Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

‘So, where’s Posy and Very this morning?’ Tom asked, after he’d swallowed the last of his panini. ‘I expected one of them to pop their head around the office door to reprimand me about my poor timekeeping.’

As well as his so-called footnotes emergency, Tom had been twenty minutes late. Though the only reason Nina had been on time was that Verity had let an unfed Strumpet into her bedroom and he’d sat on her head and yowled until Nina got up to feed him.

‘They’ve gone to a trade show at Olympia to look at gifts and stationery. Posy wanted to check out ideas for next Christmas,’ Nina told Tom. ‘And Verity decided to go with her to make sure that …’

‘Posy didn’t come back with five hundred tote bags,’ Tom supplied.

‘That was pretty much how the conversation went.’ Nina folded her arms. ‘So, you put out new stock and I’ll serve.’

‘We’ll both put out new stock until such time as a customer comes in and needs serving.’ Tom folded his arms too and looked at Nina from over his glasses, which had slid down his nose as they were wont to do.

‘You owe me. Footnotes emergency, my arse! You don’t know what it’s been like with you away! Just wait until you hear about—’

Nina was all set to bring Tom up to speed on the latest and most unwelcome development at Happy Ever After when the door opened, the bell tinkled and the latest and most unwelcome development walked into the shop, bringing in a rush of cold air in his wake.

‘—Noah,’ Nina said. Her tone was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It was as neutral as Switzerland.

‘Nina,’ Noah replied evenly. ‘Hello,’ he added to Tom as he walked past him, around to the counter and into the back office, then returned minus his coat in navy suit and with iPad held aloft. It was a bitterly cold day and Noah’s cheeks were scoured pink by the wind, his hair tousled by the breeze so he seemed to practically glow with vitality.

‘Noah?’ Tom queried, pushing his glasses back up his nose. ‘And you are?’

‘He’s just observing,’ Nina said and before Tom could say anything else, she took hold of his tie and pulled him through the first arch on the left. ‘We have some urgent stocking to do in the erotica room. You don’t need to observe this,’ she added to Noah, who raised his eyebrows at the mention of erotica.

Then, in fierce whispers, she filled Tom in on the spy in their midst. ‘A fox in the henhouse,’ as Tom put it once Nina had finished. ‘This is an absolute infringement of our civil liberties.’

‘Posy said that no one was getting sacked. Or at least she said I wasn’t getting sacked,’ Nina said helpfully. She loved Tom like a brother but on the open job market, he was eminently more employable than she was. ‘Anyway, you always tell Posy when she’s trying to make you wear the T-shirt that Waterstones would have you like a shot.’

‘I don’t want to work at Waterstones,’ Tom hissed. ‘They wouldn’t have been half so understanding about my footnotes emergency.’

They heard a distant tinkle then Noah called out, ‘I think you have a customer.’

It would have been a rare treat for Nina and Tom to have the shop to themselves. Nina loved Posy and Verity unfailingly, unquestioningly, but Tom was her wingman. Her co-pilot. Together they worked the coalface of customer service; Tom charming the customers with his grave but sincere manners then Nina sealing the deal with a bit of heavy-handed persuasion. ‘Go on, treat yourself,’ she would say to any customer dithering over their selection of books. ‘Take them all. It’s nearly payday.’

But with Noah on the premises, observing, it really cramped their style. Also, Tom was working really diligently. Restocking the shelves in half the time it usually took him. Primly castigating Nina when she texted Paloma to bring her coffee, like she did every morning, because she could just as easily get it herself. Laying on the charm so thick with one customer that the poor woman went into a spontaneous hot flush. And there was Noah lurking behind the counter or peering around one side of the rolling ladder and even skulking in the Regency section to make notes on how Tom was a total boss at shifting books.

It was almost as if Tom was playing the part of an industrious and conscientious bookseller, so that anyone observing him would think that he was a model employee. Which he absolutely wasn’t. He always talked back to Posy, refused to go into the erotica room unchaperoned, tried to avoid the more enthusiastic romance novel-buying public and, most importantly of all, knew very little about any of the books they had for sale unless they were in the classics section.

Nina had expected more from Tom. ‘I’ve nurtured a viper in my bosom,’ she told Mattie when she had to walk all the way through the shop to get to the tearooms instead of texting for a delivery. ‘Who would have thought that Tom would be such a suck-up?’

‘That’s men for you,’ Mattie said darkly. Saying things darkly didn’t really suit Mattie’s gamine demeanour – she was a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.But she’d recently returned from Paris where she’d learned the art of patisserie and had her heart broken and the whole experience had left her very unenthusiastic about the male species. ‘You can’t trust a single one of them.’

Posy and Verity still weren’t back at lunchtime. Posy texted to say that they’d barely scratched the surface of their stationery needs.

‘Well, I’m only going to pop out for a sandwich,’ Tom said sanctimoniously. ‘As it’s just the two of us.’

‘I’m not going to pop out at all then,’ Nina said, because two could play at that game. ‘I’ll just get something from the tearooms and eat it behind the till. But it’s all right, Tom, off you go. I can hold the fort for ten minutes.’

Tom hissed as he got his coat and shut the door behind him in what was practically a flounce. Nina heard a soft chuckle behind her and whirled around to see Noah, as if it could be anyone else, leaning against the office door jamb.

‘Is he always that keen?’ he asked.

‘Hardly ever,’ Nina said tartly. ‘No, don’t write that down!’

‘I don’t write down everything,’ Noah protested, his brows furrowed at the suggestion.

Most of the time Nina avoided looking at Noah. Just the mere suggestion of his presence was enough to irritate her but now when she glanced over at him, she was struck once again by the sensation that she’d seen him before.

She still couldn’t think where. She didn’t tend to hang out with business people and she’d certainly remember Noah, what with the hair – it was really a glorious colour when Noah was caught in a patch of sunlight as he was now – and the freckles; he wasn’t the type of person you forgot. Especially when he smiled at Nina as he was doing now. The smile transformed his face so he stopped being a geeky business analyst in a navy-blue suit and became quite an attractive man. He had good cheekbones too.

It seemed that Noah was softening so it would be a pity not to take advantage of it. ‘You write down most things.’ She came around the counter so she could sidle closer to him. ‘Go on, let me have a little look.’

Noah clasped his iPad to his chest. ‘At what I’ve written? That would be a violation of ethics, don’t you think?’ This close, his eyes weren’t just green but had a ring of hazel around each pupil. ‘Though if you come any closer, I will have to write that down.’

Was that a threat or a joke? Nina couldn’t tell.

‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ Nina said in her huskiest voice. She batted her eyelashes and quivered her bottom lip. If she hadn’t been wearing her hated Happy Ever After T-shirt, which sadly hid her cleavage, she’d even have used her breasts as part of her deadly arsenal.

Noah, however, was unmoved. Though he did smile again. ‘Where’s the famous sexual harassment book?’ he asked. ‘I think what I’m about to write down would be more appropriate there.’

‘We don’t actually have a sexual harassment book,’ Nina said. ‘The only person that Posy, Very and I could possibly sexually harass is Tom and he’s not worth the effort.’

‘Or Tom could sexually harass you?’

‘He wouldn’t dare,’ Nina laughed delightedly at the thought of Tom sexually harassing anyone, and Noah must have thought she was smiling at him because he smiled at her. Again.

Nina smiled back, it seemed the polite thing to do, which meant that she and Noah were locked into a whole smiling back and forth thing like they were having a moment.

Which they weren’t. No moments were being had here.

‘Look, if you’re nipping over to the tearoom for lunch, then I could come with you?’ Noah suggested because this was what smiling at people got you. ‘I’m still working my way through the savoury selection. Is there anything you’d recommend?’

‘Well, Mattie makes this amazing pork-and-apple sausage roll flavoured with harissa,’ Nina replied, because Noah was a sort-of-colleague and it was just idle lunch chat. It wasn’t like she was being friendly or anything. ‘It’s not for the faint-hearted.’

‘Sounds great,’ Noah said enthusiastically. ‘I love spicy food.’

‘Except I can’t leave the shop until Tom gets back,’ Nina pointed out because there was no way she wanted to be lunch buddies with Noah. Not if he wasn’t even going to let her sneak a peek at his iPad. Although if she could get on his good side, he was sure to give her a glowing performance review and that would serve Tom right.

Talking of which, the shop door opened with great force and Tom stood there in the doorway. ‘Nina! What are you doing?’ he said.

‘Nothing!’ Nina protested, side-stepping away from Noah. How had she got so close?

‘Didn’t look like it,’ grumbled Tom. ‘Anyway, I need a word with you.’

It was a blessed relief to step away from Noah and stop smiling. ‘Are you finally going to admit that there was no footnotes emergency, then?’

‘What? No! Let it go already.’ Tom shut the door. ‘That’s not what we need to talk about.’

Suddenly there was a hand on Nina’s arm. Warm fingers covering Cathy and Heathcliff as they embraced against the gnarled old tree. ‘Should I wait for you? Or do you want me to get you one of those sausage rolls for your lunch?’