Daniella looked over to Eli. He still looked intractable—his smirk firmly in place and his arms decidedly folded across his chest—like getting the truth out of him would require a modern miracle.

“Get out of here, then. If you’re not going to help or explain. Leave me to sort out whatever mess you’ve clearly made.” Daniella turned away. She didn’t want to look at Eli anymore. Didn’t want to think about her own weakness in not going straight to Jo. Didn’t even want to solve this problem that had landed on her today. All she wanted was to drink some grape soda and nurse her hangover and maybe post another poem on her account.

So, of course, that was when Eli decided to crack. “Okay, okay, I will tell you. But you have got to swear to not tell anyone. This is serious.”

Daniella whipped around. “I cannot promise that. I have no idea what is going on. All I know is that nine thousand dollars has gone missing and you somehow went through Jo’s work emails and found out that the store is being sold. Don’t you get this? This isn’t a prank. This isn’t a whim. This is nine thousand dollars of bookstore funds that are missing on the ledger. This is all of our jobs and an entire store that is going under. You better start explaining, and you better start fast.”

Eli swallowed hard. “See, I was closing up.”

“Yes, I know. Jo gave you the keys. I left you alone. And now we have boxes and boxes of—” But Daniella had whacked her hand into a box and it had gone toppling over. She paused, for a moment, staring at the box. “That can’t be books.”

“Wait—” called Eli.

But Daniella was on a mission now. She pulled off the tape and ripped open the box. There, inside, were boxes of sneakers. Mostly Air Jordans from what Daniella could tell by the sheer number of black-and-red boxes.

Holy hell. No wonder the delivery woman had unloaded the delivery so quickly. They hadn’t been heavy. Not the way their normal book deliveries were next to impossible to lift.

Daniella didn’t have a witty repartee. She didn’t have a comeback or a retort or any of the other fancy words for this kind of occasion. Namely the time and the place where a person showed that they cared more about themselves than for the place you thought that you both held sacred. She could only stare at Eli, then stare at the boxes of Jordans, and then stare at Eli again. Finally, she came up with the only thought that was in her mind. The one phrase that was repeating on an endless loop in her head. “You stole.”

“No.” Eli was shaking his head vigorously, like a fervent prayer.

Daniella nodded slowly, assuredly. “You did. You stole. From the bookstore.”