I smoothed my hand across the cover, across the embellished font and the laminated gloss. I remembered how much I loved this book. How every word sounded like a heartbeat, how every turn of phrase was a love song.
“You said you read mine—was it one of those you never hear about?” I asked quietly. “One of the good ones?”
He didn’t answer at first. I glanced up to see if he’d even heard me, and to my surprise he wasn’t even looking at the book. He was looking at—atme, with this soft, quiet sadness that made my stomach twist.
“Yes,” he replied, as sure and certain as a sunrise. “It was.”
My eyes burned, and I quickly looked away, and wiped the tears with the back of my hand. They were words I didn’t think I needed to hear. Lee Marlow had never said as much—he said itwas fluffy, it was lighthearted. It was candy, though even candy could be good—sweet and flavorful and exactly what you needed exactly when you needed it. But he never said as much.
Rose never understood why I was so wrapped up in what Lee thought of my books, but didn’t you want someone you loved to respect what you wrote? Lee was supposed to be the closest person I had. He was supposed to tell me it was good, that it was worthy—and thatIwas worthy of that praise.
But instead it came from a stranger I barely knew.
Ben reminded me of Ann in that way. She’d sat down at my table, and with a certainty as if she already knew that my words were worthy, she asked me to write her romances. She gave me a gift I never thought I’d get. And through her I wrote the stories I wanted to read, and it was so powerful—
I took a deep breath, and put my book back on the shelf. “I don’t know how to finish Ann’s manuscript.”
He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t know how. I... I don’t think I can. But...” I swallowed the knot in my throat, and said with certainty, “I’ll try.”
He was quiet for one heartbeat, then two, then three. And then I saw his shined loafers stop in front of me, and when I looked up he had bent down a little, his hands in his pockets, and he was smiling, “Thank you. Annie would like that. And I’ll help you however I can.”
“Oh? Gonna write the happily ever after for me?”
“I can give you some ideas.”
And I recognized that kind of smile, finally. The kind you didn’t really show to strangers. The kind you kept to yourself because the world had been shit, and your heart had been broken so many times by different people and places and stories. He hadstories, too. The wedding ring on a chain around his neck. The way he fit his hands into his pockets to look as small as possible. The reason he loved romance.
And for the first time since I cried about Lee in Rose’s matchbox-sized apartment with a bottle of wine and a half-eaten pizza, my hair still wet with rain, I wanted to learn a new story. I wanted to read the first chapter in the life of Ben Andor and figure out the words that built his heart and soul. And okay, yeah, maybe also his six-foot-three frame, but honestly even if Iwantedto climb him, I couldn’t because he was very much a ghost and I would go right through him.
I wasn’t very good at climbing, anyway.
We left the bookstore after I’d bought the new Sarah MacLean historical romance, and Ben walked me home the last two blocks. By then the storm was at the edge of town.
“So, in the spirit of being a mediator,” I began, pausing at the gate to the inn, “I’m obligated to ask if you would like me to pass on a message to anyone.”
He cocked his head. “As in anyone I’ve left behind?”
“Yes. Parents or, um, your grandmother, right? A significant other?” I said that part a bit quieter, thinking about the wedding ring around his neck. It wasn’t like... I mean, we weren’t... this wasn’t—I wasn’tfishing.
“Um.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I... well.” Then he took a deep breath and said, “No.”
I gave a start. “No one?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.”
I forced myself to look away. Down the street. Seaburn was walking the mayor, and I waved to them as they passed.No one.There was a weight to those words. I’d always operated alone, but I knew I had family—Alice and my dad and Rose and Carver. But to be really alone. I’d spent my life with safety nets. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to walk a tightrope without them, and then when you finally fell...
No one.
I tried to not flinch away from the thought, but it stayed with me. Because loneliness was the kind of ghost that haunted you long after you were dead. It stood over your plot in the cemetery where a lone name sat carved in marble. It sat with your urn. It was the wind that carried your ashes when no one claimed your body.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, once Seaburn and the mayor were out of earshot. “I didn’t know.”