Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

RYAN

She’s called me Brian three times.

Make that four.

I always figured Josie—see, I know her name—didn’t like me. She gives me the cold shoulder every time I see her at Beans. Acts like she doesn’t know who I am.

Maybe it’s not an act?

Which would be crazy. She’s worked at the Tab almost as long as I’ve been running Happy Endings. I know she orders an Americano with three shots of espresso in the morning and herbal tea in the afternoon. And a cookie if she’s having a bad day.

Although, TBH, it always looks like she’s having a bad day.

Maybe her bun is too tight. I get the sense Josie never lets her hair down—literally or figuratively. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a thick book in her hands. It’s like she carts them around to make sure everyone knows she’s Smart with a capital S.

It’s obvious she is. She’s also really pretty, in an unapproachable, ice-queen way. Dark hair and sharp green eyes, wearing heels so high they could be used as shivs.

Which is why I’ve never had the balls to talk to her .

And I probably won’t have the chance to ever again after Xander’s comment. I did not describe her bookstore as “a bleak wasteland of existential dread.” I said her bookstore is bleak—an objective fact—and her books fill me with existential dread. Also true.

Okay, so maybe that’s not any better. I still wish I’d corrected him.

“I’m glad you two are being good sports about this,” Xander says.

Josie has her arms crossed over her chest, her jaw clenched tight. I can’t tell if she’s scowling or trying to hold back tears.

“Doesn’t seem like we have a choice,” I say.

Xander laughs as if I’ve made a joke. This whole meeting feels like a joke, and we’re the punch line. I can picture him with his smug grin, lying naked in a California King bed, counting his money and thinking of ways to make his monkeys dance.

I don’t want to dance for him or anyone else, and I don’t want to compete against Josie for our jobs. I wish there was a way we could both win and no one would lose their store.

But the world isn’t all happy endings, dickwad.

I shake my head, trying to clear my older brothers’ words from my mind. They’d probably be happy to see me lose and get a more “masculine” job, one that won’t make them question my sexuality or the fact that I’m single.

The store must be crawling with hotties.

If I were you, I’d be banging a different customer every day.

Sometimes it blows my mind that we grew up in the same house with the same parents and ended up with such different ideas about love and sex.

“All right then.” Xander scoots his chair back so abruptly it screeches against the floor. Josie cringes, revealing a dimple I’ve never noticed. She really is pretty; even when she’s upset. “May the best bookseller win.”

And with that, he’s off .

I turn back to Josie, hoping for a moment of shared commiseration, but she’s eyeing me like I’m the enemy.

I should say something to break the tension, but I don’t have a clever bone in my giant, awkward body. Especially around a woman who’s as intimidating as she is striking. The Hating Game comes to mind, and I wonder what Josh Templeman might say to Lucy Hutton in this situation. But I’m no Josh, and I don’t have Sally Thorne drafting my dialogue.

My silence seems to annoy Josie even more. She stands in a huff and hurries back to her store, leaving me with a table full of dirty dishes and a familiar, soul-deep discomfort.

Growing up as the youngest of four boys, everything was a competition. Who could eat the most the fastest, who could hit the hardest, who could pee the farthest from the toilet bowl. Who was the oldest. (That one didn’t make any sense.)

I came in last for every single one.

Not that I ever really tried to win. I’ve always gotten more pleasure from doing an activity than coming in first. What was there to even win? Bragging rights?

Now, though, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

I glance at the wall dividing my store from the coffee shop, which currently displays artwork for sale by local artists. I try to picture it gone, seeing right through to Happy Endings, looking in on my employees, all blissfully unaware that everything is about to change.

Eddie and the new girl both look busy, so I bus the table and leave the dirty dishes on the counter before leaving.

The bell on the front door of Happy Endings chimes as I enter, and a wave of nostalgia hits me. Elaine, the store’s original owner and my first and only boss, created this little corner of the world to be a haven for the tenderhearted: those who love love but don’t always feel deserving of it. She’d be proud of how we’ve grown, carrying the books to back up our motto—Everyone deserves a love story .

If Happy Endings closes... No other bookstore in Boston carries such a diverse selection of romance. Our customers won’t have anywhere to browse without judgment, to sit and read in cozy nooks, to connect with themselves and each other.

There’s so much at stake, and not just for me.

“Boss!” my assistant manager shouts, even though I’m steps away from her.

“Cindy!” I say back in mock excitement. Her eyebrows furrow, and I realize my mistake. “Cinderella!”

I respect everyone’s identity, and almost always get pronouns right. But for the life of me, I can’t get used to calling my buxom, middle-aged, bottle-bright-red-haired assistant manager Cinderella. And it’s not like she identifies as a humble, hardworking woman waiting for her prince—she just got a free name change after her divorce was final. Most people, I assume, change back to their original name, but Cinderella isn’t most people.

“I got you something,” she says, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

With such tenderness you’d think she was handing over the Heart of the Ocean, Cinderella places a light blue pin on my open palm.

The white letters read: non-practicing romantic.

“Get it?” Her smile lights up her face. “You’d be a practicing romantic if you ever went on a date.”

“How about I’ll start dating when you do?”

Cinderella blushes and shakes her head. I don’t think she’s been on a single date in the seven years since her divorce—right about the time she started coming into the store. Every day, she’d sit in a nook and read, crying over the happy endings. She treated her book therapy like a job, and eventually we gave her one.

I don’t regret hiring Cinderella, but I do regret telling her I loved the boss bitch pin she gifted me on her first day. Last I counted, I had nearly two hundred pieces of “flair.” I fear the day she gives me a second lanyard .

“I saw the pin on a customer’s jacket and knew it was meant for you,” Cinderella says. “She didn’t want to part with it, but she finally agreed to a little barter.”

Persephone purrs at my feet until I pick her up. She always seems to know when I could use cheering up—unlike Hades, who keeps his distance unless I pop a can of tuna.

“A barter?” I ask, afraid to hear the details.

Cinderella shrugs. “I gave her the ARC of Ali Hazelwood’s next book. I figured since we’d both read it already...”

“Absolutely,” I say, grateful she didn’t trade a book we could’ve sold. This penny-counting stuff is new for me—we’re going to have to step it up. Tighten our bootstraps. Our belts? Whatever the metaphor, we need to do better than Josie’s store and all their hardcover books with price tags as big as their authors’ vocabularies. With those profit margins, she’ll only have to sell half what we will.

The bell on the front door chimes, and two regular customers walk in, laughing and smiling.

“Hey, handsome.” Michael is dressed as himself today, not as his alter ego Ginger, the star of our monthly Drag Queen Story Time for teens. “I’m ready for a new book boyfriend.”

“I know just the guy!”

And with that, I switch gears and do what I do best: match readers with stories to help them realize they deserve the kind of love people write books about.

Seven hours later, I’m headed home, having finally finished my closing duties: including vacuuming up all the crumbs the teenagers left after camping out all afternoon in “their” reading nook.

Not that I minded. The busywork kept me from ruminating over worst-case scenarios.

Instinctively, I slow down outside Josie’s store. I can see her through the window, her hair still in that severe bun, head bent over a book. I’m tempted to go inside and ask what she’s reading, but I’m probably the last person she wants to talk to.

It’s just... she looks so lonely in there.

Or maybe that’s because the store is so sterile and organized it feels more like a museum than a bookstore. I shiver at the thought of her taking over Happy Endings and destroying the inclusive, beautiful selection of novels I’ve worked so hard to curate.

Across the street, a group of drunk college students pile out of an Uber, making enough noise to wake the dead. And attract Josie’s attention.

I look away a beat too late, and as I hurry toward the Davis Square T stop, I try not to think about her sad, beautiful green eyes.

It doesn’t work. I’m still thinking about them when I get home to my studio apartment in Charlestown. I pour a big glass of wine and break into the “better than sex” cookies a customer brought me today.

Desperate for a distraction, I grab my laptop and open BookFriends, the review site for booksellers and librarians. At first, I didn’t understand the strict anonymity rules, but after a popular YA author made homophobic jokes at one of my events, I realized how grateful I was for a place where I could share a warning without fear of blowback.

But my favorite thing about BookFriends is the reviews people share. It reaffirms the saying that there’s a lid for every pot. What one person thinks is pure drivel is another’s literary masterpiece.

There’s one woman whose reviews I always look forward to. BookshopGirl reads big books like the ones Josie sells. But BSG (as I think of her) isn’t a snob. Her reviews are thoughtful and inquisitive; I can tell she puts a lot of time into them.

A couple months ago, we had a lively discussion on a thread about Lily King’s Writers she’s online. I pull up our chat and pick up where our last conversation left off: What page are you on now?

BookshopGirl: 376.

RJ.Reads: So you’re what? Halfway done?

BookshopGirl: More like two-thirds. I’ve got about 150 left.

I shake my head. A few romance novels have left me wanting more, but not three hundred pages more. Unless we’re talking Lucy Score.

Good book? I ask, feeling the tension in my shoulders finally start to dissipate.

BookshopGirl: Technically speaking, yes. The prose is beautiful and the characters are well-developed.

RJ.Reads: And not technically speaking?

BookshopGirl: The author is a bit pretentious—but I know that from personal experience, so I’m trying to keep an open mind about the book.

RJ.Reads: How diplomatic of you.

BookshopGirl: I try. How about you? What page are you on?

RJ.Reads: Page zero. Finished an ARC on the way home and haven’t picked my next book yet. Got a suggestion for me?

BookshopGirl: Hmmm.

As I watch the three dots appear and disappear, I smile at the prospect of reading a book of BSG’s choice. Based on the books on her Favorites shelf, it might take me the whole summer to read whatever she picks, but I can always get an audio copy. Or I can do what I did during my remedial English classes in high school—google reviews and cobble together enough information to make it sound like I read the book.

Not my proudest moments.

The dots stop, then start again. I’m on the edge of my seat.

BookshopGirl: Sorry, my sister called. I’ve got to run, but I’ll get back to you soon on a five-star book. Goodnight!

And with that, her green light turns red, and I’m left wondering what BookshopGirl’s eyes look like. If they sparkle like Cinderella’s, or if they’re sad and lonely like Josie’s.