Afterlove by Tanya Byrne

Author:Tanya Byrne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

FIVE

I go back to the bookshop with Esen because I honestly don’t know where else to go.

“The wanderer returns,” she announces as we walk through the door.

Dev presses her hands to her chest. “Thank God. I was so worried.”

Esen strolls over to the counter where Deborah is writing something in a notebook. “I want it noted for the record that it was me who got her back.” She taps the notebook with her finger. “Not Dev. Me.”

Deborah doesn’t look up. “Would you like a cookie, Ms. Budak?”

“Yes, please.” She turns away with a flourish, curls swinging as she unbuttons her coat and throws herself onto the sofa I woke up on earlier. “A big one. Preferably, chocolate chip.”

Dev walks over to where I’m standing, her forehead crinkled with concern. I can tell that she wants to touch me—perhaps put her hand on my shoulder—but thinks better of it. “How are you feeling, Ash?”

I shrug, hands in the pockets of my leather jacket. “Fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“She’s fine.” Esen waves her hand, then tilts her head from side to side. “I mean, she’s not fine fine, but she’s doing way better than you did.” She chuckles, looking over her shoulder at Deborah. “Remember?”

She continues writing in the notebook, clearly trying not to reciprocate. “I do, Ms. Budak.”

Esen looks back at me. “Dev was hysterical,” she explains. “We had to lock her upstairs for a week.”

“It wasn’t a week,” Dev insists, all but stamping her foot. “It was more like three days!”

Esen scoffs at her, looking back at the counter.

“Ladies, please.” Deborah takes her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. When she puts them back on, she looks between Dev and Esen. “If I could still get headaches, you two would be giving me one right now.”

Dev crosses her arms with a huff. “I’m just saying, it wasn’t a week. Esen is exaggerating, isn’t she?”

“Fine.” Deborah looks back down at the notebook. “It was five days.”

Dev squeaks and Esen holds her arms out as if to say, I told you so. “A working week, then.”

“Okay. Okay. That’s enough,” Deborah tells them with a weary sigh then holds up a neon-pink Post-it note. “We’ve got another stabbing at the station. Which one of you wants it?”

Esen sticks her arm up. “Me! I haven’t done one for a while.” She clambers off the sofa, coat swinging at her sides as she walks over to the counter and takes the Post-it before turning to me. “You ready for one?”

“Not yet,” Deborah warns, peering over her glasses at her then at me. “Ash needs to get some rest.”

“Okay,” Esen says with a swift shrug, buttoning her coat and striding to the door. “Later, losers.”

The bell rings and she’s gone, the bookshop suddenly much quieter.

“An eternity with that?”

I don’t realize that I’ve said it out loud until I hear Dev let out a sigh. “Now you know why they had to lock me upstairs for a week.”

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