Page 26 of Silver Linings

fourteen

. . .

I’ve worn a hole in the already battered shop floor from the pacing I’ve been doing all afternoon. The kiss was days ago, and I can still feel a phantom touch of his lips on mine. It has me twisted up in knots, and he’s set to arrive any minute now.

Not that I’ve thought about it a lot.

Why am I nervous?

I have the distinct feeling that being alone with him is a very bad idea if I’m trying to be platonic. Not because I don’t trust him to not cross that line; I somehow know he wouldn’t if I asked. I just don’t think I can trust myself around him .

“Hols?” I call out to Holly, who is in the back room of the store, grabbing stock.

She pops out from behind the walnut door, looking harried and out of breath. “Yeah?”

“I know you’re almost off for the day, but would you mind staying after to help us start on the shelves?”

That sounded casual, right? Cause Holly can smell bullshit like a bloodhound, and she’ll call me out and try to extract the truth like an evil dentist.

Last year, Carmen started acting a little cagey over everything, no matter how big or small.

I thought she was just really stressed out from school and finals, but Holly sensed it was something else and convinced me to stage a quasi-interrogation.

In hindsight, it was probably a little invasive, but also effective.

Within minutes of Holly flipping off the lights to the store and shining a flashlight in her eyes, Carmen admitted she started seeing her toxic ex again.

To put it delicately—I fucking hate that douche canoe.

She left him to apartment sit for her, with the purpose of him taking care of her plants. When she came home on an earlier flight, she found him in her bed with someone else and all the plants dead. She was heartbroken for weeks—mostly over the plants.

When asked why the hell she would ever get back with him, she said she was dickmatized and couldn’t see clearly until that moment when she had to admit it to us. She’s been on the straight and narrow since, and he’s been terrorizing every sorority princess he can get to fall for his charms.

“I wish I could, but I promised Chloe I would go to a yoga class with her.” Chloe, Holly’s lifestyle influencer half-sister, is always going somewhere or trying something new. There isn’t a single restaurant in lower Manhattan she hasn’t tried and reviewed thoroughly to her hoard of followers.

“You’re going to yoga?” The very idea was ludicrous, since Holly abhorred physical activity of any kind. Every time I asked her to go to a class with me, she changed the subject suspiciously quickly.

“Ugh, I know.” She flails her arms around above her head as if to say, I don’t know what I was thinking agreeing to this .

“She lured me in under false pretenses by telling me it was puppy yoga. She didn’t fess up until this morning that she’s a big fat liar.

There will be no puppies. The hot yoga class is non-refundable under twenty-four hours, so I can’t cancel. ”

“That’s actually a brilliant way to manipulate you.” I bob my head, impressed at Chloe’s scheming.

“She’s the creepy man in a white van asking if I want any candy, but instead of a van, it’s a yoga class, and instead of candy, it’s puppies.

” She’s thoroughly pouting now as she aggressively restocks our bestseller shelf.

“I’ve now been enlightened that my once-cherubic little sister is actually a lying sociopath. ”

“Now there’s a headline for your Christmas newsletter,” I quip, moving my way around the front feature table.

I’ve barely made it behind the checkout counter to review my half-thought out renovation Post It notes—totaling close to a hundred now, and scattered across the tabletop along with invoices I want to ignore—when Hendrix comes in.

He’s in a distressed band tee that stretches over the dips and valleys of his arms and chest, faded Rangers hat on backwards, and the most devastating smile I’ve ever seen in my life—and I’ve seen Michael B Jordan in the flesh.

“Hey.” Warmth I want to sink into like a Snuggie infuses his tone as he slowly glides towards me. Or maybe he’s walking at a normal pace, and I can’t tell because I’m so hyper aware of his movements that it feels like he’s slow-mo Baywatching me right now.

“Hi,” I sputter out when he stops in front of me on the opposite side of the counter.

“ Hey ,” Holly says slyly.

Fuck. I forgot she was here.

Thankfully, Hendrix doesn’t draw attention to Holly’s innuendo-tinted greeting and pulls out one of the fliers to our event tomorrow.

“Unhinged Book Club?” His eyes pinball between me, Holly, and the page in his hands that advertises our new monthly event.

“It’s a club for very…specific readers.” It doesn’t explain anything, but I also don’t want to tell him exactly what that means either, and give him a reason to be curious.

“You should totally come to the meeting, Hendrix. It’s next Friday night,” Holly offers, and man oh man, I’ve never wanted to strangle her faster.

Logically, I know she doesn’t know about the kiss or that I’m trying to avoid this weird feeling in my gut that feels unfathomably like butterflies.

The verdict is still out on that though, having no prior experience with the sensation, it could be indigestion for all I know.

“Oh, he doesn’t want to do that…” I sneak a glance over at him, only to find him already looking at me closely.

“I don’t?” Never taking his eyes off me, he crosses his arms over his chest and cocks his head in a challenge. Even having him look at me like that sends a series of shivers skirting up and down my spine, like a colony of ants is walking a path from my lower back into my hair and making me squirm.

“You haven’t even read the book, and it wouldn’t be easy to jump into the conversation. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“So thoughtful of you,” he deadpans.

“He could just sit in and observe,” Holly offers.

I narrow my eyes at her, but she just stares at me with an angelic look on her face.

“Didn’t you say you had somewhere to go after work?” I tilt my head at her in accusation. “Pilates with the Antichrist, was it?”

A minute ago, I was practically begging her to stay and act as a buffer, and now, I want to get her out of here before she has the chance to invite Hendrix to future events.

She checks her watch. “Shit, yes.” She grabs her bag from behind the counter and speed walks to the door. “Have fun repairing the dilapidated shelves. The one towards the back right broke earlier from a kid treating it like his personal jungle gym!”

The front door bell signals her departure and the imminent, death-by-embarrassment I’m sure to endure after what I have to do.

I reinforce my spine, readying myself to tell Hendrix we can’t have a repeat of Friday night and that things need to remain friendly and professional. But when I’ve finally worked up the nerve, I turn to find him leaving.

“Where are you going?” I stutter out.

He pauses on the threshold of the store. “I’m just grabbing the tools I left outside. I didn’t want to have them on the floor while you might have customers still browsing.”

Oh. Well, that was thoughtful.

He steps through the door and starts hauling in planks, electrical sanders, paint, and a large bag of tools. Christ, I really would’ve been lost if I had tried to do this all on my own.

“When—” I clear my throat as he stands from dragging the last of the materials in. “When did you order all of this?”

He stands to full height, pulls the hat off his head, pushes his hair back, and repositions his cap in one bizarrely, shouldn’t be sexy move. “After the first visit,” he says sheepishly.

“Oh.” I suddenly feel queasy.

“Should we get started?” he asks tentatively, as if sensing the shift in my tone. “Maybe with the shelf the kid was climbing on?”

I nod and head over that way, and, yup, there it is, a row that’s collapsed in the middle of the shelf. I start pulling the books off that one first and set them on the table behind me so we can clear it for repairs.

Hendrix wordlessly follows my lead and pulls titles off the shelf next to mine, occasionally pausing to read a synopsis or flip through the pages.

It’s…disarming, seeing him look so comfortable here while I feel anything but.

There’s a tension in the air, a rubber band pulled taut, waiting to snap.

I can feel him glance over at me every few minutes as we continue to work in silence—and I ignore it each time he does.

Even as I struggle to pull titles off the highest shelf, and he reaches over to help me, crowding my senses with his woodsy scent, I keep my gaze downcast and murmur my thanks.

Book after book is removed until we have two, floor-to-ceiling shelves removed of stock to repair broken or bowed wood, fill any dings, so we can sand down and paint them until they’re gleaming.

Then, we’ll repeat that on the other twenty that fill the room, not including the tables, floorboards, staircase and second floor.

I feel Hendrix’s eyes shift to me again, and I know I can’t keep putting this off. Time to put on my big girl pants and rip off the proverbial band-aid.

“We need to talk…about Friday,” I blurt out.

“Will you be looking at me during this conversation?”

I face him, slightly chagrined.

“Great. Okay, great,” I stutter over my words, unsure of myself.

“I’m just going to come out and say it. While that kiss was super hot…

like really hot…” I chance looking up at him and feel the full weight of his stare, heavy and inescapable.

For a second, I forget why I even wanted to do this, but I power through.

“I think it’s best if we keep things professional from here on out. ”

I don’t know what I expect to see in his eyes after I deliver my speech, but it certainly wasn’t the look he’s directing at me now. He looks resolute. Determined. A little pained.

“Can I ask why?