10. Rosie

Chapter 10

Rosie

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How sooner one tires of anything than a book!” —Pride and Prejudice

The book club regulars were all there. Gene from the grocery store who started coming after his wife passed away last year. Mrs. Mabel, the high school English teacher who’d been teaching longer than me or Charlie had been alive. A rotating batch of students came every month (and spent the entire discussion glued to their phones) because they got extra credit for showing up. Mr. Willingham, the octogenarian probate lawyer who had represented me in court, pro bono, after the public indecency incident, even though that wasn’t his law specialty. He fell asleep half-way through and when he abruptly awoke, he confessed on my behalf to something I hadn’t actually done, but it was the thought that counted.

Charlie’s fiancé, Greg, came when he was in town—my least favorite meetings, by the way. I hated him even more than Lily, and that was saying something. Charlie had the literal soul of a saint wrapped in the body of a person who didn’t like to say no. The combination was deadly in the hands of the wrong person. Like Greg, who took advantage of her at every turn, and she just couldn’t see it.

Max and I rounded out the numbers of Winterhaven’s Literary Book Club.

The store was closed on book club nights, so Charlie knocked on the window to let Max know we were there. I held the acrylic painting I’d done for him out from my body, still not quite dry, but dry enough, and waited for the bam of electricity to hit me like it did every time I saw Max.

“Charlotte,” he said in his cultured tone. He wore wire-rim glasses and his dimpled smile softened his austere expression. He turned to me. “Josie.”

Was it just me, or did his gaze linger on me a little longer than usual before he turned and walked toward the circle of chairs set up near the front of the store.

“Show him the painting,” Charlie hissed.

“I will,” I hissed back. I looked down at it and realized I’d accidentally pulled the painting in too close to my chest when I’d come through the door and gotten paint on Charlie’s shirt. Dang it.

Everyone was leaning close to Mrs. Mabel, who was our resident tea-spiller. “Dylan Savage is back in town.”

Gene nodded. “I saw him out running this morning when I opened the store. Shirtless .”

Mr. Willingham nodded too, but then said, “You were shirtless?”

“No. Dylan was shirtless,” Gene said.

“Who?” Mr. Willingham took his glasses off and used his tie to wipe them clean.

“Sheriff Savage’s son,” Mrs. Mabel said.

“Okay, yes. David,” Mr. Willingham said, but with the kind of tone that showed he had no idea who Mrs. Mabel was talking about.

Mrs. Mabel waved at me and Charlie and continued, “I had him for all four years of high school in my English class.” Mrs. Mabel taught everyone in Winterhaven for all four years of high school English, but she stated it as proudly as if it had been unique.

“David’s the one whose brother died, right? I thought that was Hudson,” Mr. Willingham tried again.

“No,” Gene said patiently. “Shiloh died. His younger brother is Hudson. Shiloh, Hudson, and Dylan were like the three musketeers when they were younger.”

“Dylan’s the hockey player,” one of Mrs. Mabel’s students said. “The hot one with the memes.” She mimed stomping on a camera.

“He’s living with me,” I blurted. Everyone swiveled toward me. “Well, not with me, but next to me—”

Max cleared his throat and said, “We’re here to talk about literature.”

“I’m not,” one of Mrs. Mabel’s students said. “I want to hear about Dylan.”

Everyone’s eyes burned with curiosity as they swiveled back toward me, but I didn’t want to annoy Max, whose eyes flashed with something unreadable at Dylan’s name.

Was it jealousy? Maybe the librarian outfit was working.

Max motioned for us to sit, but I couldn’t with the painting. He flipped through the book and took the pencil from behind his ear to jot something in the margins.

Well, as long as I was being awkward …

“I painted this,” I announced without preamble. “For the Alaska section.”

Gene coughed so loudly, it sounded like he was loosening up something that had been lodged in his lungs for at least ten years. Mrs. Mabel patted his back, and Mr. Willingham handed him a hard candy from his pocket.

“It’s beautiful,” Gene finally managed to say after all the ministrations. Gene’s coughs were legendary at book club, enough to almost be counted as their own book club member. More than once, they’d saved me from one of Max’s questions that might reveal I hadn’t actually read the book, so I couldn’t complain.

Mrs. Mabel gave me a sympathetic look. “Max,” she said. “Rosie has something to show you.”

I felt like a second grader bringing her mom a rock she’d found on the playground. Max looked up from the book. “Wow. Where did you find this?”

My cheeks felt hot. “I painted it for the Alaska section. If you want it. You don’t have to, of course.”

His eyebrows winged up in surprise. I seemed to have taken him off-guard. “Sure.” He studied the painting. “I didn’t realize you painted like this, I thought …”

I waited for him to finish his sentence, but he merely shook his head.

“Thought what?” Mr. Willingham prodded.

Max looked a little embarrassed when he mumbled, “Well, just that you weren’t this good.”

Oh, wow. Okay. Had he never peered in the windows of my shop before? What about me had made him expect less?

I didn’t grow up in Winterhaven, which sometimes left me feeling like an outsider—even if most people were really kind to me. Max, though, was the ultimate insider—born and raised, generational Winterhaven resident. He was eight years older than me and sometimes treated me in the same dismissive way he did Mrs. Mabel’s students.

I shook off the hurt. That’s what Project: Ardent Adoration was about. He was going to go from knowing nothing about me to knowing everything. Starting now.

“I could hang it for you,” I offered.

He nodded slowly. “Let me get the step stool. And then we’ll get started with our discussion,” he said to everyone else.

I looked at Charlie, who pressed her hand down at her side, her hand signal for, “Be chill.”

I took a deep breath.

I purposely took my time hanging the painting, not sad to miss the discussion. Even though I’d actually read the book, I didn’t have much to say about it. Max was connecting the themes from this novel to a post-modernist poem only he and Mrs. Mabel had read when I reached too far to adjust the angle of the painting and teetered. I overcorrected in the other direction and the stool wobbled.

In the circle, Max was saying, “The sense of fatalism rooted in the pointlessness of accomplishment is demonstrated by using a semi-colon when a colon would have shown deliberate—”

“Oh crap,” I said before anyone could learn more about brilliant punctuation choices. I tried to catch myself, but there was nothing to grab as the step stool swayed unsteadily. I reached for a shelf as I fell and landed with a loud clatter amongst dozens of Alaskan-authored books I’d pulled down with me.

“Rosie! Are you okay?” Charlie raced toward me as I lay stunned and assessed the damage.

Painting: At an angle but successfully hung on the wall.

The rest of me: “Owww.”

“Max, help her to the couch,” Charlie said.

He hesitated, taking in the fallen books as though I had done him a personal slight by scattering them around his store. “I don’t think we’re supposed to move someone who’s injured …”

“I’ll help her,” Mr. Willingham said gallantly. He stepped forward with this stooped back and willing heart.

Gene held out a hand to stop him. “I thought your doctor said you’re not supposed to lift more than ten pounds after your fall last month.”

Sheesh. We were falling left and right.

“I’ve got this,” I said, but Charlie put a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed.

“You remember what happened to our friend Jane after her injury. Or maybe she was sick .” Charlie winked. My confusion went to understanding in an instant—Jane Bennet. Charlie may not have been on board with the plan or the man, but she always had my back. “Max, can you help her? I think you’ll need to carry her.”

Max rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “Okay …” He wrapped an arm around my back to help me sit up, which didn’t feel great, I’ll say that much. But he smelled fresh, like deodorant, and up close, I could see a five-o’clock shadow coming in. It helped distract me from the pain. A little.

“Link one arm under her leg and the other behind her back, then pick her up,” Gene instructed as Max hesitated.

“Like carrying her over the threshold,” Mrs. Mabel added helpfully. Her two students were still sitting in the circle of chairs, on their phones. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn they didn’t even notice me lying on the ground. One of them held up their phone, took a picture of me, and smiled as she began typing away. Well, there went that hope.

“Wrap your arm around his neck, hon,” Mrs. Mabel continued, way too enthusiastically.

I did as Mrs. Mabel instructed, and Max did as Gene instructed.

“Okay, lift her on the count of three,” Gene said. “One, two—”

I felt Max’s muscles contract around me as he lifted me an inch, then another. His arms shook, and I tried to revel in being so close to him, but pain was really ruining the experience. The tendons in his neck tightened. “I didn’t realize you were so heavy,” he said between gasps.

Charlie scoffed.

“Max!” Mrs. Mabel admonished.

Max’s face was red. “I just mean—” But before I could figure out what he meant, he dropped me right on my tailbone again. I gasped and rolled to my side.

“I’m sorry, I—” Max shook out his arms and stepped back.

Mrs. Mabel fished some ibuprofen from her purse for me, and Charlie and Gene went to either side of me to help me stand and make it to the couch. Not too heavy for their help, at least.

“Do you need to sleep here tonight?” Charlie asked.

I saw Max’s eyes widen, but I shook my head, too miserable to scheme. All I wanted was my bed—no wait. I didn’t even have that. Dylan had it. Charlie’s mouth turned down in true concern. “Gene? Can you drive us back to Rosie’s place?”

Gene nodded. “Mrs. Mabel, I’ll drop you off too.”

“But the book,” Max said, disappointed. “We hardly got to talk about it.” His voice drifted off as everyone glared at him. I softened though. He looked forward to this book club every month, and I’d ruined it. But there was still time to enact the next step of my plan: get to his heart through his books.

“Next month we should do Shrubs of Fog ,” I said.

Everyone but Max groaned. It was a thousand-page, stream-of-consciousness book Max had been trying to convince us to read for a year. Apparently the entire book was one long sentence told in second person.

But it was all worth it for the grin he gave me. “It’s a deal. Hope you feel better, Jos.”

We had a nickname! It was for the wrong name, but a step in the right direction.

“Let’s get you home, Rosie .” Charlie linked her arm over my shoulder and gave Max the stink eye.

Gene drove slow enough that walkers passed us on the way to my apartment. But I was grateful for the ride.

“What’s going on?” Charlie pointed toward a group of people gathered in front of Alaska Chic. “Did a cruise ship come in?”

“No.” I sat up straighter in the backseat. Mrs. Mabel insisted I lay down, which meant she was squeezed up front on the bench seat between Gene and Charlie. “The next one isn’t scheduled to dock until tomorrow afternoon.”

As we got closer, I recognized people from town. Most of the Bookish Ballers were there, as well as the Icy Asps (minus Bennett, who was out at sea this weekend.) Several girls from the high school were in a circle, giggling, and all of them were looking upward.

I followed their gazes to find none other than a shirtless Dylan Savage framed in the window. He had installed a pull up bar in the closet doorway and was pulling himself up again and again at a punishing speed, like it was completely effortless. Even from here, I could see his biceps harden with each pull and his defined triceps clench as he released.

His sweatpants were slung low on his hips, revealing taut obliques—which I had already seen, thank you very much, but had been too flustered to fully appreciate. Was it suddenly extra hot in this car?

He wore white earbuds, oblivious to the crowd watching him work out. Which made me feel kind of like a stalker, but also, he was the one who chose to work out half-dressed in front of a public-facing window. So …

“Oh my,” Mrs. Mabel breathed.

Oh my, indeed.

“Again I say: gross,” Charlie said.

“Is The David gross?” I tugged her ponytail to silence her blasphemy.

“That’s my cousin you’re ogling.”

“Appreciating. It’s totally different.”

He stopped and bent down to get something. A water bottle. My pink water bottle. Hey! But I found I didn’t really mind as I watched him lift it over his head, and his forearms flexed as he squeezed water into his mouth.

“Not really different at all. But I will say this.” Charlie paused, waiting until she had my full attention—well most of my attention; the obliques were hard to look away from. She smirked. “I’ll bet he could pick you up.”

“She’s not wrong, honey.” Mrs. Mabel fanned herself, and Gene nodded. Charlie helped me out of the car, and I slung my arm around her shoulders.

“I—” My words caught in my throat as Dylan happened to glance out the window to the crowd. His gaze landed directly on me, igniting my entire body with a fire that burned from inside out. He grabbed the curtain and flung it across the open window, removing our view.

A few people groaned and started to drift away, but I stood there for another moment with my realization.

Dylan Savage was going to shake up this whole town.