The Bookworm's Guide to Dating (The Bookworm's Guide 1)

“I never said you were. Just amazed that you could charm her after all that. And that he hid an entire relationship from both of you.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s easy when you don’t live in the same town.” She swung her legs up onto the table. “The chances of any of us running into each other while together was slim. It just so happened that I had to go pick up Grandma’s prescription for her last night and she asked me to bring her some sushi from that place over there. If we lived in the same town, it’d be way harder to hide a relationship.”

She was preaching to the choir.

“I guess so.” I trailed off after that and stopped messing with the magnets that I had now apparently rearranged.

Talk about a nervous tic.

“Seriously. What is wrong with you?” Saylor asked after realizing what I’d done.

Thankfully, a huge family of nine people spanning at least three generations entered the store right at that moment, saving me the need to reply.

Thank God.

I was about to spill it.

We both spent the next fifteen minutes helping them find everything they needed—everything from books on the local area to activity books for the four kids with them. When they left, Saylor followed with our lunch orders and headed to Bronco’s to order and pick it up.

Holley was still busy in the non-fic section, but she’d now moved from the cookbooks to the autobiographies. She was wearing her headphones and listening to an audiobook, so I wasn’t even sure she’d realized we’d just sold something like eighteen books to that family.

It would have been more, had the dad not cut off the eleven-year-old girl who wore a t-shirt that proclaimed her a book nerd.

Hmm.

Maybe we needed to stock bookish t-shirts.

I opened my mouth to shout for Holly, but a large gasp followed by a, “No!” sounded from the general direction of where she was, so I decided against it.

If I interrupted her during this book, there was every chance she might kill me.

The store stayed mercifully quiet for a few minutes, and it was only broken by the muffled mumbling of Holley as she expressed her disbelief at the audiobook and, finally, the short, sharp buzz of my cellphone as it indicated a text message.JOSH: This is hell.ME: Speak for yourself. Saylor just broke up with some guy who was two-timing her and talking about secret relationships just made me almost spill it.JOSH: Your brother had a huge fight with Amber this morning. He’s yelling at everyone and just dared someone to give him a reason to punch them.ME: Why doesn’t he just break up with her?????ME: AND DON’T DO IT. Remember the right hook.JOSH: Are you kidding??? I’d rather be hit by a freight train than tell him I’m fucking his sister.ME: You fucked me once.JOSH: Thanks to Mother Nature. I’ll be rectifying it the moment you’re done.I rolled my eyes.ME: You could say dating me.JOSH: Yeah. That’s not how he’s going to see it.ME: I’m so drained today.JOSH: I know. We should have told him last night.ME: Well, we didn’t. Either of us. And we can’t keep showing up at each other’s houses or he’s going to get suspicious.JOSH: What’s the weather doing tonight?ME: Do I look like the local news channel?JOSH: So full of attitude.ME: It’s one of my better qualities.JOSH: I just checked. Little chilly, but dry.ME: What does that have to do with us seeing each other?JOSH: I have an idea, that’s what.ME: …I’m going to go gray before you spit it out, aren’t I?JOSH: Meet me at Peak Point at nine-thirty tonight.ME: Nine-thirty??? It’ll be cold and dark!JOSH: So bring a coat and a blanket. Do you want us to see each other or not?ME: Fine, but you better bring hot chocolate. With marshmallows.JOSH: You’re so demanding.ME: If I’m hiking a mile up a trail to see you when I should be in bed eating my weight in cheese puffs, it’s the least you can do.JOSH: If you eat your weight in cheese puffs, maybe you should be hiking a mile.ME: Watch it. I know where to hide a body up there.JOSH: You look so pretty today.ME: Oh, piss off.CHAPTER NINETEEN – KINSLEYrule nineteen: dates aren’t always heels and fancy restaurants.It was pitch freakin’ black out here.

This was ridiculous. Cheese puffs aside, I really needed to be in bed right now. It was dark and cold and dark. Did I mention it was cold, too?

The weather was definitely turning in Montana, and an exposed hillside was not where I wanted to be tonight.

At least it wasn’t windy.

I clicked on my little flashlight and began the mile-long trek up to Peak Place. It wasn’t actually the peak of this mini mountain, but it was the only place that was flat enough where you could sit and hang out. It was also one of the safest because the fall wasn’t steep or rocky.