Tell Me by Strom Abigail

Author:Strom, Abigail
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542046510
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2017-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

January was hard, and February wasn’t much easier. March was a little better. Jane was at the bookstore a lot, but she didn’t want to cut her employees’ hours, so she came up with a way to keep everyone busy.

She owned the second floor of her building, but she’d never used it for anything but storage. You had to get to those rooms from a separate entrance, so it didn’t make sense to expand the bookstore up there.

Now, finally, she thought of a way to use that space.

In one of the quiet back rooms she set up writing desks; in another she put easels and her grandmother’s old pottery wheel. In the big sun-drenched front room with the beautiful wooden floors, she put up a ballet barre on one wall and mirrors on the other. In the small room at the top of the stairs she put a conference table and chairs for writers’ groups or play readings or anything else people might want it for.

Her investment was minimal, so she could afford to keep her prices low. Artists and dancers could rent studio space. Writers could rent a desk for an hour or a day.

“But what are you getting out of this?” Kiki asked, skeptical of the new project.

“Money.”

“Not very much.”

“More than I thought when we started. We’re getting pretty popular.”

“You don’t care about the money. What else are you getting from this?”

Jane shrugged. “Company I don’t have to talk to.”

Kiki was an extrovert, so she didn’t really understand the appeal. But Jane found comfort in being around people she didn’t have to interact with, especially people who were reading or writing or painting. The quiet in the writing room and art studio felt rich and warm, not cold and empty like the silence in her apartment.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason her apartment felt cold.

Caleb had spent a night there, and now he was gone.

Weeks went by before she could sleep at night without dreaming of him, or lying awake remembering the heat of his skin, the weight of his body, the look in his eyes as he sank into her.

The difference between Caleb and other men wasn’t on a continuum. It wasn’t like her last boyfriend was a six and Caleb was a ten. It was more like everything else had been in two dimensions, and her night with Caleb had been in three.

It had been a whole other world.

But it wouldn’t do her any good to remember that night. She’d had a few texts from Caleb, and she’d sent a few to him, but the one time he’d called—on her birthday, in February—had felt stilted, and they hadn’t talked since.

It was getting harder to believe that their one night of passionate, fevered intensity had been real.

The one thing she was sure of was that it would never be repeated.

He was in Australia, and she was here. And when he wasn’t in Australia anymore, he still wouldn’t be here.

He’d never be here.

But she was, and she was doing her best to act like it.

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