Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(26)
“Pick one.”
Ooooh, the new Marcus Easton paranormal romance was out on the shelves. A few days early. I grabbed a precious copy.
“Okay, Cyril from the Hidden House books. Marissa loves him, but if she touches him, he’ll possess her. He’s just so swoonworthy.”
Em shoved the book she had been holding into a random shelf, making me cringe, and stared at me for a second. “You realize how messed up that sounds, right?”
“He won’t risk touching her. It’s so romantic, and the tension between them?” I fanned myself with the book.
“I’m not going to psychoanalyze you, but no wonder you have a thing for a guy who doesn’t know you exist.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled the incorrectly shelved book out and dropped it onto a reshelving cart. “He does know I exist. He said hi.”
“Who said hi?” A familiar voice came from behind me and I turned around to see Dev making his way towards us.
I quickly mouthed, “What’s he doing here?” to Em before forcing a smile at Dev. “No one.” Suddenly, my ‘In love with fictional dead boys’ t-shirt felt incredibly silly. I should have listened to Grace’s advice when she wanted to toss all my t-shirts.
Em tapped me on the arm with a hardcover she must have pulled from the new releases. “I’m going to go see if Grace and Leia are at the café yet.” She ignored my pleading look and practically skipped away.
I looked up at Dev. Okay, time to be cute, like Marissa. “Funny seeing you here. I thought you were an illiterate degenerate or something like that.” I inwardly cringed at my miserable attempt at flirty teasing and hoped he didn’t take it the wrong way. I made a mental note to tear out all the cute insult passages in my notebook.
He didn’t seem to notice, or at least ignored it if he did. He held up the book he was carrying. Sentinel Twenty.
“You’ve converted me. Just finished the first Sentinel and I had to get the next one.” His lips curved into the nicest smile, like he was sharing a secret with me.
Realizing that I was staring, I quickly tried to take in his whole face and found myself talking to his left cheekbone. “That series gets such good reviews.” I flipped the book in my hands so the utterly embarrassing cover of a girl wrapped in a guy’s arms wasn’t facing out.
“Good? I was up half the night because I couldn’t put the first one down.”
I think my heart skipped a beat. I shifted from foot to foot, trying to find something that didn’t sound stupid. “I’ll have to move that to the top of my reading pile, then.” My gaze unconsciously drifted back down to his lips, a line from Golden popping into my head. Aedan’s lips left hers and started trailing their way down her neck. She gasped and arched back, melting into a puddle of sensation as his hot breath tickled her collarbone. His hands burned, tickling the line of exposed skin between her shirt and jeans. It looked like he didn’t mind modern clothes now…
As my face grew warmer, I forced my eyes to focus on a bookshelf over his shoulder. What if he noticed me staring at his mouth? I resisted the urge to dive behind the shelves.
“Phoebe, are you okay?” Dev asked, concern in his voice.
“Um, yeah. I’m just…” Distraction. I darted my hand out and grabbed the first familiar book off that shelf. “amazed they put this out in paperback.”
“That’s really—”
Grace’s face appeared over Dev’s shoulder. I’ve never been so happy to see that bouncy blonde ponytail in my life. “We’re here to steal Phoebe. She’s supposed to be hanging with us.”
Leia, pixie-tiny, showed up at my side and grabbed my arm. “Sorry for breaking in on your cute little flirt-fest.” Her short black and purple hair swung into her eyes and she pushed it back with a swipe of her hand.
I gave her a death glare and shrugged free of her hold. Just because she was with Grace didn’t mean she could tease me. “I gotta go, I guess. Have fun with Sentinel.”
He tilted his head and smiled confusedly. “Thanks. See you Monday.”
“Don’t stay up too late with that one,” I called out, and then wanted to kick myself.
Luckily, Grace’s nails digging into my arm was enough to keep me moving.
“We came to rescue you. That looked painful,” she said softly as she dragged me towards the café.
Leia gave me that preschool-teacher-in-training smile of hers. “Someone has a crush,” she said in a singsong voice. “You were so red, I thought you were going to combust.” She and Grace had been dating since Grace’s sweet sixteen that summer and Leia seemed to assume all of us instantly became her friends, too. From the minute Leia first met me and said in her singsong voice that my “little knitting hobby” was just so “archaically adorable,” her voice always grated on me. Being around her was like knitting with bargain bin acrylic yarn.
I wanted to punch her. Maeve probably would. “Flirt-fest, Leia? Really?”
“It’s so adorable how you wouldn’t even look at him.” I never really knew if Leia took me seriously. She always made it sound like everything I did was little-kid-like, as if I was the baby of the group. It was annoying, like she thought of herself as so sophisticated compared to me. “You’re just so cute sometimes.”