By the time Lucy officially started, there were fourteen kids in the reading corner. As she read them book after book, the parents browsed, visited, and drank coffee. Adam wished he could sit in one of the kid chairs and listen to the tales along with the children. But he dutifully worked the register as some of the parents bought books.
Adam kept an eye on his dad in between customers. He was beaming and enjoying the interaction. The store hadn’t been this busy since last year’s Christmas season, and it was now the end of July.
Adam wanted to laugh when several of the kids asked to take a picture with Lucy—or, rather, with Alice. A small line formed at the register, and Adam cheerfully rang up the purchases. When the crowd had dwindled to one lingering family, Adam looked over to see Lucy cleaning up the reading corner.
He walked over and helped straighten a couple of chairs.
“This was an amazing idea,” he told her. “The kids loved it, and we even sold a few books.”
Lucy turned to him with a smile. “I think you sold more than a few.”
“Okay, so maybe a few dozen, but who’s counting?”
She laughed, and Adam decided he loved her laugh.
“Do you think I could change my clothes in the back room?” she said. “I don’t want to wear this the rest of the day, and your dad asked me to stay longer.”
Adam toyed with the idea of asking her to stay in the costume for him, but that might border on flirting, and he was already pushing the envelope in that area. “Sure,” Adam said. “I’ll straighten the back room up a little.”
Lucy frowned. “Don’t worry about that—I mean, it’s a storage room.”
“It’s actually my bedroom too.”
At her surprised expression, he continued, “Money was tight for a while with my mom’s medical bills. And with my sister moving in and out of my dad’s house on a regular basis, I decided to set up here.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
“It does?” he said. “I mean, some women, or some people, think it’s bizarre.”
“I wouldn’t say bizarre, exactly,” Lucy said in a thoughtful tone, her brown eyes studying him. “Maybe more adventurous, or even romantic.”
His mouth twitched. “Romantic?”
“You know, some people like those tiny houses,” she said. “They take pride in living in a very small space and enjoy a minimalist lifestyle.”
Adam rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, that’s not me.”
But she kept talking. “I read an article a few months ago about cube units in China. It’s incredible how things can be condensed and simplified. Reminded me of the boxcar children, if you know what I mean.”
“Vaguely.”
“Do you go stir crazy, though, both living and working here?”
“It’s not ideal, but it works okay for now,” he said. “What about you? Are you in an apartment or something?”
She took a step back. “Yeah. Not too far from here. But I wouldn’t mind living in a bookstore.” Her face reddened. “I mean, my old roommate complained that I have too many books anyway. I’ll grab my clothes. I left them by the back door.”
Adam stared after her. She really didn’t like talking about herself except for the things she’d read. He wondered what her story was.
His dad was still talking to the last family from story time, so Adam went to the storage room. He always made the bed, and the room was fairly organized for having a bed, a bedside table, a rack where he hung his clothing, a small dresser, and one wall lined with shelves that contained boxes of books to be unpacked and stocked or shipped back to publishers as remainders.
He stepped out of the room as Lucy came around the corner. “It’s all yours,” he said.
“Thanks.” She moved past him and shut the door.
He stood there for a moment while the scent of vanilla lingered in her wake. Then he walked back to the cash register just as the back door of the store opened. “Where have you been?” his sister asked, coming toward him.
She was the last person he’d expected to see.
“We’ve been here, at the store,” Adam said.
“Darci?” their dad said.
“I’ve been calling both of you.” Darci put her hands on her hips. She wore a short, fitted dress and high heels, which usually meant that she was going someplace where men would be. “I couldn’t get my car started.”
Adam pulled out his cell phone. There was one missed call and a text. He must not have heard the alerts. “Sorry,” he said. “Did you try the store phone?”
“I don’t know that number,” Darci puffed out.
“How did you get here?”
“The car finally started.” Darci looked around the store as if she were on some sort of important treasure hunt. “Are these the chairs you bought from Greg?”
Adam sighed. He could guess where this was going, and he was glad all the customers were gone. “Yes.”
Darci whirled on him, her painted nail pointed at his chest. “Greg bragged to me how he was still hanging out with my family, which somehow proves that the divorce is my fault. He said that you guys are best friends.”
Adam raised his hands. “We all know that Greg exaggerates everything. Yes, I bought the chairs at his store. He wasn’t even the sales clerk who helped me. I think you know him enough to realize he’s trying to get a rise out of you.”
Darci narrowed her eyes then looked at their dad. “Why would you let Adam buy furniture from Greg? He’s trying to get out of paying me alimony, and now you guys are giving him more money.”
“Don’t blame Dad for anything.” Adam stepped forward. “It was my decision to get the chairs from Greg.” He pointed to the reading nook. “We spent less than a hundred dollars, which means that Greg probably got twenty bucks out of the deal, total.”
Darci scoffed. “Half the furniture in the house came from Greg’s store. That’s a lot more than twenty bucks, and—”
“One couch and one dresser came from Greg’s store,” Adam cut in. “And Dad bought them when Greg was his son-in-law.”
“Hold up,” their dad said in a sharp voice. “Darci, we won’t buy anything else from Greg, all right? And Adam, we probably should have given your sister a head’s up.”
Adam clenched his jaw. “Fair enough.”
His sister rolled her eyes. “It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Being Mom and Dad’s favorite. Doing everything right. Hell, the business is even in your name now.”
It was all that Adam could do to keep his voice steady when he replied, “You never wanted anything to do with the business. When Dad offered it to us fifty-fifty, you said you wanted the payout instead. The fact that you blew through the money in less than a year is not my problem.”
Darci’s face reddened, and Adam was bracing himself for what she might throw at him when the storage room door opened.
He felt like his stomach had been hollowed out. He’d totally forgotten about Lucy being on the other side of that door.
There was only so long Lucy could hide out in Adam’s makeshift bedroom while listening to the argument taking place on the other side of the door. As the conversation progressed, Lucy guessed the woman was Adam’s sister. She remembered Adam saying that his sister’s ex owned the furniture store where he bought the chairs. Lucy didn’t know if it was worse to keep eavesdropping or to interrupt.
But Mr. Parks was mostly silent, and what if another customer came into the store? Wouldn’t a family feud be bad for business? So Lucy squared her shoulders and opened the door. She immediately saw the woman in question—a blonde woman who looked furious and who might have been pretty in kind of an angular way when she wasn’t yelling at her brother.
Adam wasn’t being a reticent brother either, although he was the one with more control over his temper.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Lucy said, feeling extremely awkward. “I’ll finish cleaning up.” She moved around Adam since she didn’t want to pass by the irate s
ister.
“Who the hell are you?” Darci shot out.
Lucy practically froze midstride.
“Darci, that’s uncalled for,” Adam was quick to say.
“Lucy is our part-time employee,” Mr. Parks added. “She’s been working here for a few weeks. This morning was our first story time, and all the kids loved her.”
“Really? Why was she in your bedroom, then?”
Lucy met Darci’s gaze. “I was changing my clothes. I thought it would be fun to dress up for story time.” She looked at Mr. Parks. “My boss approved.” She looked back at Darci. “Do I need your approval too?”
Darci scoffed. “No, but . . . I didn’t know someone else worked here. I guess the store’s bringing in some good money, huh?”
“I think we should have this conversation at home,” Mr. Parks told his daughter. “I didn’t realize you had so many unresolved feelings about the business of the store.”
“I don’t,” Darci argued. “But I don’t like walking in here and finding some strange woman in my brother’s bedroom—which happens to be store property.”
Lucy had had enough. Maybe it was because Darci wasn’t her sister that Lucy had the courage to speak up. “I work here,” Lucy said. “Your dad interviewed me, and your brother hired me. I think you need to respect the fact that they can make those types of decisions. I was in your brother’s bedroom because he lives in a storage room since he put his heart and soul into keeping the business afloat while helping with your mom’s medical bills.”
Darci stared at her, apparently speechless.
Lucy wasn’t finished. “If you want to be respected for your choices, you need to respect them for their choices. You’re an adult woman living at your dad’s house. You should be more grateful.”
No one moved. No one spoke. Lucy fully expected to get fired. On the spot.
Darci’s mouth had opened in astonishment.
Lucy was sort of astonished herself.
Then Darci’s face changed into what some might call a smile. “I like her.” She looked at Adam. “You finally found a woman with guts.”
Just then the front door opened, and a group of teenagers came in, laughing about something one of them had put on Snapchat.
Lucy took it as her cue to be excused from the family conversation. She didn’t know if she’d made things better or much, much worse. Her hands shook as she began to gather the dirty coffee cups, grateful that she didn’t have a sister like Darci. Her sister, Sydney, might be hard to live up to, but Darci was in another universe entirely. Lucy could totally understand why Adam was so irritated with her.
“Can I help you guys find something?” she asked the teenagers, hoping that her voice sounded normal.
A couple of them looked up. “Sam needs a book for class,” one girl said, pointing at one of the boys.
The kid named Sam gave a little smile.
“Great, what’s the name of the book?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. His friends moved to a rack of magazines. “It just has to be a memoir.”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “I can help you with that. What kinds of books do you usually like to read?”
Sam followed her to the memoir section, and as she suggested a few titles for him to consider, she noticed that Darci had left the store. She didn’t see Adam anywhere either. Had he gone with her? Mr. Parks was at the register, keeping a close eye on the other teenagers.
Once Sam had picked out his book and paid for it, the group left, laughing and shoving at each other.
Lucy moved through the bookcases, straightening as she went, dreading the conversation she’d have to have with Mr. Parks and Adam.
Mr. Parks joined her in one of the aisles. “I need to apologize for what happened with Darci earlier,” he said.
“No, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I overstepped my bounds. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
Mr. Parks chuckled. “She needed to hear it—from someone other than her brother.”
Lucy exhaled. “I understand things with families get sticky sometimes, but it’s not my business.”
“In Darci’s case, it’s what she needed to hear,” Mr. Parks said. “Ever since my wife’s death, she and Adam have been like oil and water.”
Lucy nodded. She didn’t really want Mr. Parks to tell her anything too personal. “I get it. I have a sister and brother. And I’m sure things are more complicated when there’s a family business to consider.”
Mr. Parks nodded and was quiet for a moment.
Lucy was curious about where Adam had gone. Maybe he was upset with her. Or maybe he was finished working for the day. With story time over, they didn’t need three people in the store.
“Look,” Mr. Parks said. “I have some plans this afternoon, so can you cover the store until Adam gets back? He’ll only be gone a couple of hours.”
“Sure thing.”
Then Mr. Parks flashed her a smile. “I’m going on a date, but don’t tell my kids.”
“Oh! Wow.” She returned his smile, feeling somewhat normal again. “The woman at the coffee shop?”
Mr. Parks chuckled as he moved away. “I guess I’m not as secretive as I thought.”
“Have a nice time,” Lucy called after him.
Moments later, she was alone in the store. She spent the next couple of hours working and helping the few customers who came in. Her mom and sister both texted her at one point, asking her to meet them for lunch the next day. Her sister was in town for the weekend, and truthfully, Lucy was sort of avoiding Sydney. Lucy didn’t want to explain why she’d had to change jobs and that she hadn’t been able to find another roommate yet. That might mean that she’d have to find a second job or change to a full-time job just to pay rent. It seemed Lucy was always just scraping by.
Sydney and her mom would tell her to go back to college, take out some student loans, and take on more responsibility.
Lucy sighed. She’d heard it all before. But she hated the idea of sitting in more classrooms, day after day, listening to dreary teachers talking about stuff that didn’t interest her. With no one in the store, she sat in the readers’ corner and leafed through a couple of the picture books she’d read to the children earlier that morning. So what if she’d spent fifty dollars on the Alice in Wonderland dress? The kids had loved it, and she could wear it week after week.
She toyed with the idea of wearing a different costume each week, but that would get expensive. Maybe it would be worth it to keep surprising Adam. She hadn’t missed the appreciative look in his eyes when he’d seen her dress. For a moment, she let herself believe that he was attracted to her. That he secretly wanted to ask her out. She smiled at her fantasy, then nearly jumped when the back door opened.
Lucy scrambled to her feet just as Adam came into the store.
“Hi,” she said, nerves fluttering.
He stopped. He stared at her for a second, then said, “Hey, I’m really sorry about Darci.”
“I should be the one apologizing,” Lucy said. “I feel awful.”
“What you said was perfect,” he said. “Darci is Darci, and she’ll always be abrasive. But she crossed the line with you, and you didn’t back down. She’s used to people backing down and never contradicting her. I need to thank you for holding your ground.”
“You’re not going to fire me?”
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m glad you set her straight. I feel terrible she treated you like that.”
Lucy exhaled. She really didn’t want Adam to feel bad about his sister’s actions. If anything, she felt sorry for him. “I know that families can be complicated.”
He blinked his green eyes. “Do you have a sister?”
“I have an older sister and a younger brother.” This was the first she’d told him of her family. This was the first time they’d stopped working and just . . . talked.
He took a couple of steps closer and leaned against one of the bookstands. “So you’re the middle
child?”
Lucy smiled. Butterflies-in-her-stomach didn’t accurately describe how she felt when he seemed completely focused on her. “Yep. Neglected and aimless.”
Adam’s brows shot up. “I wouldn’t know about the neglected part, but you’re definitely not aimless.”
She shrugged, but apparently Adam wasn’t going to drop the subject.
“Tell me how you’re aimless,” he said.
With the way he was watching her, she wished she was anything but aimless. She wished she was the kind of woman who could impress him. She leaned against the armchair that she’d sat in during story time. “No offense, but I’m working part-time in a bookstore at the age of twenty-four.”
“You’re twenty-four?”
Why did he sound surprised? “Yeah, I know . . . aimless.”
“No, I thought you were younger, but twenty-four is good.”
“Because?”
“I’m twenty-seven.” He flashed one of his smiles that always made Lucy want to smile back.
“And you own the bookstore,” Lucy said. “Big difference.”
He slid his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Maybe not as big a difference as you think. I mean, my dad started this store, not me. He did all the hard work, and I happened to be born his son.”
“And you just happen to be good at running a bookstore business? And you happened to agree to take it over, when your sister doesn’t want anything to do with it?” She felt her face warming. “You have a life, Adam. I don’t. But that’s okay. I’m not complaining.”
“I live in a storage room,” Adam said. “I haven’t hung out with friends in months. I haven’t taken a girl on a date in longer than that.”
“Why not?” Lucy asked. It appeared that she was not afraid to ask him almost any question a person could come up with.
Adam chuckled. “You’re pretty direct, aren’t you?”
“It’s my favorite type of character.”
Falling for Lucy Page 3
