Penny had informed me it was time to order titles for the new releases bookcase, and she trusted me to do this. I thought that was huge. She gave me a budget, and the distributor resources that offered some insight into what titles were popular for the season. As a reader of all genres, and part of the online book community, I felt I had a finger on that particular pulse. Still, I was grateful Penny trusted me to order new stock, and it was fun! For a moment, I forgot I was ordering them for the store, and not for myself.

However, the work also opened my eyes to the complexity of stock rotation for an independent bookstore. Hours passed as I attempted to work out Penny’s ordering history. I knew she worked with the local schools and ordered titles the kids would be reading in school every term. That had already been done for the current term.

There also appeared to be a seasonal pattern. For example, she ordered any new books about the area around late spring/summer along with the latest bestselling children’s books. Yet, as I fell farther down the stock-taking rabbit hole, I discovered there were a lot of nonfiction titles that just weren’t selling. I itched to plump Penny’s summer stock with beach reads.

As I opened more files for previous years’ sales, trying to get a grasp of what worked and what didn’t depending on the season, it suddenly occurred to me that it was none of my business. I was getting carried away. I was there to temporarily run the store.

Deprived of the many hours, probably days, it would take to look through sales history and the current stock situation, I turned to my other work: content edits from another client who wrote crime fiction. While I’d felt okay scrolling through stock and sales history, as I worked on the edits, the screen made me feel slightly nauseated, and my hangover began to catch up with me. All I really wanted to do was curl up in bed and listen to the rain.

Instead I sipped at my coffee, worked for a bit, and then gazed distractedly out at the rain bouncing off the sea. Perhaps, after my experience with Aaron, I was a fool to believe in the connection I felt with Roane. But unlike with Aaron, I’d actually met Roane. Sat face-to-face with him and gotten a real measure of the man. My instincts told me I could trust him, and I wouldn’t let some stranger I’d mistaken for a confidant cause me to be mistrustful of new friends.

That’s all Roane was. I’d friend-zoned him to protect myself. Despite his earlier attraction to me, he seemed fine with that. No doubt that had something to do with my drunken escapades the night before and then his watching me vomit.

Not sexy.