baby brother,” she says, pulling files out of her bag.
I shouldn’t preen at the sight of my name on a file. It should absolutely not make me feel this good. But Dad had his people put this together—specifically for me to read—and then made Gray carry it over, and that’s probably the most thoughtful thing he’s done for me in a long time. Which, shut up.
“All right, so the basics are all in here,” she says, sliding the file over to me. “I know you’ve been a fan of Vera’s work pretty much from the womb, much to Dad’s dismay, but I think that will pay off here. You can use that awkward fanboy energy to endear yourself to her. Just make sure her kid doesn’t think you’re using her to get to Vera.”
“Even though technically I am using her to get to Vera,” I blurt out, and shit, is that the sound of my conscience dying?
“You’re okay with doing this, right?” Gray asks, her hand still pinning the file to the table so I can’t open it.
“It’s not a big deal,” I lie. “I got it.”
Gray looks at me for a second and then nods. “Okay, well, there’s a lot of information in here. Study it, but don’t memorize it. You don’t want to accidentally say too much. Although you can probably pull that off better than most since you’re such a Verona stan, but still, be aware of it.”
“I got it, I got it. Read the file enough to have it down but not enough to come off as creepy.”
“Right,” she says, and she looks proud. “Generally, the people on the street team stop in and visit the store a couple times. Just grab some books, say you’re new in town or whatever.” She slides a paper out of the file. “Here’s a list of titles to have them put on your pull list.”
“I don’t need a fake pull list.” I cross my arms. It’s insulting that they think I can’t come up with one on my own. I’ve had a pull list—a list of comics the store preorders and holds for you—since I could talk. It used to consist completely of DuckTales and Teen Titans, but I’d like to think I’ve matured over the years.
“Ridley, come on, use the list. This is important. If you get Dad something he can use to make her sign on, you’re going to be his hero.”
His hero. That sounds nice. I would also settle for “person he vaguely likes.”
I grab the paper out of her hand. “Let me see it.” I scan it quickly; it’s not bad—big enough to position me as someone the store wants to keep happy, but not so big that they get suspicious about where a kid like me would get all that money. There’s a blend of indie stuff and titles from the big two, and . . . it isn’t all that different from my actual list. I glance up at her. “How did you guys come up with these?”
“Dad brought in a bunch of market research people. They worked their magic and came up with a list that your average comic book consumer would have, I guess.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” I say, taking another bite of my burger and frowning at the list because I am not average, not when it comes to picking books, and I resent the fact that some corporate suit developed some kind of algorithm that nearly figured me out. I’ve spent a lot of time curating my list, thank you very much.
“Anyway,” Gray says, shooting me a weird look, “after that, just start hanging out around the shop more, work the daughter angle—which feels a little sleazy, not going to lie, but Dad said it was your idea, and I trust you.”
“Yeah,” I mumble into my burger.
She leans forward a little to catch my eye. “It was your idea, right, Ridley?”
“Yeah,” I say, puffing out my chest. “Who else’s could it have been?”
“Right.” But it looks like she doesn’t believe me. And now? Is now when she’s going to look deeper? But then she goes back to eating and the look of concern