It’s kinda cute that he mimics the action too, right back at me, even though his dark eyes (with the green flecks in them) are sparking with something like anger.

  I whirl away from him, heading to greet the customer in French then in English, and help them out as much as I can.

  When it’s clear that the customer, a young woman, maybe a few years younger than me (but honestly, who knows?), keeps glancing over at Noah, who’s still putting away books, fixing the shelves, making sure edges align with edges, do I get it.

  Time to make myself scarce.

  I tell Noah where I’m going with a wave in the general direction of the back office, confident that he can get her number all by himself, and if not, the very least he could do is sell a book, or hell, a whole slew of books for pissing me off.

  In the office, I’m ashamed to admit that it takes more than a few minutes for my heart rate to return to normal, and I still feel like I need to unscrew my jaw from the locked position it’s in, grinding my teeth practically to dust.

  Mrs. Bristol is in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea again, so no phone call today, just an email that had a bunch of typos and the general gist of: call u tomo. One less headache, and an item crossed off my daily checklist so that I only have to deal with it tomorrow.

  It’s a win-win kind of day.

  Except that whole pseudo-fight—or discussion—I had with Noah out there, in the middle of the shop, right in front of the storefront windows where everyone can literally peer inside to see us acting so unprofessionally.

  I want to collapse and sleep for the next forty-eight hours, but honestly, payroll isn’t going to do itself, so I get to work, filing in the timesheets the kids give me for every two-week period, and start the arduous task of printing out their stubs after making sure there’s no issues with their direct deposit information.

  It doesn’t take me long to do that, but hell if I’m going to leave this sanctuary and head out there to see Noah flirting and being all charming and whatever when he’s got work to do and should get right back to it, like I always tend to do.

  I wait another five minutes, pacing, watching the clock on my laptop screen roll over to seven-thirty. When I’ve finally had enough, I realize that I’m giving him the advantage by hiding back here, as if I have some odd stake in this very odd game we’re playing, I head out into the shop, to be stopped by a very loud and obnoxious laugh, a laugh that doesn’t sound like Noah’s.

  But I do recognize it, for sure.

  Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I thought it was going to be sooner, actually.

  That’s Izzy’s laugh. While she usually tends to hang out with me as my shift heads toward an end and hers only begins, Izzy’s been going to night classes, bettering herself with some extra educational credits and the like, and I’ve missed her these past few Fridays.

  Doing night classes and then going to do your shift at work sounds like a special version of hell on earth, and I don’t know how she does it when I’m drowning during the dayshift and I don’t go to school anymore.

  There’s an internal clock that is counting down in my head until Mrs. Bristol gets back and I have to show her that she can trust me with this place, despite all the shit that’s falling apart in here.

  If somebody says the word asbestos I might just lie down right here and lose my will to live, honestly.

  Izzy laughs again, loud, loud, and I know she’s laying it on thick. Or maybe she’s never seen Noah before?

  Yup, that’s it, Evie. That’s it.

  Guess they’re going to fall in love now or some shit. Izzy lives in a romance novel that has multiple partners—a rotating menage—and honestly, I wish I was more like her. I’m a women’s literary fiction novel that doesn’t get any of that good stuff, just a hint of it.

  Hence, my resolutions and the way I keep ignoring them.

  If I want to be on another bookshelf, I have to look the part.

  That’s it, I’m dyeing my hair a different color and actually putting my contacts in. This is going to be the reveal scene and then all the gorgeous (and non-alpha assholes) will come to my yard and fall in love with me just because.

  Yup, that’s it, that’s what’s gonna happen.

  Anytime now.

  I’m waiting…

  Still waiting…

  “Hey, Izzy,” I say, stomping into view, rounding one last bookshelf before I can see the pair of them standing there, practically limned by all the flameless candlelight and the lights overhead that also need to be changed out (it’s on my list, it’s on my list!), and it’s disgusting how perfect they look together.

  Not that I care.

  Nope, not me.

  I’m going to have my makeover done over the weekend, take a few hours to myself instead of running myself into the ground, and look the part. Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do. I might even go see Cousin Max so she can teach me how to do her complicated (but no less lovely) eyeshadow looks. I, too, want to look like a bird of paradise.

  Anything that isn’t drab, old, dependable Evie 1.0.

  Anything but that.

  “Hey, Evie. What’s up? I didn’t know you were working with this guy,” Izzy says, pointing at Noah, completely unnecessarily. I have eyes, I can see and understand the undercurrent of what’s being said.

  I cross my arms in front of my chest and clench my jaw again, the joint in front of my ear giving a bright flare of pain. “You know him?”

  “Yeah, I know him. We’ve met before,” she says, completely sidetracking me.

  I glance over to Noah, and he’s looking at me, not at my cousin who is like a sister to me, more than my actual blood sister is. We’re both workaholics and emotionally constipated—it’s not a good mix.

  “Is that so?” I ask, licking at my lips and glancing over at Noah, one of my eyebrows raised in question. “Care to elaborate?”

  If Izzy says she dated Noah in the past, I’m going to punt him across the room, no the street, nay, the length of the very island and straight into the river.

  Evie, what is happening right now? What is happening to you?

  I don’t know, I don’t know…

  “Izzy knows a friend of mine,” Noah says, running a hand through his hair, and I’ve noticed he does that when he’s nervous, like he can partially hide his face with the movement, or it’s a way to keep his head up instead of slumping forward and admitting to some form of guilt.

  Then again, I might be reading too deeply into it.

  “Right,” I say, and Izzy smirks at me. “What?”

  Izzy shrugs, but her grin says too much, and honestly, I don’t want Noah to look at her, with that grin on her mouth. That grin says Izzy’s ready to spill state secrets, the kind of secrets that we said we’d take to our graves, but here she is, all pretty made-up eyes and dark-tinted mouth looking like a rockstar and then there’s me…. just me.

  Evie 2.0. needs to be here, like, yesterday.

  Or until I find the time to undergo this Sailor Moon-like transformation with a background OST and everything, and honestly, I take my music choices seriously.

  “Nothing, I didn’t say anything. I brought you a coffee. It’s over there.” Izzy points to the front counter that Noah should be behind, and I wonder if he did sell anything to that random customer we had before since I don’t see her anywhere in the vicinity.

  “Thanks. I need a boost.”

  “Except Noah here was telling me how much caffeine you drink, and Evie, that’s like twice the normal daily recommended amount. I just checked.” Izzy holds her hand up, as if ready to swear on a stack of Bibles. “And that’s saying something, you know?”

  I shake my head at her, shrugging my shoulders to release some of the tension in my muscles and bone. Why am I so tense? Why? I drop my arms at my sides and place them at my hips, then stuff my hands in my pockets, rocking on my heels to my toes, to my heels…to my toes.

  “How’s work going?” I prompt, and at last, Izzy takes over the conversation and tells me about this guy who’s in one of her night classes that works as a bouncer at l’Arsenale. It’s a dinner club lounge she works at pretty much every single night—the club catering both to upper business clientele and then the rest of mere mortals on Friday nights and the weekends.

  I’ve never been.

  “We should go,” Noah says, pointing to me, as if I’m not actually here, standing within the same vicinity of them two.

  “Go where? To the club? Are you kidding me?” I glance at Noah to see if he is joking, but he’s not, he’s really not.

  “Who’s going to man the store?”

  “Jesus, Evie, the party doesn’t start until after ten-thirty anyway. You can get home, change, and then come back. I’ll sneak you guys in so no cover charge. I can’t make any promises about the drinks, though. I kinda don’t want to get fired, you know?” Izzy winces, and looks between Noah and me, then sticking her gaze on me, waiting for my decision.

  What would Evie 1.0 do? She’d beg off and go home and watch some horrendous true crime show and then probably have nightmares and zero sleep unless the light was on in her bedroom window. But I don’t want to be Evie 1.0 anymore.

  I want to be Evie 2.0.

  But honestly? I’m already so tired and exhausted, and wiped out from the day, from the week, and the emotional turmoil is getting to me. I literally have no energy stores left to deal with loud music that vibrates my bones and hair follicles in different ways, and I don’t really have the funds to splurge on watered-down, overpriced alcoholic beverages when I have a bottle of rum at home that I got for Christmas for shits and giggles and have yet to open.

  In the end, though, I look over to Noah, who’s got an infuriating grin on his face, watching me deliberate in my head, maybe even thinking that I’m running through a mental list of pros and cons of why or why not I should go dancing with the likes of him.

  And that’s what decides me.

  “You got anything left in your car, Izzy, that I can wear tonight?” I ask, teeth bared in a farce of a smile.

  Noah’s throat works with his audible swallow, and I want to crow my victory.

  Yeah, we’re doing this. We’re so doing this.

  Dancing and drinks…. with Noah, my work colleague.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  NINE

  “I am aware that I look good in heels, Izzy. I am aware, but shit, I’m going to break my stupid ankle just walking from the sidewalk to the door and that’s not including how to navigate black ice. I am super tall though,” I say, looking at myself in the mirror, practically backed up all the way into the office to get a full-frame view of myself in the tiny mirror of our shared restroom in the back office.

  Izzy magically got out a short black dress that hits me mid-thigh that I wear with opaque leggings, and the little (and tall) booties she’s letting me borrow for the night.

  “I knew we were the same shoe size for this very reason—look at you. I’m like the fairy godmother and you’re Cinderella.”

  I roll my eyes. “Give me a break. Cinderella, my ass.” I sigh, put my hands to my hips and check myself out from every angle. I look good, but I feel kind of uncomfortable. The dress isn’t scandalous, and because I’m wearing leggings I know I’m not going to freeze and die from the cold. The dress is even long-sleeved too, and while I’m appreciating it now, I think I’m going to pass out with the canned body heat that’s going to be the dinner club..

  “Evie, what are you doing?” Izzy asks, her voice soft and light, and I have to tear my gaze away from my reflection and glance over at her. Her head’s tilted to the side, and her dark-rimmed eyes are sultry and mysterious while I just have some eyeliner and mascara on.

  Izzy looks like the siren calling you to your death; meanwhile I’m the sensible idiot yelling at you to plug up your ears. One of us is more alluring than the other, and that’s just the way it’s always been.

  I shouldn’t be mad about it, or annoyed.

  There’s enough girl hate in the world, and I don’t plan on taking a part in it.

  Besides, Izzy’s like a sister to me, and it would be really, really dumb to hate her (or come to hate her) over Noah, of all people.

  Noah, who’s waiting for me right outside the closed office door as I was getting changed. Noah, who’s looked at me I don’t know how many times today, who’s kept glancing over to me as Izzy went out of the shop and hit the street to get to her car and get me something to wear.

  Noah, who let the silence lengthen and get heavy, who did nothing but look at me in a way that I’ve never been looked at before, as if I was being seen for the first time in my life. And I wasn’t even wearing this really great dress.

  Maybe Noah’s been seeing me this whole time, too, and I’ve been the blind one, just as I am.

  Or maybe I’m reading too deeply into things like I’ve done my entire life. Too much emotional empathy or whatever we’re calling it nowadays.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing. Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to…step out of my comfort zone. Maybe. I think.” I squint at my cousin and watch her laugh at me, shaking her head like I’ve done something cute.

  I shrug again, then lift and drop my shoulders a couple of times to get the tension out of them.

  “God, it’s so obvious that you like this guy.” Izzy jerks a thumb over her shoulder to where Noah is standing outside. Her grin says it all, while I all of a sudden don’t feel like going anywhere. “Come on. Tell me you knew you’ve got a crush on him. Evie, come on.”

  I shake my head. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, like some haughty Victorian noblewoman. I bite my lip. “You don’t think he knows, right? I don’t even know that I know. He can’t possibly.”

  Izzy rolls her eyes, and I swear I see the whites for a split second. Maybe she’s communing with the other side.

  “Look, you do what you want, okay? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Izzy says, coming to stand in from of me now, placing her hands on my shoulders, a gentle weight that I feel thrum throughout the entire length of my body.

  “You don’t have to come out with me to prove a point. You forget that I remember what happened last time.”

  I grunt at her like I’ve been punched. “Hey, you said you were drunk that night and didn’t remember a single thing, and I scared you so bad into never doing it again. Imagining blacking out from drinking—who does that? Don’t you realize what can happen to you when you don’t know what’s happening to your body, or your surroundings?”

  “You read too many thrillers,” she says. Izzy smirks, dropping the subject completely.

  I scoff. “Well, at least one of us does! I need to keep my eyes peeled when I’m with you. You have zero situational awareness.”

  Izzy laughs but gives a tight nod, and all of this just doesn’t feel right… “I’ve been told that, yes.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I prompt, but Izzy snaps out of it, shaking some of her hair out of her eyes, the mass of it piled high on her head because I know that she can’t stand to have her hair down and touching the back of her neck when it gets too hot—and it will get sweltering inside the club before long, I just know it.

  “Izzy, Izz…what’s up? You can talk to me, you know you can.”

  She raises an eyebrow at me, the Prewitt signature move. “Yeah? Like you’ve been talking to me about him?” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder again, back at the closed office door, but we both know who she’s talking about.

  I sigh. “I don’t know what I’m doing, all right? He says he’s basically here because Mrs. Bristol told him to be here, and yeah, it’s been really nice sharing the load of work. He’s my work-buddy, or whatever we’re calling them nowadays.”

  “You guys do spend a lot of time together. What, twelve-hour shifts?” Izzy wiggles her eyebrows, smirks, and wiggles her hips.

  I shake my head. “It’s not like we’re making out or anything. He’s just…he’s calming to be around. He helps me out, and he looks at me like…” I trail off, glancing off to the side.

  “Like what, like what? Shit, I hate it when you do that, cut it off mid-sentence because you’re embarrassed.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not embarrassed. I just don’t know what I’m feeling. Evan hurt me, okay? I’ve acknowledged that, and while he’s to blame, well, so am I. My life revolves around this place, and he was pissed that I couldn’t make time for him like he wanted me to. That’s allowed, that’s a fair assessment.” I do not bring up his assessment of me as a boring person. I’m not doing it.

  Because I’m still listening to Evan’s words after all of this time—I’m still hearing his voice in my head, and it’s affecting the way I think and feel, and talk. And the way I think about Noah, and how he sees me every single day as Evie 1.0, and Noah still looks at me like I’m pretty amazing.

  “Maybe your life shouldn’t revolve around this place,” Izzy says, glancing around the back office with a critical eye. I want to plaster myself against a wall, hide all the dents and scratches in the ancient paint, hiding some of the scars and bruises the place has had over the years.

  My cousin looks back to me, something like pity in her eyes.

  “You won’t see it though, or hear it, because you are who you are. But I want you to know that you’ll be fine, even after this place. Hell, you can do so many things on your own, you’re not stuck like me.”

  I frown at her and open my mouth to say something. Izzy cuts me off with a hand in the air and a shake of her head.

  All right, now’s not the time to talk about it.

  “I want to see you happy, and Evie, this place isn’t making you happy.”

  “You can’t be happy all of the time, it’s not possible. That would be a chemical imbalance in your brain just like anything else,” I murmur, and Izzy squeezes along my shoulders, glaring at me.

  “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it. Life isn’t about places, it’s about people in those places. Even I know that.”