Page 14 of Only and Forever
“It was this magical little place, Lula.” His voice is soft, nostalgic. “Shelves crammed with every kind of book you can think of. Chipped china cups stacked by the register, a rusty electric kettle, ancient bags of Lipton tea. Movie posters from days gone by, dusty stacks of comic books, grimy windows the light barely snuck through.”
“Sounds delightful,” I tell him dryly before sipping my coffee.
He smiles, his gaze fastened on the horizon. “It was. It could have been even more so. That’s what I saw when I walked in there, its potential.”
Silence hangs in the air. I’m on tenterhooks now. Where does this story go? What happens next?
“And?” I prompt.
Viggo’s smile deepens. “And I told the owner as much.”
“Bet they loved that.”
He laughs softly. “Gerry was surprisingly cool about it. Rather than tell me to walk my ass out for implying his place could use some work, he said, ‘Well, Mr. Grand Plans, how about you work for me, get a dose of reality about running a store, then see how many of those ideas of yours are actually possible.’ ” He sips his coffee. “So that’s what I did. Worked for him. For the past year, I’ve beendriving down there a couple times a week, opening the place, running it till close.”
I blink at him. “You’ve been driving two hours to work at a bookstore?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Twohours. Each way. To work at a poky little bookstore in Escondido. That cannot have been worth it.”
Finally, he glances my way, still smiling. “Hist-rom audiobooks kept me company on the drive. Traffic wasn’t too bad because I was always on the road so early in the morning and so late at night. And working at the store itself, training with Gerry, learning everything there was to know about running a bookstore while thinking about how I’d do it differently, do itmyway? I loved it. That’s how you know you really love something, Tallulahloo, when it feels worth the hassle, when even the hardest parts of it feel like a gift.”
My heart does something funny in my chest. It bristles and it burns.Love.He uses that word so easily, so confidently. I, on the other hand, recoil from it.
Sitting straighter in my chair, I cup my hands around my coffee mug and focus on what I’m invested in: this story’s outcome.
“So, the store’s revamped now?” I ask. “Gerry let you zhuzh up the place? Make it its best self, right?”
“Nope. Gerry was ready to retire. Sold the building two months ago to some firm that’s going to set up their insurance office there, wouldn’t even let me buy it from him. Said I had to start on my own, make something from nothing and prove to myself that I could.”
My mouth drops open. “What thehell? You drove four hours a day, twice a week, to run a musty old bookshop in Escondido that got closed down, and forwhat?”
A flock of birds darts from the trees, startled by my volume.
Viggo blinks at me, surprised. I blink at him, surprised, too. I can’t remember the last time I got fired up about anything. WhenI was little, I learned getting fired up just made things worse. It gave my parents something else to use against each other; it egged on my younger brother, Harry, to be even more misbehaved, simply to outdo me; it upset and scared little Charlie. So I stopped. I learned to stay quiet and bottle it up and not feel. Feelings made everything worse.
Viggo leans an elbow on the arm of his Adirondack and tells me, “I decided that I’m going to open a place of my own, in LA and here. I’ve been back and forth on where to start. Here would be cheaper, since I’d keep it out this way, rather than in Seattle. Then again, if I opened up my flagship store here, before I opened my second location in LA, I’d be up here most of the time, far away from the kiddos—”
“Kiddos?”
“My niece and nephew,” he explains. “And another one on the way. Frankie, my brother Ren’s wife, she’s due next month. You saw her last night, I’m sure. Tall, long dark hair. She’s the only one in our family right now who looks like they swallowed a prizewinning pumpkin, though never would I ever say that to her face—I value my life.”
“So... those kids. You don’t want to be away from them.”
He frowns at me, clearly perplexed. “Of course not. I’m their favorite uncle.”
“Like hell you are,” a man gruffs beyond the shrubs surrounding the deck, startling us both.
“Jesus,” I gasp, slapping a hand to my chest. “Where’d he come from?”
“Oh, he’s been up for hours.” Viggo sips his coffee, then says, voice lowered, “Ever since he retired, Gavin’s been an early riser. I’d guess he’s been up since three, probably, if he even slept at all. I’m not sure he isn’t a vampire.”
“I heard that,” says the man I now recognize is Gavin Hayes, former international soccer star and Oliver’s partner. He walksslowly up the steps from the backyard to the deck, wearing a gray zip-up jacket and matching black pants with a gray stripe along the side, a black coffee thermos in his hands.
“How’s it taste,” Viggo asks, beaming up at him, “that hefty dose of delusional thinking mixed in with your morning joe?”
Ignoring Viggo, Gavin lifts his mug in greeting and offers me a polite “Good morning.”