Ash’s mouth went bone dry.

“And I know I can’t just go up to her and tell her she’s pretty or whatever. She’s shot down every guy who’s asked her out in the last few months.” He ran a hand through his blond hair. “I need something special. Something that will show her that I’m not just looking to hook up, that I really like her, you know, for her.”

“Right,” Ash said, the word coming out robotic.

“She’s, like, supergreat, you know?” Graham said, gaze serious.

Ash nodded numbly. “I know.”

Graham smiled. “Right. Best friends. Of course you know.” He squeezed Ash’s shoulder. “And you know I’ll treat her right. I’m not going to be like those jerk-offs she’s dated before. I know she’s special.”

Ash was going to vomit on Graham’s Adidas.

“So will you help me?” he asked, his hand still heavy on Ash’s shoulder.

Acid was burning in the back of Ash’s throat because somehow, some way, he knew where this was going. “Help you…ask Kincaid out.”

“I need your letters,” he whispered.

Ash closed his eyes. “Graham…”

“I know they’re not my words, but that’s totally how I feel about her, and you’re so much better at the writing thing than I am,” he said, a plea in his voice. “I can hide them in some of the books around the store. Make it like a scavenger hunt for her. She loves romantic stuff. That’d be romantic, right?”

Ridiculously, utterly romantic. He wished he’d thought of putting them in books. He also wished he could scream at Graham to back the fuck off and write his own damn letters. He couldn’t steal Ash’s feelings for Kincaid and pass them off as his own. What kind of bullshit was that?

But Graham didn’t know they were Ash’s feelings. He thought it was fiction, a novel. Nothing real. Not Ash’s blood and guts spilled all over the goddamned pages. “Graham, I don’t think that’s the best idea. KC is—”

“I know you’re protective of her. I absolutely respect that, but”—he put a hand to his chest—“it’s me. You know I’ll be good to her. I already care about her so much.”

Ash glanced past Graham’s shoulder. Kincaid was staring out the front window, completely oblivious to the fact that she was the subject of their conversation. Did she like Graham that way? Ash had seen how she looked at him. Was that what she wanted? Some big romantic gesture from Graham? Would that make her happy?

Ash’s insides were being pulled and stretched in ten different directions. He didn’t want Graham and Kincaid together, but if that was what she wanted, who was he to stop it? And if there was a chance that she felt about Ash the way he did about her, could this actually help him find out?

If they hid anonymous letters written in Ash’s words and tucked them into her favorite books—favorites Graham couldn’t know about—wouldn’t she guess who they were really from? Wouldn’t it be obvious to her? Ash was the writer. Graham was good at other things, but books and writing were not his forte. Maybe this could be a way to suss out her feelings—like the story he’d made up about the novel. If Kincaid could see Ash in his words, maybe that would mean she loved him back, that she’d been paying as close attention to him as he had to her.