The Bookworm's Guide to Faking (The Bookworm's Guide #2) - Emma Hart Page 0,4
carried them over to that table near the door and stopped.
It was a mess.
Damn it.
Well, at least that gave me something to do.
I pulled each title off and started a stack on the chairs nearby. Within minutes, the table was completely empty, and I set about rearranging the books so it looked more appealing.
The bell over the door dinged when I was halfway through. “I’ll be right there,” I said over my shoulder, setting a book on a stand on top of a stack. “Just a second.”
“Don’t rush just for me.”
Oh, hell no.
I knew that voice. It was deeper than I remembered, but I’d still know it anywhere.
Sebastian Stone.
My heart stopped. Dead. Just ike that.
That was it.
I was dead now.
RIP me.
I swallowed, then slowly looked over my shoulder at the man who was once my best friend.
He was tall, at least six-foot-three, and his body was muscled and filled out in perfect proportion to his height. His curly black hair was scruffy and pushed back from his face, like he’d run his fingers through it in frustration ten times before he’d come in here, and his jaw was covered in a rough black stubble that looked a little too long to have been trimmed recently.
But it was his eyes.
He’d always had the bluest, most amazing eyes, and that hadn’t changed. Now, they pierced into me, shining with the amusement that was reflected in the smirk that curved his lips.
“What? Have I changed that much?” He held his hands out at his sides, and his watch glinted off the weak winter sunlight that shone through the window. “Surely you’ve seen me a few times in the last few years.”
From anyone else, that would have sounded arrogant and cocky, totally egotistical. But from him… It just sounded like the joke I knew it was.
I pursed my lips. “Sebastian. It’s been a while.”
“Sebastian. Ouch.” He winced. “Now I know I’m in trouble.”
With a sigh, I turned around and picked up Nicholas Sparks’ latest novel to put back on the table. “How are you?”
“How are you? That’s it? We haven’t seen each other in eight years, and—”
“And that’s it,” I said calmly, setting the book stand on top of the stack. “We haven’t seen each other in eight years.” I peered over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, was I supposed to run into your arms, sobbing about how much I’ve missed you?”
“I see your attitude grew with you.”
“I see your inability to see past the end of your nose grew with you.”
He laughed and stepped further inside the store, looking around. “I should have guessed you’d end up owning this place one day.”
“Co-own,” I corrected him. “With Saylor and Kinsley.”
“Obviously. I can’t imagine you not being attached at the hip with them.”
I made a noise that could have been either agreement or a refusal to respond. Or both. Probably both.
“I like what you’ve all done here,” he said, walking around the front of the store. He came up to me and picked up one of the books I’d just set down, a new historical by a big-name author I’d never read. “Not really my thing.” He set it back down, crooked.
I refrained from sighing again as I straightened it, then turned back to go behind the register. “Why are you here, Sebastian?”
He dropped the unbothered act and looked at me, his lips now curled slightly downward instead of upward. “I wanted to see you, Holl.”
“Holley.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s Holley.” I met his gaze. “Use it.”
“Wow.” He shook his head. “I know we didn’t leave things on the best of terms, but—”
“But what?” I raised an eyebrow. “You thought that after eight years of us not even sharing a ‘hello’ you could walk in here and it would be like I didn’t walk in on you playing tonsil tennis with my deadly enemy?”
He looked at me for a moment. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“Well, then you didn’t know me that well after all.” I gathered the papers that had come loose from the order book and straightened them out by tapping them against the table, then adjusted my glasses.
“I thought you might have grown up a little.”
I glared at him. “Then you didn’t know me that well after all,” I repeated through gritted teeth. “You can leave now.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Come on, Holl—ey,” he added. “I’m going to be in town for long time. We were eighteen, we can leave it behind us now, can’t we?”