I’m standing at the front with Eloisa, our newest part-timer, training her on how to use the program to ring up sales and how it interconnects with our inventory system, while trying to find a book for a new customer.

  It’s a random book the customer read ten years ago with a vague plot line but they don’t remember what the cover looked like (even for back then), and the name of the author, so obviously, I have my work cut out for me.

  We’re rudely interrupted when Noah walks inside, weighed down by plastic bags that he’s looped around his wrists, bringing in a blast of cold air with him. His pale cheeks have been burned by the wind, and he’s all red all over.

  The lady who reminds me of Mrs. Bristol grabs my attention again, and there’s something that tickles in my brain about the story, about that Regency romance that sounds familiar.

  “And then they rob the robbers?” I prompt, and her face lights up in recognition and I know that we’re on the right path.

  I’m able to order a physical copy for the customer, and offer to ship it directly to her home, but she doesn’t mind coming to the store to pick it up herself. She even gives me a hug for helping her find the book, and I let out a surprised laugh. I know I’m going to bask in that warm glow at having helped her out for the rest of the day, hell, maybe even the rest of the week.

  After that’s done, Noah brings out all the bags of food to the front desk and starts doling out the meals.

  “All right, let’s eat. Eloisa, I know you have to leave soon, so if you wanna leave early and get to class a little bit earlier, you can go now,” Noah says, glancing over at me, as if he’s waiting for my confirmation, but he just plowed right over my wishes.

  Poor Eloisa is also looking between the both of us, as if watching a tennis match, the tennis ball ricocheting from side to side. It would be funny, if annoyance didn’t chase away the golden glow of finding a book that was lost for the customer that just left.

  But I’m not going to be an asshole and tell Eloisa she can’t leave right now, because I don’t want to rock the boat. If Noah’s going to take this place from me, I don’t want to make it sooner rather than later. I’m not going to give him any more ammunition against me.

  “Yes, grab your food and go ahead, Eloisa. I hope you have a good day at school,” I say, remembering those horrendous university days that caused more stress-induced headaches and had me addicted to ibuprofen. “Enjoy the meal!”

  Noah glances down at me after handing off one of the meals to the kid, who leaves us behind with a quick wave. There’s only another five minutes or so of waiting for Caleb to take over her shift, but that’s still five minutes where no one’s manning the front desk, and the cash register, so I move to stand behind it.

  Noah follows behind me and shoves the bags all over the counter, starting to take out the Styrofoam packs of food that has me goggling.

  “I hope that’s all for you,” I say, cringing at how much I’m going to have to pay him back for the food. “And we shouldn’t eat here. It’ll smell, and it looks unprofessional.”

  Noah freezes, then sheepishly puts all the food back, trudging back to the back office, and I wait for Caleb at the front desk while taking care of some admin stuff and tidying up the front.

  When Caleb does show up, I find myself procrastinating, not wanting to get back to the office, to have to share the space with Noah.

  It’s going to be awkward, and I’ve managed to avoid being alone and eating with him all week, but now we’re going to be sharing a meal when I don’t even like the guy.

  I’m prone to not eating when I’m hyper-focused. I drink enough water to keep my stomach full and have to visit the toilet every twenty minutes, so it’s fine until I get home and eat some crackers with cheese, like a real adult. So this is going to be interesting.

  The food does smell pretty glorious, though, and my stomach howls, as if now just realizing that water is not enough.

  When I do gather the courage to get to the back office, it’s to find that Noah’s moved my laptop off to the side, and the whole surface of the desk is immaculate, and our ‘table’ is set with napkins and cutlery that I keep around for this very reason.

  It smells heavenly, Lebanese chicken and tabbouleh and a mound of turnips, and those green peppers I love. There’s some sort of mango salad, too, that’s mixed in with cucumber and what could be mint if I’m eyeballing it right, but the point is Noah’s got us a veritable feast, and I wonder who he’s trying to butter up with all of this food.

  If this is going to be a hostile takeover of sorts, I’m not going to be placated by food or gestures of goodwill.

  That’s not how this is going to go.

  “Noah, how are we going to eat all this?” I ask, taking my seat across from him as we’re now sharing my (well, what used to be my) desk.

  “With ease,” he says, smiling at me like we’re friends, like he’s not here to steal away everything I love. “Come on, get closer to the table. You got your cutlery and napkins? Dig in.”

  I watch for a few seconds, looking at Noah Bristol (confirmed last name), and watch him eat his food with gusto, seeming to enjoy those first few bites until he frowns at me and points at my food with his fork, trying to get me to eat.

  I open my pack of Lebanese chicken, the smell of the spices (maybe cinnamon?) flooding my nose, and then my salivary glands are taking over, and my stomach howls like it’s never howled with hunger before.

  I don’t take care of myself when I’m in productivity mode, and there’s always so much to do around here that I forget to eat, that I forget to care for myself.

  It took a whole Noah Bristol to make me realize that.

  Which is fine; it’s not like he has the advantage or anything like that.

  Shit, what if he tells Mrs. Bristol about this? About us sharing a meal and about me working twelve-hour days? How long is this going to last?

  Why am I in this horrible limbo?

  The fact of the matter is that Mrs. Bristol wants Noah here, and that’s all there is to it.

  Looks like I’m going to have to spruce up my CV, and I’m going to forget about sending her back an email with how hurt I am. I can go and cry at home like every other emotionally repressed human being.

  I’ll lose myself in a book, like I always do. The fictional worlds I fall into are a thousand times better than real life.

  That’s because you don’t have a life, Evie, and not having a life isn’t going to cross those resolutions off your list, either. Better get to it.

  If I have Noah here, that means I’m going to have more time to myself, potentially. If he’s shouldering some of the burden, maybe I’ll be able to actually get a life, actually transform from this boring version of myself and become Evie 2.0.

  Maybe this whole thing is a blessing in disguise.

  Every single story I’ve ever read hits this moment with the force of a sledgehammer. The hero leaves behind his boring, ordinary world in search of something more: to defeat a great evil, to make the world a better place.

  I’m just looking for the version of me that I thought I would be by now, the version of myself I should be.

  Noah smiles at me, as if he can hear my thoughts.

  Or maybe like this version of Evie isn’t so bad after all.

  I start eating my chicken and avoid eye contact, like the true hero I am.

  SIX

  “So what do you do for fun around here?” Noah asks, wiping at his mouth delicately, seemingly the perfect gentleman despite the loaded question.

  I fight, I fight hard not to roll my eyes, and try come up with something interesting to say, but I come up empty.

  “I read a lot, I work a lot,” I say around a bite of my Lebanese chicken. “That’s all there is to me. What you see is what you get.” I squint at him. “Or did you mean the city? I wouldn’t know, either way. I practically live here.”

  If he makes a movie reference, I’ll have to kill him. I’ll just have to.

  “Did you like the book I got you?” Noah asks, stabbing into his tabbouleh salad when it’s more of a scooping salad than anything else. I don’t know why he’s being so vicious, as if he’s unsettled.

  Hold on, is he unsettled by me? Why?! He’s the one with all the cards, literally the entire deck!

  I nod, but he’s not looking at me so I’m going to have to talk. “Yes, I did. Can’t wait to read the next four in the series.”

  Noah glances up, his dark eyes alight, and I wonder if this is how I look, too, when talking about a particularly exciting book or story, something that I loved and enjoyed.

  “If you go to the author’s website, she wrote some free little novellas if you want to check those out, too.” He nods along excitedly, like a pup that’s been confronted with a tennis ball, waiting for it to be thrown. “You get Deacon’s story, I think.” Noah squints up at the ceiling, and there’s something endearing in that, too.

  I don’t want to be endeared, I want to be angry and standoffish. This guy is stealing the store away from me!

  I tilt my head at him. It still boggles my mind that we’re discussing a dragon shifter romance, and that Noah isn’t like embarrassed by it or anything. Granted, in my limited experience, the guys I dated (the few and the far between) wouldn’t be caught dead even looking at a romance novel, relegating it to nothing but soft porn, when they’re so much more than that.

  I have immense respect for the romance genre, and it looks like Noah does, too.

  “I didn’t peg you for reading romance, Noah,” I say, scooping up some of my own serving of tabbouleh, enjoying the lemon, parsley, and bulgur goodness. Honestly though, the pièce de resistance is the garlic sauce, and I don’t care if it makes me stinky, I want to live a life where I can enjoy garlic sauce without anyone giving me shit.

  “Why? It’s a good story. I used to get squeamish about the intimate scenes, sure, like it was private, you know? But sometimes the author’s writing’s just so good, and some things are said during those scenes that could be important for the rest of the story. It’s not just this book, but a lot of romance novels I’ve read over the years—it made me think about my partner at the time more often than not.”

  I squint at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is he going to say what I think he’s going to say?

  Who is this guy? And how can I get to be as interesting as him?

  Well, see, we wrote out our resolutions for a reason, and we haven’t looked at the paper since the 31st of December and made zero strides to being a more well-rounded individual while you’ve been drowning in work and trying to figure out how to get Noah off your back and keep the store.

  Does that about sum it up, Evie?

  I shake my head at myself and eat some more chicken.

  “How did you become a skydiving instructor?” I ask because that’s what I really want to talk about. Namely, how in hell does Noah think that it qualifies him to steal my job and not run this place into the ground?

  Look, Evie, you don’t know what you don’t know. Give the guy some slack.

  It’s his birthright or whatever since Mrs. Bristol decided to forgo the whole biological imperative thing.

  Plus, I don’t like how he’s talking to me like I’m a friend. We’re not friends, just coworkers. That’s where the line is, and I don’t intend on crossing it anytime soon.

  Well, he did buy you food, so you should at least be grateful for that.

  Not like I can eat all that much with the way my stomach’s shrunk.

  “What? What’s wrong? Is the food bad?” Noah asks, leaning closer to the desk so he nearly puts his entire elbow into his own little tub of hummus, and that too, is somewhat endearing. He’s not cool and refined like I would imagine businesspeople seem to be—wearing suits and screaming into phones all the time.

  Evie, you are a businessperson. Stop with the thinking what you should look like and start acting like you already are, all right?

  I shake my head. “No. It’s good, delicious. I don’t think I even thanked you for the meal. Thank you, Noah,” I say, just to hear myself talk.

  How can Mrs. Bristol want her nephew, hummus-laden elbow and all, to run this place? Aren’t I better suited?

  Aren’t I?

  It’s Mrs. Bristol you have to convince, Evie, not Noah. Or maybe it is Noah. Just shut up and eat before you give yourself a headache.

  “Are you not hungry anymore?”

  I shake my head. “Yeah, I’m getting full. I’ll keep it in the fridge for supper,” I say, wanting to placate him, angry at myself that I want to placate him, like we’ve written some sort of invisible social contract that’ll keep us indebted to one another based on the fact that he purchased me food this one time.

  Noah squints at me as if trying to read between the lines, but I just blink and give him a shrug. “We don’t have to be at each other’s throats, you know. I’m not the happiest to be here, either,” he says.

  “What? This isn’t exciting enough for you? If skydiving’s your job, what do you do in your free time? Run after motorcycles? Take defensive driving classes? Jump out of hot air balloons? What? Tell me, I’d love to know,” I say, faking a smile hard enough that I feel something pull and tug in my cheeks.

  The food sits oddly in my stomach, heavy like lead, and the smells are starting to get to me, too. Noah sighs, and if I was anyone else but me, I’d want to lunge across the table and throttle him, scare him enough that he never comes back.

  Pretty sure there’s a fairy tale about a castle and a beast, and wanting to be left alone…

  “It’s not like I want to be here either, all right? My aunt…I owe her one. I have to do this for her. The last thing I know how to do is run this place. Just because I love books and reading doesn’t mean I know what the fuck to do when it comes to a spreadsheet,” he snarls, lips pulled back from his teeth.

  Something like pride burns in my chest, waiting to turn to a conflagration.

  “I don’t know how you look at that shit all day long, how you figure shit out, how you know what to do when you need to do it. Is that what you want to hear, Evie? How much better you are at this, and how shit I’m going to be at it? Well, there you go, I’ve said it. Now would you stop looking at me like you want to end me every single time we look at each other?”

  I blink at Noah and pull in deep breaths through my nose because for some reason I’m panting, trying to catch my breath. Emotions are running high, and we haven’t actually done any cardio or anything like that.

  “You wanna hear how I could never do what you do? Fine. Here is it, crystal clear, plain and simple. I, Noah Bristol, could not do in a week, maybe an even longer period of time, the amount of work Evie Prewitt does in a single day. There. Are you happy now?”

  I shake my head because no, I’m not happy. “I don’t want to be better than anyone, and it’s not like I’m going to lord it over you what I had to learn in school and what I taught myself to run this place. I’m not sorry for it, I’m not, so don’t go looking for me to apologize,” I say through clenched teeth, placing my hands on the desk, standing up so I can loom over my food, and by consequence Noah. It’s basically the only time I’ll ever be taller than him.

  “Did I ask for an apology? Jesus Christ, Evie, this isn’t what we’re talking about!” Noah looks seconds away from chartering a plane to land in the heart of the city to pick him up and fly off so he can chuck himself out at fifteen thousand feet and take his chances with fate.

  “You’re not even listening to me. I need your help, just as much as you need mine.”

  I rear back, affronted, like the word help is a bad, bad word. It’s not; I just have the world’s most complicated relationship with it.

  “Let me help you with what I can do, and you help me in understanding all of this. If we work together, maybe my aunt will let me off the hook in running this place when she sees that you’re the one better suited to it. Okay? How does that sound?”

  I squint at him, still standing, Noah still sitting, and if the power imbalance was just us standing here, then I would win by a landslide, but there’s more at stake.

  Is Mrs. Bristol really going to pick me over her nephew, especially when she brought him in this late, at this moment? A few months before she’s coming back from her retirement trip?

  Something wicked this way comes…

  That’s gotta be it, there’s gotta be not a light at the end of the tunnel, but some kind of bad news that’s going to ruin all of this for me, that’s gotta be it.

  “What your endgame here? What?” I squawk when Noah gets to his feet, planting his hands on the surface of the desk (narrowly missing that pesky tub of hummus) and leaning close so that we’re almost nose to nose.

  I hope I kill him with my garlic breath, and I can claim victory once and for all.

  My heart pounds and skips in odd fits and starts, and my brain chooses that very moment to notice the flecks of gold and deep green in the brown of Noah’s eyes, as if that is what I should be paying attention to right now instead of winning this argument once and for all.

  “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here,” Noah says through gritted teeth, and we’re both practically snarling at each other to the point where I think we’re going to start actually fighting, rolling around the ground like a bunch of idiots until I play dirty and win the upper hand.

  Yeah, right. As if I know how to fight or throw a punch. I’ve read about it, sure, but that’s not the same as actually doing it in real life, eh?

  I’d give it my best shot, though, for sure, if he gets physical first. I’d give it my best freaking shot.

  “But we’re not going to solve this by avoiding each other. There’s shit to do, and my aunt should be back in a couple of months. That’s eight weeks, Evie,” Noah says, tone still harsh and deep, his voice raspy.

  It’s a nice voice, all things considered. He’d kill it as an audiobook narrator, I’m sure of it.

  Really, brain? Betraying me like this in the heat of the moment?