Chapter Text
The bells over the door chime every time the shop opens, but this morning they sound a little brighter than usual, like someone polished their mood overnight.
I'm on my knees in the front window, rearranging the new-release display for the fourth time because it keeps looking 'too intentional.' My manager, Flora, believes everything at Wren & Page Books should feel casual and whimsical, as if a very stylish ghost curated the place in the dead of night.
I, unfortunately, am not a stylish ghost. I am a twenty-five-year-old woman who still wears ducky-print wellies and blue sparkly nail polish.
I squint at the pyramid of books in front of me.
"You," I whisper to the top one, "need to relax. No one likes a try-hard."
Someone walking past on the street glances in, sees me talking to a novel like it's a skittish horse, and quickly averts their gaze. Fair.
The shop smells like roasted coffee from the café next door, old paper, dust, and whatever my cardigan has absorbed from hanging too close to my lavender candle. It's warm inside, cozy but also humid in that slightly Victorian, 'is this bookstore secretly alive?' way that fogs the edges of the windows.
My knees are tingling toward numbness. I stand, shake my legs out, and clap my hands together, sending dust motes spiraling through the morning light. It looks almost magical, like the universe is applauding my aggressively average display skills.
I check the time: 9:03 a.m. Three minutes past opening. Not a soul inside yet, unless you count Flora in the back office, humming at her computer in a way that I think is meant to be soothing but mostly sounds like a bee trapped inside a teapot.
I grab a stack of our mismatched-font bookmarks and hop around the counter. I talk to myself as I work because silence makes me itchy and I refuse to be alone with my thoughts before noon.
"Okay, Eloise's goals for today: Do not knock over the tote-bag carousel again, do not ramble at customers, and do not, under any circumstances, accidentally imply to anyone that I'm stalking them... Again. Even if I just want to ask what they're reading."
I proceed to knock two bookmarks onto the floor.
Off to a cinematic start.
A thin gust of cold air sneaks through the draft under the door, brushing my ankles. Outside, someone drags a suitcase with a single rebellious wheel, the rhythmic thud-drag, thud-drag vibrating faintly through the glass like a passive-aggressive metronome.
It's one of those mornings where everything feels skewed but also sort of charged. Like the world is tilting me toward something. A better version of myself? Good fortune? A sale? A free muffin from the café because they feel sorry for me?
Honestly, I'd take the muffin.
The bells over the door chimed the way they always do: soft, a little off-key, like they're trying their best.
"Morning," I say, cheerful. "Welcome to Wren & Page."
I turned, and there he was.
Again.
Last week he'd given me the smallest smile when I'd complimented his umbrella, this ridiculous navy thing patterned with tiny lemons. It had been such a wildly endearing contrast to his very serious demeanor that it lodged itself somewhere in my brain like a sticky note.
He was handsome in a quiet way, like he hadn't realized it yet. Dark curls tucked behind one ear. Shoulders hunched slightly, as though he was trying not to take up too much space. His gaze flickered toward me, then away almost immediately, like eye contact was a hot stove.
"Hello," he murmured.
His voice is low and soft and a bit scratchy, the vocal equivalent of a sweater that's been washed too many times. Like maybe this is the first real word he's spoken today.
I smoothed the front of my cardigan, sunshine yellow today with a single button hanging by a thread, and gave him a bright smile that bordered on overeager.
He heads straight for the fiction wall with the focus of someone who already knows his mission. I watch him, but in a very employee-professional manner. Not lurking. Not staring. Just... observing in case he 'needs assistance and/or drops something.'
He stops in front of a display and picks up The Old Man and the Sea.
... Again.
He moves toward the counter, and I snap into action, yanking my sleeves down in a futile attempt to look less like a chaotic woodland creature and more like a competent human.
"Oh!" I say before my brain can slap a hand over my mouth. "Déjà vu. For me, not you. I mean, yes for you too, but- I'm sorry. Too many words. Let me restart."
He glances over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifting in a quiet, careful sort of amusement.
I clear my throat, tuck a stray curl behind my ear. "You, uh, bought that one recently. Which is fine! Obviously fine. People reread books all the time. I've read Little Women four times and I don't even like Amy."
He looks at the book in his hand. Then at the shelf. Then at me.
That tiny smile, the faintest shimmer of one, touches the corner of his mouth. Not mocking. Not uncomfortable. More like he's surprised to be amused.
"I suppose I have a type," he says quietly.
"Great type," I say. "Hemmingway never misses. Well, emotionally he misses me entirely, but you know what I mean."
He gives a soft exhale that might actually be a laugh. He sets the book down gently, like it's important.
I ring it up. "Would you like a bag?"
He shakes his head.
"Right, you know- 'Save the trees!', very noble."
That earns a real, tiny smile. The sort that disappears almost as soon as it appears.
"Thank you," he murmurs.
"Have a good day!" I said, because I always do.
He paused, not long- just long enough for it to catch me off guard, and finally met my eyes.
Then he turns and walks out.
I nearly jump when Flora sweeps out from the back room like she's materializing out of thin air.
Flora is thirty, maybe thirty-one, with perfect posture and a bun so tight it looks like it structurally supports her personality. Tailored blouse, sensible flats, expression permanently hovering between mildly impressed and mildly disappointed.
She surveys the shop like a general inspecting troop formation.
Then she looks at me.
"Eloise, please tell me you didn't scare off another customer," she says, tone clipped but not mean, more like someone taking inventory of a recurring issue.
"I didn't scare him," I say quickly. "He bought a book. A whole entire book. That's the opposite of scaring."
Flora arches an eyebrow. "Did you... talk at him again?"
"I talked to him," I correct. Then, weaker: "At a very reasonable volume."
Her sigh is the kind that somehow conveys I like you, but you are a handful I did not anticipate when I hired you.
"Eloise," she says, almost defeated, stepping behind the counter to straighten a stack of bookmarks that are, in my opinion, already perfectly straight, "customers come here to browse. Quietly. Peacefully. Not to be... overwhelmed."
"I wasn't overwhelming." I pause. "Maybe just...whelming?"
Flora gives me a look, not chastising, just... Flora. A reminder that Wren & Page is not, in fact, my living room.
"He bought The Old Man and the Sea again," I say, gesturing vaguely at the door. "Same guy as last week."
Flora pauses mid-bookmark-straightening.
"Again?" she repeats, softening slightly, not out of warmth, but out of genuine curiosity. "Odd."
"I know." I lower my voice, conspiratorial. "I could practically feel the déjà vu radiating off the shelf."
Flora presses her lips together like she's fighting a smile but refusing to let it win.
"Well," she says, snapping back into her managerial spine, "whatever the reason, let the man browse. Without commentary next time."
"I can be quiet," I say.
Flora turns her head, giving me a slow, surgical once-over.
"...I can try to be quiet," I amend.
She nods. "Thank you."
Then she disappears back into the office, door clicking shut behind her like punctuation.
I stand there for a moment rearranging my cardigan pockets in the universal gesture of Someone Who Just Got Lightly Scolded But Is Still Full Of Dignity.
The shop exhales into silence, the comforting, dusty kind that smells like old paper and warm wood.
The rest of the day drifts by the way Mondays tend to: slow, a little sleepy, loyal in its own dependable way. A few regulars wander in. Two uni students hunt for used course books. One man spends twenty-seven full minutes asking if we have "any novels about pirates but, you know...not silly ones," which feels like a trick question sent from the universe to test my spirit.
Between customers, Flora keeps me moving, restocking, dusting, reorganizing the front table for the seventh time. The hours layer softly on top of each other until the sky outside turns that late-afternoon honey color that makes the whole shop glow like it's been lacquered.
By closing, the bells over the door sound tired in a friendly sort of way, like they, too, are ready to clock out.
I lock up, tuck the day's receipts into the safe, and wheel my bike out from the alley. It's got a wobbly front basket and squeaks whenever I turn left, but we've formed an understanding: I don't push it too hard, and it doesn't collapse dramatically in public. It's a healthy relationship built on mutual compromise and WD-40.
Outside, the air hits me with that perfect evening crispness, the kind that feels like a polite slap to the face. Better than coffee. Better than the café's coffee, at least, which tastes a bit like burnt ambition.
The ride home is short, ten minutes if the wind is cooperative and the traffic lights like me today. My flat sits adjacent to a bakery that always smells like warm sugar by nightfall, as if it's trying to seduce me into eating pastries for dinner. (It works. Often.)
I heave my bike up the narrow stairwell, three flights, wooden steps that creak like they're whispering complaints, and apologize to it the whole way up because I anthropomorphize inanimate objects to an emotionally concerning degree.
I shoulder open the door.
Inside, everything is small but comforting: thrifted furniture in warm, mismatched colors; string lights I keep meaning to replace but have grown fond of in their half-working state; a vase of flowers I bought optimistically last week, now enthusiastically dying in the corner like drama students in a school play.
Books everywhere, obviously: under the windowsill, on the radiator (dangerous), stacked into architectural experiments by my bed. One particularly ambitious pile leans against the wardrobe like it's posing for a portrait.
I hang my cardigan on the hook, where it immediately slides off because the hook is a traitor, and move into the kitchen nook.
I make tea without thinking about it, the muscle memory of a thousand evenings guiding me through the motions: kettle, mug, teabag, stir, tiny exhale of relief. A ritual disguised as hydration. Something to occupy my hands while my brain politely avoids all topics marked "emotional."
I shuffle into my favorite socks: the fuzzy, mismatched pair I pretend is a personality trait and not just the result of my laundry system collapsing weeks ago, and wander back to the counter.
That's when my phone buzzes.
I pause mid-sip. Mug halfway to my lips.
The screen lights up, casting a little glow against the messy pile of unopened mail beside it.
A missed call.
I pick up the phone like it might bite me. The missed call notification stares back, all innocent and glowing, like it's not a tiny landmine in digital form.
The voicemail icon pulses.
Of course it does.
"Okay," I whisper to myself, in the same tone people use before opening Tupperware they forgot in the fridge. "It's fine. It's fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine."
I tap play.
His voice comes through the speaker, raspy, familiar, tugging at a part of me I've spent years duct-taping shut.
"Lou... it's me. I'm trying. I'd really like to talk."
A pause. Not long. Just long enough to punch a soft, unwelcome dent right in the center of my chest.
My flat, which moments ago felt cozy, now feels like someone turned down the saturation. The string lights buzz faintly, one bulb flickering like it's debating giving up.
I set the phone down. Carefully. Like it might shatter if I'm abrupt.
My tea has gone slightly cold, but I wrap both hands around the mug anyway, as if warmth is transferable by wishful thinking. The steam fogs my glasses, blurring the room into gentle, shapeless colors. It's easier to breathe in the blur. Softer.
I could listen to the message again. I could press call back.
I don't.
I delete it.
Not angrily. Not dramatically. Just... intentionally. A quiet decision shaped like self-preservation.
"Tomorrow-me will handle this," I announce to the empty room in an optimistic, borderline-delusional tone. "Present-me is off-duty."
I take another sip of lukewarm tea and straighten the dying flowers in the vase, like that tiny fix means I still have control over something.
The night hums softly around me.
And I carry on.