cut a knife through my feelings and move on.
In theory.
In. Fucking. Theory.
The problem with theory is that it always needed a practical experiment to back it up and prove it.
And I was my own goddamn fucking experiment.
I tugged on my boxer briefs and used the towel to scrub the excess water from my hair. Maybe I needed to get on the dating site for myself and find someone to go out with.
Yeah.
I was gonna do that.
I tossed the towel to the floor and went back downstairs. After stopping into the kitchen to grab another beer, I uncapped it using the Montana-shaped fridge magnet I’d grabbed at Bookworm’s Books several months ago and headed back to the living room.
I took a long drink from the neck of the ice-cold Coors bottle and grabbed my phone. I had a series of messages from Kinsley, and I reluctantly tapped on the notification to read them.
KINSLEY: Sorry. I just wanted to know. I knew there was something you weren’t telling me.
KINSLEY: Obviously if I knew what it was I wouldn’t have asked.
KINSLEY: But if I knew, I wouldn’t have had to ask.
KINSLEY: Anyway, I’m sorry.
KINSLEY: Why aren’t you replying? Are you mad at me?
KINSLEY: Josh, I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me.
KINSLEY: You’re mad, aren’t you?
KINSLEY: Omg. You’re so mad. I’m sorry. I’ll forget you ever said anything. I’M SORRY!!!!
I rubbed my temples. Fuck me.
ME: I’m not happy, but I’m not mad. You’re forgiven. Stop texting me every ten seconds. I was taking a shower.
KINSLEY: OH MY GOD YOU’RE ALIVE
ME: When would I have died in the last twenty minutes?
KINSLEY: Murderers are a thing, you know.
ME: You need to a: stop watching the ID channel and b: read a little less murder in your books
KINSLEY: Okay, first, you need to apologize for that.
ME: I won’t.
KINSLEY: Well, now I’m mad.
ME: Thank God. I might get some peace and quiet to find myself a date instead of you.
&
nbsp; KINSLEY: You’re looking for a date?
ME: Is it that shocking?
KINSLEY: No. I just didn’t know you were in the market for a girlfriend.
ME: I’m not looking for a potato stand, Kins. A nice dinner will do.
KINSLEY: Can I help?
ME: Absolutely not. Now go away.
KINSLEY: **middle finger emoji**
I took that as my cue to shut down the conversation. It seemed like a natural end, so I pulled up the Tap That app and logged out of Kinsley’s account. It didn’t take me long to create my own account, and after a few minutes of work on my profile, I started looking.
The app showed a lot of matches for me.
Good.
I scrolled through them, and after ten minutes, I’d matched with five different profiles. Within sixty seconds one of them had matched back with me, and I made the first move to message her.
Josh_395: Hi. How are you doing?
MTgirl: Pleasantly surprised at the lack of cheesy pick up lines. How are you?
Josh_395: Good, thanks. Bit tired from work.
MTgirl: What do you do?
Josh_395: I’m a builder in White Peak. You?
MTgirl: Cool. I’m a reporter for the Dartree Daily. Do you live in White Peak?
Josh_395: Sure do. You live in Dartree Mountain?
MTgirl: Born and raised.
Josh_395: Not too far to go for dinner, then…