Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(34)

My phone buzzed and I nearly dropped my latte. Balancing it on the arm of my chair, I pulled up the text. After Wednesday, I hadn’t gotten any texts from Dev, so I was surprised to see his name on my screen.

What are you up to?

I stared at the books in front of me and felt bolder than I ever was in person.

Soaking up literary greatness. Let him think I was weird.

???

Before I could really think or stop myself, I placed my latte on the floor, stood, and took a picture of myself grinning and pointing at the rare bookcase. That would totally be something Marissa would do. At least I was wearing eyeliner and what was left of this morning’s lipgloss application. I texted the pic, and sat back down to finish the latte and wait for his response.

I didn’t have to wait long.

Don’t most people go to Boston to see the Old North Church or something?

Don’t hate on the book geekishness, I typed back and then quickly followed with, How was Thanksgiving? Any dead boyfriends? It was so easy to be flirty via text.

My latte finished, I got up and started making my way to the YA section. With some of the pocket money slipped to me by both sets of grandparents and Aunt Sophia, I had enough money for a few new releases and another gingerbread latte, but I needed to space the two coffees out.

Dev’s next text made me laugh.

Mom and I hid Dad’s swords. Could have been bad. How was the soap turkey?

I paused mid-book-fondle to answer. Extra soapy. No near-homicides here.

Ha! GTG, last minute rugby lesson. When are you back?

Sunday afternoon.

Silence. The raised title on the new Emma Sanderson book had probably permanently imprinted itself on my palm at this point. When he finally answered, my heart nearly stopped.

We’ll have to hang out then and compare notes. Text me later?

My fingers moved jumpily over the keys, misspelling so many words that I could never blame them all on autocorrect. I slowed down and retyped everything.

Sounds good. Have fun. Don’t break anything. Cute and not desperate.

I’ll try. Later.

After that last text, I slid down to the ground. Surrounded by the best instruction manuals on the planet, I reread our entire text conversation at least three times, cringing over some of the stuff I had written. Not awful, but I couldn’t wait for round two. I had ideas.





21


Ideas like texting a picture of myself in front of Old North Church, even though I’d been there a million times. And a picture of me with Bryan Forster, the author of the Sentinel series, who just so happened to work at the same high school as Aunt Teresa, with a copy of Sentinel Twenty he’d signed for me. It was like I was a different girl—a girl with a quirky sense of humor and witty responses. Like someone had mashed Marissa and Maeve together and shoved them into my phone. Problem was, I didn’t think I could be that person in real life.

When we pulled into our driveway on Sunday afternoon, I shoved my reference notebook into my bag, wiping away the telltale blue sparkles on my jeans. I’d studied every cute interaction scene I’d copied into that notebook, just in case. At that point, I could almost quote every flirty line Marissa ever used on Dan or Cyril. Grace was sitting on our front steps, and I practically jumped out of the car and into Grace’s arms.

“Thanks for coming. Make me pretty.”

Grace laughed and held me at arm’s length as my parents watched with confused looks on their faces.

“You really don’t need my help for that.” She held up one of those reusable shopping bags filled to the brim with stuff. “But I grabbed what I could when I got your text and I’ll see what I can do.”

I pulled my knitting bag and duffel from the car and dragged Grace up to my room, flinging open my closet to stare at its contents. “Dev texted to see if I wanted to meet him at the diner in half an hour. I look like crud. And I don’t think I fit in anything after this weekend.”

Grace pulled a makeup and hair tackle box-like thing out of her bag and started laying some of her more alienlooking items on my desk. “You’re wearing your skinny jeans and those boots I made you buy last week. And that cute grey sweater you knit that actually makes your eyes almost blue.” Before I could protest that none of those would fit— except maybe the boots, she shoved me none-too-gently to the closet. “I doubt you expanded that much.”

“You’re like a fairy godmother with an evil streak.”

“And you’re the one who asked me for help on the last day of a four-day weekend. Get changed.”

As soon as I changed into the outfit that surprisingly still fit, she sat me down and started attacking my hair with her straightener.

“So, he texted you?” she asked.

“Yeah. All weekend.” I watched in fascination as she used the straightener to make perfect spirals, like she was curling ribbon.

“Huh, maybe he’s not as big a chicken as I thought.” She put the straightener down and gathered my hair into a ponytail.

“Dev, chicken? No, that’s me.” I grimaced as I saw all that hard work get smushed in a hair elastic. “A ponytail?”

“You’re supposed to look like you came back from a five-hour road trip and this is just natural for you.”

“You’ve done this before,” I said while she held my face in place to line my eyes and apply some shimmery liquid stuff to my cheeks and eyelids.