Page 18

ALANA

“Books Books Books…” I set my elbows on the newly cleared desk and my chin in my hands, and while Franky types away at the ancient computer, I stare at the ugly, peeling stickering on the windows that face Main Street.

“Was there literally no other options for them when they named this place? Books Books Books is the absolute best they could come up with?”

“Well… if we’re talking about metadata, I suppose it was the smartest option of them all.”

I tilt my head to the side and study my son’s profile. “What?”

“Metadata is the data that explains other data.” He stops typing and turns to me with a broad smile. “Fun fact: metadata began as an organizational system within libraries. Which makes Books Books Books not only a smart choice but historically, it’s cleverly accurate, too.”

“Honey…” I exhale. “You’re hurting my brain.”

He twists back to continue working. “If someone is driving through town and looking to buy books, so they jump to Google or even ask a random lady on the street, what do you think the first suggestion might be?”

“ Books Books Books ?” I poke my eyes and pray the new pain will distract me from the headache pounding in the back of my skull. “But it’s just so bland.”

“Says the writer,” he quips. “Of course you’d prefer something else. Maybe ask Mrs. Middler if you could change it. ”

“We are here to breathe new life into the store.” Closing my eyes, I feel around blindly for my pen and the stack of Post-Its that’ve had a workout since we arrived this morning.

Then, opening my eyes once more, I write; New store name ?

“I’ll ask. I want to mention restocking the fridges, too, and maybe updating the coffee machine to something a little less… ”

“Broken?” he offers seriously. “It’s being held together by rust.”

“Maybe one of those automatic pod machines, so customers can help themselves. It would create an atmosphere of relaxation, and those machines are pretty cheap. Entice customers in with the free coffee, and keep them here to buy books. It would pay for itself pretty quickly.”

“You need to ask about Mrs. Middler’s grandson helping to move all the books, too.

” He taps enter on the old keyboard and moves to the next line of his spreadsheet.

He creates macros and algorithms—words he taught me—and makes it so I can enter the name of a book on one page, and it’ll automatically populate across a dozen more where needed.

“There are too many for us to move on our own and?—”

The bell above the door jingles, drawing Franklin and me around in sync, but I doubt his stomach drops the way mine does when I meet the beautiful hazel glare of a Watkins twin.

My heart seizes, and my vision darkens. But it takes only a moment for panic to make way for relief. For horror to clear out and my lungs to relax. Those boys might be identical to the rest of the world, but to me… even after all this time…

“Chris?” I press a hand over my pounding chest and lean forward to look past his broad frame, searching the sidewalk in case the other Watkins boy— man , now, I guess—isn’t out there. “Um…”

“It’s just me.” He wanders in with an easy smile and a split lip—one is a surprise to me, the other isn’t. Then, closing the door, he glances to Franky and lifts his chin in hello. “Franklin. How’s it going?”

“You’re not Tommy.” He goes back to tapping on his computer. “You look the same to me. But Tommy is angrier.”

“Kinda ironic,” Chris chuckles. “Normally, folks say the very opposite about us.” Pulling a cap off his head to reveal dark brown hair, he fusses with the bill and meanders closer.

Still, he leaves an easy eight feet between us.

“Alana. Heard you were taking over for Mrs. Middler.” He glances along the aisle nearest him and nods his approval. “Got a hell of a job ahead of you.”

“We were just saying how Mrs. Middler’s grandson should come to help us move the books,” Franky murmurs. “There are a lot here. ”

“We could help.” Chris’s eyes flicker with kindness, though that flicker dies away pretty quickly. “Or I could help. Just me.”

“What are you doing here, Christian?” I angle my stance, placing myself between him and my son. “It’s not a coincidence you came in here today, and we both know you’re not looking for a new book to read. So say what you’ve gotta say, then let us get on with what we were doing.”

“That’s how it’s gonna be, then?” His jaw clenches with the million words he doesn’t speak.

The countless thoughts that pass through his intelligent brain.

“I didn’t realize we were enemies. I didn’t even realize we weren’t friends.

I just know that, at one point in my life, you were basically my best friend—you and Tommy both—and then, the next, you left town. ”

“Feels like Groundhog Day.” I sigh. “I already had this discussion.”

“I’m not him.” He jabs a finger toward the door, his temper slipping when he so easily, under other circumstances, keeps it on a tight leash.

“I’m not Tommy, and when I ask you these questions, it’s not for the same reasons.

But you have to forgive me for being confused, Alana.

Forgive him, too. Because our world was normal, and then it wasn’t.

There was no warning. Not even smoke signals in the sky.

You’d make this transition a hell of a lot more comfortable for everyone if you explained what the hell happened back then. ”

“I don’t have to explain.” I turn to my son and wait for his eyes. “Can you go to the storage room out back and get my purse?”

“You want me to leave so you can talk to Chris in private?”

I cough out a soft laugh. And still, I nod. “Yeah, honey. Just for a few minutes. Could you give us that privacy?”

“Fine.” He snags his Murdles book and steals my pen, then circling the counter, he comes to a stop in front of Chris and looks up at the man who was once a brother to me. A part of my heart. “I’m going to be cranky at you when my mom is cranky at you. That’s what loyalty means.”

“Uh…” Nervous, Chris’ eyes flitter momentarily to mine, then back to my son again. “Sure. You’re absolutely right.”

“But I’m also coming to class this afternoon. Me and my mom talked about it, and she agreed I could. So when I’m in class, I won’t be cranky at you.”

“Well…” He rubs his chin. “That sounds fair.”

“Cranky-Me and Normal-Me aren’t really very different. You probably won’t notice. So I just wanted you to know I’m cranky at you right now. But later, I won’t be. ”

“Honey…”

“I’m going to the storage room now.” He lowers his chin and turns, stiff jaw and shoulders rolled back to emphasize the thickness of his chest. “I’ll come back in five minutes. I’m setting a timer, Mom.”

“I believe you.” I watch him maneuver the overcrowded aisle, stepping around piles of books and through an archway that really should be my priority as we start the clean-up of Books Books Books .

In the event of even the smallest tremor in the tectonic plates below Plainview, that stack will fall first. And the fact I even know the word tectonic is thanks, of course, to my son who read a book from cover to cover on the subject… last night .

“He’s somethin’.” Amused, Chris’ chest vibrates with laughter he doesn’t allow to become audible. “Smart cookie.”

“Mmhmm.” I bring my gaze back to his and lift a brow. “I don’t know how else to say all this, Chris. I left. Plainview became my past, and my little boy became my future. He needs me. There is nothing else for me to focus on except those facts.”

“ We needed you. We were a team; you, me, and Tommy. And even though you and Tommy were an item, you never once made me feel like I didn’t belong.”

“Chris—”

“And then you left. We thought you fucking died or something, Alana. We thought something absolutely horrible must’ve happened because the girl we knew from before, that Alana, would have never left us.

She would fight to the death to stay by our side.

And she could fight,” he growls. “She wasn’t gonna lay down for nobody. ”

I swipe my cheek, a sizzling tear horrifyingly slipping from my eye. “Please, stop.”

“You didn’t fight for us. You didn’t even try.

It’s like we didn’t even fucking exist anymore.

New York lights shone bright in your eyes, and that was just…

it was…” He draws a rattling breath. “You started a whole new life like Plainview never happened. That’s where we keep getting stuck, Alana.

Not that you left. Not even that you married up and had a kid and created a whole life.

You weren’t the first, and you won’t be the last small-town girl who ditched out after graduation in search of something more. ”

“Please, Chris?—”

“But why ?” He groans. “We need the why. If you wanted to go, then that’s cool; he would have come with you. If you didn’t want to be with him, then that’s cool, too; he wouldn’t have liked it, but he’s not the type to tie an unwilling woman down and take what’s not freely given. ”

A devastating sob tears along my throat and out to humiliate me.

“His heart was destined to break no matter how it shook out. And that, too, is cool. Not great .” He scoffs. “But hearts break every damn day across this country. If that’s how it was gonna go, then that’s how it would go. But why ?”

“I can’t tell you.” I search for the box of dusty tissues under the counter and tear a handful out to wipe my nose. “Don’t make me tell you, Chris. I won’t.”

“Not even a text!” he booms. “Not even a letter. Not a fucking social media post. There was nothing. So, to us, it’s like you died.

I had to save my brother’s life a hundred times because of you.

I had to stop him from leaving me here all a-fucking-lone.

Your absence shattered him worse than anything either of us has ever experienced— combined —and you were…

what? Busy falling in love with someone else? What the fuck is that?”