The Noel Letters (The Noel Collection #4) - Richard Paul Evans Page 0,31
buy coffee and candles. At least Bobbooks tells you what you’re selling.”
“Which isn’t coffee or candles,” I said.
We both ate for a moment then I asked, “What’s the name of your store?”
He hesitated a beat then said, “It Was a Dark and Stormy Suit Store.”
I laughed. “No, really.”
“After all that I don’t want to tell you.”
“Please?”
“It’s Dylan’s. As in Dylan’s custom suits for men.”
“Dylan’s,” I repeated.
“I knew you wouldn’t like it.”
“No, I like it. It’s… boutique-ish.”
“Not sure if that’s good, but I’ll accept your pretended acceptance.”
Ten minutes later our waitress returned with one of the chefs. He was pushing a stainless-steel cart carrying a large wheel of Parmesan cheese that was hollow in the middle and filled with spaghetti. He poured in a bowl of raw eggs and lit it on fire. He mixed the egg in with the pasta, then, after the flames were extinguished, served it up on our plates. A few minutes later Salvatore returned. “Buon amici, how is everything?”
“It’s buono,” Dylan said. He looked at me. “How is it?”
“It’s delicious.”
“Very good. Tutto a posto. Do not forget your dolci. It is on me.”
We shared a cannoli for dessert, an Italian tube-shaped pastry that is deep fried and filled with sweetened ricotta cheese.
“You know, this dessert is almost two thousand years old,” Dylan said.
“Hmm,” I said. “It tastes fine to me.”
He grinned.
I remembered what Dylan had told me about seeing my dad at an Italian restaurant. “Is this the restaurant where you saw my father?”
“Yes. He was sitting right over there.” He pointed to a table two places away from us.
“Is that why you brought me here?”
“Nope. I brought you here because of the carbonara.”
* * *
After dinner Dylan drove me home and walked me to my door.
“Would you like to come in?” I asked.
“I would, but I better get back to Alex. She’s got ice-skating in the morning.”
I took out my key and unlocked the door, then turned back to him. “That was really nice tonight. Thank you.”
“Would you like to go out to dinner again?”
“No,” I said. “I think we should go out on a date instead.”
He smiled. “A date it is.” I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night, Dylan.”
“Good night.”
I started to walk in, then turned back. “There have been a lot of storms in our lives, haven’t there?”
He looked at me curiously. “Way too many.”
I smiled. “Call me.” I went inside. It was the best time I’d had in months.
CHAPTER seventeen
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
—C. S. Lewis
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7
I woke up happy the next morning, the first time since I came to Utah. My dinner with Dylan had been unexpectedly pleasant. I hadn’t had much luck with men as of late. If I were being completely truthful, that extended to women as well. Maybe I just didn’t have much luck with people in general.
I ran my four miles around the park, showered and dressed, then went to the bookstore. Wendy wasn’t expecting me, being Saturday, and she already had enough help, but I had nowhere else to be and the store was crowded, so I decided to stay.
Later that afternoon during a short break in traffic, I asked Wendy, “What do you think of selling coffee?”
“Is this like a Zen question, or does this have something to do with the bookstore?”
“I’ll be more precise,” I said. “What do you think of putting a café in our bookstore? Just look at that crummy coffee shop on the corner of Seventh. The Daily Grind. The only thing worse than their name is their coffee, but they’ve got a line that goes around the block every morning. Plus, I think it would class the place up, from bookseller to barista.”
“Your father hated the idea.”
“I know, but what do you think of it?”
“We would have to take out at least three bookcases to do it. What it comes down to is, books or coffee?”
“I think they can peacefully coexist,” I said. “Where would we put it?”
“Here,” she said, gesturing to the front counter. “It’s the easiest access for customers and we could combine cash registers. And we’d have access to plumbing, since the bathroom is behind this wall.”
I looked at her. “It sounds like you’ve thought this through.”
“More than once. Just not with your father. He never wanted to talk about it.”