The Bookworm's Guide to Faking It (The Bookworm's Guide, #2)

  THE BOOKWORM’S GUIDE TO FAKING IT

  The Bookworm’s Guide, Book Two

  Copyright © Emma Hart, 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Emma Hart

  CHAPTER ONE – HOLLEY

  rule one: you can’t always fake it ‘til you make it.

  “Oh, screw this shit!” I threw the book at the other end of my sofa. It hit it, the pages splaying, and it bounced off the arm and onto the floor, then crumpled into a mess.

  I didn’t care.

  It could stay there.

  This was, without a doubt, the most annoyingly unsatisfying romance novel I’d read in a long time, yet I just couldn’t stop reading it.

  I was a masochist.

  Then again, most romance readers I knew were.

  I stared at the book accusingly. It was lying there on my living room floor with the cute little illustrated cover staring at me deceivingly. There was nothing cute about this book. Nothing cute about the love triangle or the angst or the potential pregnancy with the guy she didn’t think she wanted to choose!

  Not that I could blame her for not wanting to choose Alex. He was a baseball player.

  I wouldn’t pick him, either.

  Fuck baseball players.

  I wasn’t going to pick that book up. No way. There was no chance I was picking it up and reading more tonight, or I’d just get all kinds of worked up and not be able to sleep.

  I’d pick it up to straighten the pages out and slip a bookmark in, ‘cause, you know. It wasn’t the book’s fault. It didn’t deserve that.

  Damn it.

  This was one of the perils of being a bookworm: inappropriate feelings toward inanimate objects.

  And characters that didn’t exist in real life.

  God, that was the worst. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d fallen in love with a fictional boy just to wake up the next day and be like, “Oop, no, I’m still alone.”

  Alone, ten pounds overweight, and a taco aficionado.

  All right.

  Fifteen pounds.

  What? We all lied about our weight. And absolutely nobody is the weight it says on their driver’s license.

  Or their height, if you’re Saylor.

  I sighed and picked up the book. I really needed to do better about choosing my reads. That, or I needed to stop letting Say pick out my books and let Kinsley do it. Kinsley would never do me dirty the way Saylor did. Neither of us were big lovers of love triangles, but sometimes you just needed a little angst in your life.

  Like being single in a small town wasn’t angsty enough with all the old people asking me when I was going to get married.

  If one more person asked me, I was going to ask them when their funeral was.

  I flattened out the pages of the book and slipped a rainbow watercolor bookmark with ‘bookworm’ written in silver, metallic writing inside it, then set it on my coffee table.

  I was so over that book tonight. I needed a nice cozy mystery or something lighter than what I’d been reading lately. A palate cleanser, as it were.

  Like ice cream.

  Mmm, ice cream.

  And I wondered why I couldn’t shift those fifteen pounds…

  With a shrug, I got up and headed for the kitchen. I knew there was ice cream in my freezer, and at this point, what was another pound on my butt?

  I scooped the chocolate ice cream into a bowl and carried it back to the sofa where I lay my lazy butt back down and scrolled for the first series of Game of Thrones. I’d watched it a thousand times, and while it wasn’t a patch on the books—what adaptation was?—but sometimes you just needed something comfortable to watch.

  Especially when it felt as though your life was imploding around you.

  No, don’t look at me like that. I was allowed to be dramatic.

  Nothing in my life was going the way I’d planned.

  And that was me. I was a planner. I had everything worked out. Even though buying Bookworm’s Books with my best friends, Kinsley and Saylor, had thrown a wrench in the first five-year plan of my twenties, it’d been a good wrench. One I’d welcomed and thrived upon, because it’d changed my life for the better.

  I was supposed to be engaged by now, or it was supposed to happen in the next twelve months, at least. But here I was, as single as could be, without even a prospect of a boyfriend, despite my best efforts.

  And now…

  Well, now the one person who’d broken my heart was back in town.

  Sebastian Stone, the Montana Bears star pitcher and White Peak’s hometown hero. The man who’d once been my best friend, even closer to me than Kinsley and Saylor.

  I would never forget our senior prom and how he’d hurt me.

  Sure, I’d never taken the leap and told him I’d had feelings for him. Back then, eighteen-year-old me had been far too shy, and I’d been so afraid I’d lose him as my friend if he didn’t feel the same.

  As it turned out, he obviously didn’t, because I’d seen him making out with the person I hated more than anything in the world. Iris Benefield had done nothing but make my high school life hell, and seeing them together…

  Back then, I hadn’t been able to decide what hurt more.

  Now, it didn’t matter. I was older and definitely wiser, even though I was absolutely over it, it didn’t mean I wanted to see him.

  I mean, I’d seen him. Just a few days ago I’d seen him in a parking lot, but I’d turned away before I’d really gotten a good look at him.

  Not like I didn’t know what he looked like. It was hard to avoid him when he was regarded as the hottest baseball player in the league and plastered all over the tabloids like crazy.

  I also knew he’d picked up a devastating shoulder injury at the start of the season and likely wasn’t going to make it back until next year, if at all, and that was why he was back in White Peak.

  He hadn’t been home in forever, and if he had, it’d only been fleeting visits for one reason or another.

  Now, with his injury and his sister’s wedding next weekend, he was back for a while.

  Maybe months.

  I put my bowl on the coffee table and lay back on the sofa with a groan. I really hadn’t seen him since prom, and that was the really awkward part of this. At some point, I was going to run into him, and then…

  Then what the hell did I do?

  ***

  “Goddamn it, Saylor!” I muttered, picking up stack of books that had been discarded by the last woman who’d come in. Instead of putting them away, she’d left them next to the register. It was because she just knew I would put them away, and she was right.

  How did I know it was Saylor? Kinsley wasn’t working this weekend since she and Josh were having a weekend away in some lodge nearby where he was apparently going to teach her how to snowboard—something I’d believe when I saw it—and she at least put the books away.

  Sighing, I carried the books through the store until they were deposited back in the right place. I stopped at least four times to straighten shelves or pic
k up books that had been dropped in the wrong place, and by the time I got back to the register, I’d been gone for ten minutes and someone was waiting there for me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, slipping behind the register. “Let me take those from you.”

  I rang up the sale to the understanding customer who didn’t mind at all and waved her goodbye. Tourist season was well and truly over, I thought, as I watched her zip her coat right up to her chin.

  November brought colder weather, and it was now forty-nine degrees outside, but I would swear it felt colder. Maybe it was the wind that had rolled in overnight, the wind that kind of smelled like snow was coming.

  The one that meant books in front of fireplaces and hot cocoa and fuzzy slippers.

  And I was all about that life.

  The bell above the door dinged, and Saylor blew in with a, “Freaking hell, it’s cold!”

  I shivered as the cold air reached me. “Shut the door.”

  She put her bag of food emblazoned with the local café’s logo and two takeout cups in a holder on the counter and pushed the door shut. “If it snows this weekend, I’m going to scream.”

  “Why? It’s just snow. It’s not going to hurt you.”

  “Speak for yourself,” she grumbled. “I’m the one who sprained her ankle last winter.”

  “Yes, but you weren’t exactly wearing appropriate shoes,” I reminded her, referring to the heeled boots she’d been wearing in three inches of snow when she’d taken her fall.

  “I was on a date!” Saylor huffed and pulled our sandwiches from the bag.

  Ignoring her argument, I opened the Styrofoam containers that held our grilled cheese sandwiches while she pulled out and opened our soup. The rich scent of hot tomato soup filled the air, and I moaned happily while Saylor flipped the sign on the door to ‘closed’ so we could eat our lunch.

  “So,” she said after a moment.

  I looked over at her. That didn’t sound like a ‘so’ I wanted her to elaborate on.

  “I saw Sebastian in the café.”

  Look at that. I was right.

  I made a noise that I felt adequately portrayed how I was feeling about the direction this lunch was going, but she didn’t get it.

  Not that I was surprised.

  Saylor saw your hints, understood your hints, and then ignored the fuck out of your hints.

  “We talked for a while. I updated him on everything that’s happened, like Ivy and Kai and the baby, Josh and Kinsley dating, and us owning the store—”

  I almost choked on my soup. “Us owning the store? Why would you tell him that?”

  “Because I was making conversation. And, unlike you, I’m a nice person.”

  Yeah. Okay.

  “I don’t care about Sebastian,” I said, dipping the corner of my grilled cheese into my soup. “At all.”

  “Oh, you’re so full of fucking hot air that, if you go outside, you’ll change the climate.”

  I flipped her the bird and bit down on my sandwich. I didn’t want to talk about him, but she was like a dog with a bone and she wasn’t going to give this up.

  “I don’t get it. What happened was a long time ago,” Saylor went on, sipping from her takeout cup. “You’ve said you’re over it. I’m sure it’s gonna be awkward to see him again, but surely it’s better to get that over and done with.”

  I glared at her. I wasn’t going to be goaded into this again. I’d already been there and done that a few weeks ago when I’d seen him for the first time and my heart had gone into overdrive.

  I’d never tell them that there was a part of me that wondered if there was still a lingering feeling left for Seb. Closure was a thing that we as humans needed, and it was something I’d never gotten on my friendship with him.

  Or my feelings for him.

  Realistically, I knew Say was right. Seeing him wasn’t going to be the end of the world moment I’d built it up in my mind to be. It would probably be totally fine, if a little awkward, but not an awful moment I would never live down.

  I had dating for those moments.

  Still, that wasn’t the point. Emotions were a fickle thing, and I just didn’t want to see him.

  However, I had a horrible feeling that I was about to, given that he now knew where to find me.

  “Anyway, did you finish that book?”

  That ‘woopah’ you just heard? It was me getting whiplash from the change in direction.

  I blinked and pushed all thoughts of Sebastian Stone from my mind. “No. I got so mad at Layla last night I had to put the book down.”

  Saylor pushed her pink hair behind her ear. “You threw it, didn’t you?”

  “Might have dropped it harshly,” I muttered, taking off my glasses so I could clean the lenses. They were all steamed up thanks to our soup. “Look, I just don’t understand her thought process. She had unprotected sex with Simon, but thinks she wants to choose Jameson. I just don’t think I can cope with the angst right now.”

  She sighed a long-suffering sigh and leaned forward. “Do you want me to alleviate some of that for you?”

  “No, no!” I waved my hands, and the spoon in my right one flicked tomato soup on the register. Oops. “I’m going to finish it, I just need to take a break. Find a palate cleanser somewhere.”

  “Oh, gee,” she said dryly. “I wonder where you can find a book, Holley.” Wide-eyed, she looked around at the bookstore around us.

  Seriously. I didn’t know how I hadn’t killed her yet. And, thanks to the myriad of mysteries I’d read, I probably could get away with it, too.

  If not, I sometimes think it would be worth it.

  “There’s no need to be a bitch just because it’s your general state of being,” I replied just as dryly. “You asked.”

  “I offered to alleviate your worries.” She shrugged and sipped her coffee again. “It’s no bother to me if you keep your panties in a wad.”

  Ugh. “Fine, tell me. But not who she chooses! Just if she’s pregnant.”

  “She’s not pregnant.”

  “If you’re lying, I’m going to beat you with a dictionary.”

  “I’m not lying.” She laughed, shaking her head. “I swear. I might mess with you about Sebastian, but I won’t mess with your books.” She drew a little cross over her heart with her finger. “Cross my heart.”

  I pursed my lips before relenting. “Fine. But I mean it. If you’re wrong, I’m going to murder you and feed you to some pigs.”

  “Where are going to find pigs in November in White Peak?”

  “Who said I’d do it right away?”

  Saylor shook her head. “You are so weird.”

  “I know. It’s why we’ve been friends for twenty-something years. Weird attracts weird.”

  “I resent that statement. I’m not weird, I’m an acquired taste.”

  Now that was something I wasn’t going to argue with.

  CHAPTER TWO – HOLLEY

  rule two: it’s never as easy as it is in books.

  I took a bite out of my breakfast burrito as I flicked through the spring brochure from one of the publishers we regularly bought books from. I put it down and switched it out for a Sharpie, then circled the ones on the page I wanted to order.

  I felt like a child circling what presents she wanted for her birthday.

  Mind you, owning a bookstore was a lot like that. Every week when new books came, it was like Christmas.

  It never got old.

  I took the last bite of my breakfast and crumpled the wrapper into a ball in my fist, then tossed it in the direction of the trash can. Well, breakfast was a bit late—it was more of a brunch, and one that wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world.

  Never mind.

  At least it had protein. Unlike donuts.

  And donuts were what I’d really wanted today.

  How about that for self-control?

  I closed the brochure and grabbed my coffee, picking up my phone and checking it. There were no messages o
r missed calls, so I flicked to Instagram and scrolled the feed. There were a ton of book images that I absolutely adored—known in the reader world as bookstagram—but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull off such a thing by myself.

  All things considered, Bookworm’s Books’ Instagram account was woeful. The only good pictures we had consisted of Saylor modeling all our new shirts, and the occasional shot of Kinsley drinking from one of our mugs.

  The actual books… Not so much.

  Hmm.

  I tucked the thoughts away as I liked one last photo and locked my phone. The door to the storeroom opened and Saylor stepped in, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

  “I’m going to see the ancients,” she said, referring to the retirement home where our grandparents caused havoc on a daily basis. “Do you need anything? Or want me to pass any derogatory messages to your grandmother?”

  “Well, I’d ask you to tell her to behave herself, but we all know that won’t happen.” My grandmother wouldn’t know how to behave if a behavioral book broke her hip. “Can you stop by the post office and drop off those orders?”

  She looked in the direction I was pointing. “I don’t have to stand there and mail them, do I? I don’t need Margaret Miyazaki coming in and trying to marry me off to her grandson again.”

  I fought back a snort at the memory of last week. We’d stopped by the post office to mail a bunch of shirts and books because our printer had broken so we couldn’t get our premade labels. Margaret Miyazaki ran the craft store next to the post office and came out, insisting Saylor joined her for dinner to meet her grandson who was new in town.

  That conversation had gone down like a lead balloon with Saylor. Since the last guy she was seeing had really screwed her over by two-timing her, she’d dyed her hair pink and had sworn off dating.

  I thought she was having some kind of quarter-life crisis, and she told me to stop drinking.

  It would have been more effective if she hadn’t had a glass of wine in her hand at the time.

  Also, I needed to drink to put up with my friends.