When I look up, he’s smirking again, like he knows how much he rattled me. Like this is all part of his strategy to crush me into oblivion.

“I think you should go,” I say, lifting my chin.

“Yeah,” he says, releasing a dark laugh. “I would have if you hadn’t—”

“Just go.”

His jaw clenches, and he turns and stalks away, and I’m involuntarily staring at his butt, at the way his worn jeans hug everything just right—

“My sister was right about you,” I call after him, and he pauses. “You’re just a basic run-of-the-mill asshole.”

His body goes rigid for one second, then two. But he doesn’t turn around, doesn’t reply. He just keeps on walking, disappearing behind the new bookcase-wall and into his store.

10

Ryan

A basic run-of-the-mill asshole.

Even now, two days later, I can’t get over the banality of Josie’s insult. Or the memory of her grabbing my lanyard, her eyes glittering green fire. At that angle, I could see right down her shirt, and the image of Josie Klein’s cleavage cupped in a bloodred bra will forever be tattooed on my brain.

I’d think she was trying to screw with my head and get an advantage, but she looked as out of control as I felt. Like we’d been caught in some magnetic field and thrown together.

Until she broke the spell with that pathetic insult.

Simple as they were, her words stung. Maybe because she wasn’t wrong. Not about the asshole part—Josie is the only one who brings that out in me.

But I’ve spent my entire life trying not to be ordinary or run of the mill.

As the youngest Lawson brother, I got the leftovers of my parents’ DNA. I wasn’t a good athlete like my brother John, I wasn’t funny like Robert, and I didn’t get good grades like Paul. The start of every school year was always the same—when teachers realized I was one of those Lawsons, their expectations skyrocketed.

Which made their inevitable disappointment even worse.

For years, I tried to be athletic and academic, but around the time I became “friends” with those kids who dared me to shoplift a dirty book, I stopped. It was easier to give up than it was to keep failing.

If it hadn’t been for Elaine, I may have never found my calling. To run this bookstore, and—

“Boss, can you come hang this for us?”

—and be the tallest person in almost any room.

“Sure thing,” I say, heading over to hang the Mazel Tov banner. Love is in the air today, along with a never-ending shower of dust motes from the construction. But I’m focusing on the bright side.

Today we’re not just selling romance, we’re playing a part in one.