Page 98 of Only and Forever
“What is it?” I ask.
Viggo reaches for his laptop and spins it so the screen faces us. “Those are my sales so far, the first two weeks.”
I lean in, scanning the spreadsheet. A smile lifts my mouth. “Viggo. This isincredible.”
“Yeah.” His smile deepens as he leans in and knocks shoulders with me. “Thanks to you.”
I roll my eyes. “Hardly. It’s your store. Your vision brought to life. Don’t you dare blame me.”
He laughs. “C’mon, Lulaloo. You’ve made a big difference. If these sales continue, when I round out the first month, there’s no way I’ll have made that money if I’d had to pay staff. Free labor’s not nothing.”
“It’s not free labor. It’s a trade-off. You’ve invested time and expertise in my book. You’re letting me live here for free, when you and I both know what splitting rent on a place like this would cost me.” I clasp his hand, squeezing hard. I have to get this through his thick skull. “Stop downplaying what you’ve achieved. You deserve to celebrate it, not minimize it.”
Viggo’s smile slips. He stares down at my hand, his thumb skating over my skin. “Ah, but if I diminish a joyful moment and lower the high, it’s not such a painful drop when disappointment and failure inevitably come.”
I frown. “I find that... deeply relatable. But I’m going to tell you what Linda told me: that’s not a healthy way to look at the good in your life.”
“Well, my therapist agrees with yours and has told me that many times, too.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t mean it stuck. I’m working on it, though.”
“That is... relatable, too.”
Viggo squeezes my hand back. “Works in progress, right?”
I nod, smiling faintly. “Works in progress.”
“Speaking of,” he says, bringing a cookie to his mouth and taking a hearty bite, “when do I get to read the finished draft?”
“Mmm, these look good.” I tug my hand away and use it to pick up one of the cookies, inspecting it with way more intensity than makes any kind of sense.
“Lula,” he pleads.
I drop the cookie onto the plate. “Eventually, I promise. Just... not yet.”
Viggo chews his cookie, eyes narrowed playfully at me. “Fine.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I tell him. “I have a busy day at the bookstore to get ready for.”
“Wait, Lu.” Viggo pops the last of the cookie in his mouth, dusts off his hand, then reaches for an envelope. “This came for you.”
I stare down at the envelope, seeing my publisher’s name and return address... My breath catches, looking at my name abovehisaddress. My chest tightens. The sight of that feels so... right. And strange. And good.
I bite my lip, turning it over.
“I was surprised mail came for you,” Viggo says, leaning his hip against the counter, giving me a respectful distance to open my mail in privacy. “You haven’t gotten any before this.”
I shrug. “Didn’t really have any. No utilities. No student loan statements—Mom and Dad paid my tuition, which is a massive luxury, I know...”
Viggo shifts his weight. “Sure is. But it’s one that comes with complicated strings, I’d imagine.”
“Gotta love when your parents try to buy absolution for your toxic upbringing.” I tear open the seal. “Everything else I pay for, I went paperless. Except this. I gave my agent your address in case they wanted to send early copies to read for blurbs or financial stuff. I hope that’s okay.”
Viggo’s quiet. I peer up. He’s watching me intensely. “Of course it is, Tallulah, you’re living here.”
Not for much longer, I think.Unless I get the nerve to ask to stay.
He shifts. “Actually, about that, Tallulah. We should talk. I know you said—”
I clasp his hand, squeezing it tight, and mercifully, he goes quiet. I know we need to have this conversation, that avoiding it is unhealthy. But I tell myself this isn’t avoidance. This is... a pause. I’m raw from therapy, battling my demons that whisper how badlytrying to have something good in my life is going to end. I want to have what I need to talk about our plan regarding when and how I leave, but that conversation is inextricably tied tous, and that is a conversation I know I’m not yet prepared to have.