In her absence, Nora has added a few more shifts—including leading story time on Saturday mornings. She bristles at any comparison to a sweet grandmother, but the role fits her. Indira’s here almost every day. She still wears all black—but she’s got a bright pink ribbon on her name tag that lets people know she’s an assistant manager. She’s done an amazing job familiarizing herself with the new genres we carry, and it’s been nice to have an assistant manager who actually assists.

Georgia isn’t on staff, but she might as well be with how much time she spends studying and hanging out in our café. She still makes incessant jokes about my height, but I put up with it because I love Josie and Josie loves Georgia. I kind of love her, too. In that annoying-kid-sister way. It’s nice not being the youngest in this little found family of ours.

I’ve met their mom a few times; she’s working to earn Josie’s trust back, holding down a job, going to therapy, and staying out of the dating world for now—but it’s Georgia whose blessing I asked for. She also helped me pick out the ring. There are two small diamonds (Georgia made me make sure they weren’t blood diamonds) and the center stone is an emerald. According to my future sister-in-law, emeralds are the stone of intuition and foresight, and throughout time they have been seen as symbols of truth and love. I couldn’t think of any better symbolism for my relationship with Josie.

A smattering of applause calls my attention to the event space; the conversation is over. I head up front to help people check out, but Henri, one of our new employees, has it under control. They’re moving faster than the credit card machine can approve the purchases, handing customers a multicolored bag printed with our new store name: Beyond the Pages. Thanks to Josie’s coaching, I was able to negotiate my involvement in the naming of the new store as a condition for accepting the job. Xander surprisingly agreed, which shows just how desperate he was.

Kind of like how desperate I am to get this crowd moving, so I grab a pad of sticky notes and help write the names for Luke to sign.

An hour and a half later—one superfan bought twelve books!—we say good night to Luke and his very pregnant wife, Jessie, and lock the door behind them.

We’re finally alone.