The Bookworm's Guide to Dating

by Hart, Emma

  “Mostly, I suppose.”

  “Since I’m just as awkward online as I am in real life, I figure it won’t be such a surprise when I fuck up in person.”

  Josh grimaced. “I don’t know. That’s a lot of awkward for one person, Kins.”

  “Damn it. I know. I have no idea what I’m doing, and half the guys who seem to be on these apps are smart and work a lot so why would they want a small-town bookstore owner?”

  “Why wouldn’t they want a small-town bookstore owner?”

  I gave him a withering look. “Be realistic, Josh.”

  “Why don’t I help you?”

  CHAPTER THREE – KINSLEY

  rule three: don’t immediately ask what their favorite books are.

  “What?” I blinked at Josh. “Why would you help me?”

  He shrugged, fiddling with the corner of a napkin. “Because you’re my best friend’s sister, and honestly, if someone doesn’t, you might never have a successful date.”

  That was painfully true.

  “How are you supposed to help me? It’s not like you can be there on a date to tell me what to do.”

  “No, but I can help you with your profiles and find you dates. Help you not to be so shy and nervous and awkward on them.”

  “Like a dating coach?”

  “Exactly that.”

  I screwed up my face. “I don’t think so. That just seems… weird.”

  “How is it? I know you better than most people, and we’ve known each other almost our entire lives. I can help you, Kinsley.”

  “Why would you help me date? Aren’t you single right now? It’s not like I’m capable enough to return the favor, is it?”

  “Yes, I’m single. I don’t expect you to return any favors. And if it helps you, then it’s a win.”

  I stared at him. I did not like this at all. I wasn’t a fan of set up dates, and I was even less of a fan of Josh being the guy to set me up on them. Surely him being my brother’s best friend was a conflict of interest. There was no way for me to know that he wouldn’t sabotage it.

  “Stop looking at me like you’re trying to figure out if I’ll double-cross you.” His lips tugged to one side. “I’m genuinely trying to help you.”

  “I don’t know.” I said it slowly and carefully. “Seems weird.”

  “Fine, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll set you up on two dates with guys of your specification, teach you how not to be your usual introverted self on them. If it all goes to shit, I’ll never speak to you about dating again.”

  I fought back a smile. This was a terrible, terrible idea, but it didn’t look like he was going to let me tell him no. “I don’t like this,” I said.

  “Come on. Two dates, and like I said, I’ll even coach you in how to make them successful.”

  “This would be far more reassuring if you weren’t single. You know that, right?”

  “Hey, I’m single only because I haven’t found anyone to settle down with yet. I have a bunch of great dates, they just don’t turn into something more.”

  “Why not?”

  He leaned forward on the table, clasping his beer between his hands. His toned arms strained against his black t-shirt, and he shrugged, pouting his full bottom lip out a little. “I guess I’m picky.”

  “You’re picky.”

  “I’m picky,” he repeated. “While all the girls I’ve been out with lately are nice, I just don’t see myself getting married to them, so it never goes past the third date. Usually not the second.”

  “Why date them three times if you know you don’t see yourself getting married to them?”

  He tapped the side of his nose. “Because first dates are always on the awkward side. You don’t really know each other and you’re feeling the other person out to see if you have anything in common. The second date you’re a little more comfortable because you already know about that stuff, so you chill. But by the end of the third date, you know them well enough to know if the relationship is going to go anywhere.”

  I purse my lips. “I guess that makes sense. What do you do on your dates?”

  “The first date is always more formal, like dinner somewhere nice. Not here, because you’re gonna see someone you know, and it’s hell when that happens. Second date is maybe the movies or something like mini golf. If she’s a bit sporty, maybe a hike with a picnic, but I usually save that for the third date.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know if she cares about getting her shoes dirty by the end of the second.”

  I sighed heavily. “Dating is hard.”

  Josh nodded and rubbed his hand over the stubble that lined his jaw. “So let me help you. I’ll update your profile, find you guys to date, and talk you through the dates.”

  I didn’t answer.

  He reached over and took my phone. “Passcode?”

  “I’m not telling you my passcode.”

  “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

  “Damn it.”

  Grinning, he tapped in today’s date and got into my phone. “Stupid Cupid, e-Matched, and Tap That. Which one first?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really care, and I wasn’t really sure that it mattered.

  “Stupid Cupid it is, since we know you’re getting hits there.” He navigated to my profile with the ease of someone who was familiar with the app. “Yeah, no. Why isn’t your face there?”

  “Because people should like me for my personality, not my face.”

  “Well, your face helps.”

  “I think that was a compliment.”

  Josh grinned. “It was. You need a real photo of yourself, Kinsley. The book one is cute, but it’s not for your main photo.”

  “Did you just call me cute?”

  “No, I called the photo cute. Do you have any others?”

  “My Facebook profile, I guess.”

  “Anything not two years old?”

  I harrumphed. “No.”

  “Then you’re going to have to take one tomorrow.”

  “Fine, I’ll take one tomorrow at the store.”

  “You’re determined to get books in your profile picture, aren’t you?”

  Slowly, I raised my wine glass to my lips and sipped. I wasn’t even going to answer such a stupid question.

  Of course I was going to have books in my profile picture.

  What kind of bookworm did he think I was?

  “All right, all right, all right.” He waved a hand. “Your profile isn’t bad, but a little more information isn’t going to hurt. You like hiking the trails, so you can put that in. You should also really include what you’re looking for out of the website. Some people are there for a good time, some are there for casual dates, and some are there for a relationship like you are. The last thing you want is to waste your time on someone just looking for a hookup.”

  “Fine, pass me my phone.” I made a ‘gimme’ motion with my hand and he gave it back to me. I clicked the button to edit my profile and set to it, then read it out when I was done. ““Perpetually awkward bookworm with unlimited access to books and questionable White Peak magnets. I like to spend my mornings gardening with my coffee and mentally judging fictional people for their bad decisions. A fan of hiking the trails around town, but you might have to brace yourself for bookish rants. Looking for a relationship where we can mutually disparage awful book-to-movie adaptations into our old age.””

  Josh blinked at me. “Well, there’s a lot more detail in there, that’s for sure.”

  “What’s wrong with that? I might as well be honest about what I want from life.”

  “It’s like you’re trying to make this hard for me.”

  “Well, I’m not going to go out of my way to make this easy.”

  He rubbed his jaw again. “All right, fine. I need your login info and I need to know what kind of guy you’re looking for.”

  I texted him the login for all three. “There. Do you want me to compile a list of my demands?”

  He
peered over my shoulder, causing me to look back. Everyone was coming back, and I could already hear Colton and Tori bickering about karaoke.

  I was starting to wonder if those two had an underlying sexual attraction they needed to screw out of each other.

  “Yeah, send me a list,” he said right before crazy mob we called our friends returned with two trays full of drinks.

  This was going to end very, very badly.

  ***

  JOSH: You’re not picky at all.

  ME: Coming from mister “I don’t get past date three” that’s a little rich.

  I put my phone down on the counter and looked around the store. It was quiet today, so I was here on my own. I’d spent the entire morning texting Josh about my very specific requirements for a future boyfriend.

  I still could not believe I’d agreed to this.

  JOSH: Yeah, but you’re looking for a fucking unicorn here, Kins.

  ME: I have standards.

  JOSH: You want a male you.

  ME: I’d date the shit out of myself.

  JOSH: Really? I wouldn’t date me.

  ME: Good thing I don’t want to date you then, huh?

  JOSH: Ouch.

  JOSH: Tell me how you really feel.

  ME: Sorry. *grimace emoji*

  JOSH: I suppose I asked for all this.

  ME: Yes, and I’m going to make you suffer.

  JOSH: I expect nothing less. I’m going to go find you a unicorn.

  ME: I’d start in the fantasy section of the library.

  JOSH: Shut up.

  I chuckled and put my phone back down. That would keep him occupied for at least the next few hours, and since he had work to do, it would be even longer.

  I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Really, my demands weren’t that unreasonable. I just wanted a kind, intelligent man who could handle basic tasks in the kitchen, was a little outdoorsy but not too much, and liked long, quiet evenings while I read my book.

  Let’s be realistic, I was only a little outdoorsy because I liked to find a quiet space to read.

  Oh, and I also wanted him to be good in bed.

  You bet your ass I told Josh that, too.

  It’d taken him half an hour to reply to me on that one.

  “Kinsley! Where’s my book?”

  I blinked and focused on the elderly man standing in front of me. I’d been in my own little world and hadn’t even heard the bell over the door ring as it announced my grandfather’s entry.

  “Grandpa!” I jumped up and walked around the counter to hug him. He smelled like cinnamon and coffee, and I squeezed him as I breathed in the familiar scent.

  “Hello, darlin’.” He hugged me back tightly. “Where’s my book?”

  I grinned and retrieved Dean Koone’s newest thriller from under the register. “Right here. It came in this morning, and I put it aside for you. It’s not technically available until tomorrow, so don’t you tell anyone I did this.”

  He took the bag with a gleeful giggle and peered inside. “You’re my favorite granddaughter, Kinsley.”

  “I’m your only granddaughter,” I replied with a hint of dryness. “How are you doing?”

  “They keep finding the bourbon I smuggle in. With the amount we pay them every month to give me food and board, you’d think they’d at least let me keep my liquor.”

  Ah, we were back on that carousel.

  At least once a week, Grandpa Randy was allowed an unsupervised visit to the center of town. Every single week he tried to sneak a little bottle of bourbon into his bedroom, and every single week the nurses searched him on his arrival back to the retirement community and took his alcohol.

  He was much better off asking me to sneak it in.

  They’d never searched me.

  Granted, I usually brought them all new books so I think that worked in my favor, but still.

  I rang up the sale on the register before I took his money from him. We only charged our grandparents wholesale prices, and that was because they insisted on paying us.

  “Want me to bring you some bourbon when I come over this weekend?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “How much can you bring?”

  “Not sure. Depends on how many books they want this week.”

  “Bring me a fifth and you’ve got a deal.”

  Wow. Was this how drug dealers felt? It was almost as if I should have been brokering this in the dimly lit forecourt of a gas station at two-thirty a.m., not my bookstore at eleven-thirty a.m.

  “I’ll see if I can fit that in,” I promised, handing him his receipt. “What else are you doing in town?”

  Grandpa shrugged, putting his aged leather wallet back in the pocket of his tan slacks. “I like cake. Wanna come get some cake with me?”

  I grimaced. “I would love to, but I’m here alone today. I can’t really shut the door.”

  He checked his watch—which matched the leather of his wallet, thank you. “It’s basically lunch. Surely you wouldn’t deny an old man a slice of coffee cake. And maybe another slice of carrot cake.”

  A smile crept across my face. He knew there was no way I could say no to him, and he was right—it was almost lunch, and I’d be closing soon for half an hour anyway.

  “Thirty minutes,” I said, getting up off my stool. “You go ahead and tell Ms. Donoho that I’m on a timer and I’m paying, okay?”

  “No, I’m paying,” Grandpa insisted. “I didn’t get to see you yesterday, so consider this your birthday cake.”

  Well, I wasn’t about to turn down birthday cake.

  I grinned. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll be right there, Grandpa.”

  CHAPTER FOUR – JOSH

  rule four: real women do not, in fact, have pillow fights in their underwear.

  Make sure he’s good in bed.

  How the fuck Kinsley expected me to find that out I’d never know. I couldn’t ask him—he was a guy.

  Of course he was going to fucking say he was good in bed. He was hardly going to admit if he’d never made a girl orgasm, was he?

  I was regretting this already. I had no idea what I was thinking, offering to help her date people.

  For fuck’s sake, I’d had a crush on the girl for years.

  A pathetic little loser crush that I’d never acted on because her brother was my best friend.

  Maybe this would help me get over the crush. It was the only thing I had to hold onto right now, because fuck knows why I’d put myself in this position.

  I’d lost my damn mind.

  That was all I had.

  I had no idea how to matchmake Kinsley. I had no idea how to matchmake anyone at all. I’d never done it in my life, yet she was now expecting me to find her future husband.

  On the fucking internet.

  Who found their husband or wife on the internet?

  Although, in White Peak, you probably had a better chance of it than meeting them in the bar.

  It wasn’t exactly hopping here.

  But that was the way I liked it.

  I peered around at our work site. It was my break so I had a legitimate reason to be spending the next fifteen minutes on my phone, but that didn’t mean I was going to enjoy it.

  I logged into Kinsley’s dating account on Stupid Cupid and checked the messages. Much to my chagrin, there were fifteen new messages since this morning when I’d last looked.

  This was going to be a lot of work.

  The first three guys didn’t fit her parameters at all. One was a pro snowboarder, and I’d never once seen Kinsley do anything other than grumble about mushy snow, much less do sports in it. The other two were just your everyday guys who were a one in a million.

  A bit like me.

  If that wasn’t a fucking kick in the teeth…

  I deleted their messages and moved on to the next. He was a potential match—he was an electrician and liked to read sci-fi and dystopian novels.

  Whatever the hell a dystopian novel was.

 
; His profile didn’t show where he lived, but he otherwise lined up exactly with what Kinsley was looking for. I sent him a message explaining who I was and asking where he lived, then moved on.

  By the time I was done, I’d identified three possible dates for her and become more than a little acquainted with some self-loathing.

  The door to the trailer swung open and Colton walked in, blowing out a long breath. “Why do you look like your puppy just died?”

  I blinked at him. “I’m tired,” I lied. “Why do you look like a dust storm threw up on you?”

  “Fucking new kid.”

  Ah. Yeah. Our newest recruit to the building site was inexperienced, but he made mistakes not many people who were actually builders would make. I was starting to wonder if he knew what he was doing at all.

  It was becoming tiresome.

  Colton fired up the coffeemaker and held up a mug in question. When I nodded, he put my mug under the machine first and fixed my coffee before he did his.

  “What are you doing in here?” He sat down opposite me at the table and peered at my phone. “A dating site? Since when did you use fucking dating apps?”

  “It’s your sister’s,” I said dryly. “I agreed to help her find a date, remember?”

  Colt wrinkled his face up. “I thought you were kidding when you told me that.”

  “Evidently not.”

  “Have you found anyone?”

  “Three possibilities,” I replied. “But I’m not showing you. She gave me specific guidelines, and I’m sticking to them.”

  He stared at me. “If you set her up with a fucking idiot—”

  “Give me some credit, man. I don’t want to see her with an idiot either. She’s already got you for a brother; she’s idioted out.”

  He reached over and slugged me in the arm. “Fuck you. We both know that most of the guys around here are assholes.”

  “Yeah, well, none of these guys are from White Peak. They’re all nearby towns,” I explained. “They fit what she wants. She gave me some fucking tight parameters to work within, I’ll tell you that much.”