I take a deep breath, feeling a sort of ache in the pit of my stomach, a pain that’s been showing up every now and then since I came back. A reminder of how lost I’ve been feeling lately.
“It . . . didn’t work out,” I tell Carl.
It was a combination of things that caused the inevitable demise of the start-up I’d been working to get off the ground with friends from college. But the main one was money. We just simply ran out of it.
I’m not sure why it rankles to admit this to the island handyman; it’s not like I was some small-town star, the boy expected to go places. I’ve mostly lived under the radar since moving here in the seventh grade when my mom married Keith McMannus, who’d been a Sunset Harbor staple for pretty much his entire life.
But maybe that’s why. Because I wasn’t someone people talked about growing up, and now I feel like they will be for all the wrong reasons: Briggs Dalton is a failure.
“Well,” he says, reaching out and patting my arm. “I’m sure your mom is happy to have you back.”
“She is,” I say, giving him a nod. That’s the one silver lining—my mom was more than happy to get me back here. So was my sister, Scout. They’ve been pestering me for years, ever since I graduated college. Now I’m back and working at the bookshop, and also living in the apartment above it. Not exactly how I pictured my life going.
Carl takes a small step closer to me, his chin dipping slightly. “Do you know . . . is she, uh, your mom, seeing anyone?” he asks in low tones, even though we’re the only ones here.
My eyes widen of their own accord. Carl’s . . . interested in my mom? I have no idea if my mom is seeing anyone, because, well, I don’t want to know. My guess is probably not. It’s only been three years since Keith passed away unexpectedly. “Carl, I—”
I’m cut off—or saved, essentially—by the bell that rings whenever the door to the bookshop is opened. Carl jumps back like we’ve just been caught in a shady deal.
“Sorry . . . I’m just . . . gonna . . .” I hook a thumb over my shoulder, toward the entrance of the store.
I walk away from Carl without a backwards glance, around the corner from the shelves we were standing by, and to the entrance. I expect to see my mom, who’s supposed to be here this morning, or someone else from the island who’s hopefully not here to ask me about my mom’s current dating status, but instead I find someone else.
I’ve been away from the island for a while now—nine years, to be exact. I’m sure there have been new people who’ve moved to the island since then, and the woman standing in front of me, petite build, black running shorts and a white tank, dark hair pulled back into a low ponytail, a baseball cap on her head and dark glasses covering her eyes, is definitely someone I’ve never seen around here before.
And yet, she looks familiar.
“Can I help you?” I ask, after I realize I’ve been staring, trying to figure out how I might know the person standing in front of me. I reach up and push my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
“I’m looking for a book,” she says, tilting her head up to compensate for the several inches of height difference between us.
“Oh, right. Well, we sell those here,” I say, holding out a hand toward the rows of shelves that take up most of the space.
She gives me a closed-mouth smile, and I mentally slap myself for sounding like an idiot.
“Bye, Briggs,” Carl says as he walks past. He does a double take at the woman standing in front of me before exiting out the door, the bells ringing as he leaves.
I clear my throat once the door shuts. “Anything in particular I can help you find?”
“Yes. I was hoping to get a copy of Secret Crush by Sunny Palmer,” she says. Her voice is lower and raspy sounding. Very sexy, in my just-formed opinion. Again, I’m hit with the feeling that I’ve met her before. Maybe if she weren’t wearing those shades, I’d figure out how I know her. It doesn’t seem like she plans on taking them off, though.
“Yah-yes,” I say, stammering over my words. “We’ve got a few copies. My mom ordered them for the book club they have here on the island. It’s usually just a bunch of ladies from the retirement center. I can find out when they meet if you want to join?”
What am I even talking about?
“That’s okay,” she says. “I’m not really a book club kind of person.”
“Right. Of course.”
I weave my hands together in front of me because they’re suddenly feeling like misplaced appendages on my body. I clear my throat unnecessarily. She sniffs.
“Can you . . . maybe show me where the book is?” she finally asks.
“Uh, yes,” I say. What is happening to me right now? I’ve been body snatched by a moron. I’ve always been awkward, especially around the opposite sex, but this is above and beyond. “It’s just . . . um . . . over here.”
I turn toward the shelves and she follows me. I know exactly where the current Sunny Palmer books are located because I sold a copy to someone from the book club just the other day.
“Here it is,” I say, pulling the last one from the shelves and handing it to her.
She takes it from me, and I notice her fingernails are ragged looking, as if she’s scraped off her nail polish. “Thanks,” she says.
“Do you . . . need any other books?”
“Actually, yes,” she says, her eyebrows peeking over the top of her sunglasses. “Do you have any recommendations?”
“Recommendations?”
Her lips pull slightly upward. “Yes, anything else I need to read?”
“I . . . uh . . .” I may be working in a bookshop, but I don’t actually read. Not fiction books, at least. Maybe Carl’s right and we should add some nonfiction. Who knows, I might find refrigerator repair manuals compelling.
She grabs a book off the shelf. “Like this one. Is it any good?”
I look down at the cover. “Oh, yeah, that one is . . . great. The Rule Book by Sarah Adams. Everyone is reading it.”
She cocks her head to the side, the corner of her mouth moving up slightly. “What’s it about?”
“Well, it’s a rule book of sorts. There are these rules.”
