Rinn was never trying to get smart. It was just sometimes the things that flew out of her mouth seemed to be registered that way by adults. “I’m sorry, sir. That was not my intention at all. I mean—are you trying to ask me something specific?”

The acquiescence relaxed him back into his earlier commanding tone. “I want to sell these books. Obviously.”

Rinn looked back at the bags. It was a lot of nature books and philosophy tomes. It was going to be worth twenty-five dollars, at the most. She raised her arm, pointing toward the back of the store. “Oh, then yes. The sales counter is open. It’s in the back.”

“There’s no one there.” He raised his eyebrow like he’d gained a point.

Rinn was left to wonder why there was nothing remotely sexy about a man who acted like an actual romantic hero in real life. Lord Byron must have been the absolute worst. “Well, I’m sure if you wait a minute—”

“I already did that.” He crossed his arms again, like his time was more valuable than her time.

Rinn hated arguing about her personal worth via a dollar-per-hour rate. She’d gotten into enough of those fights on the store floor that this time she ducked down and dug under the register and grabbed the BACK IN A MINUTE! sign. When she popped back up, the man had one of those frozen, annoyed expressions on his face. Then she placed the sign on the register, and his features relaxed again as he read it.

“All right, let’s go.” Rinn headed toward the sales desk, practically sprinting so that the customer wouldn’t demand she lift his grocery bags filled with books. He could carry his own freaking stack of dead male philosophers and bird-watching books.

Rinn made a big show of setting up the register for sales. Checking in with her badge and opening and closing the register so that he knew she had hurried over in order to check through his books quickly. The sales desk was the official one place in the store with internet access—other than Jo’s laptop—so that they could look up the going rate for any books that came through the door. There were apps for that now, but the phone ban made using one of those impossible.

The man huffed and puffed and set the bags onto the sales counter.

Rinn gave him her brightest smile, cutting off whatever horrendous sarcasm he had been rehearsing as he’d lugged his books back across the entirety of the store. “If you give me a minute, I can tally these and give you a total. I’ll just need your ID.”

“Sure.” The man got out his ID, and Rinn handed him a clipboard with a paper to sign his name and write his other information.