"Welcome to theBook of Love!" Sarah chirps without even turning around.
"Thanks," a familiar deep voice drawls from the opposite side of the door.
I spin around so fast I make myself dizzy.
Holy shit.
My hot new neighbor is in my bookstore. Well, it's notmybookstore, but that's beside the point. Mason is here.
I grab Sarah's arm, yanking her around the side of the shelf.
"That's him!" I hiss.
"What?"
"The guy who just came in. That's him."
"Him?" She stares at me blankly.
"My new neighbor."
"Oh!" Her eyes fly open wide. "He's here?"
"Yes!"
She peeks her head around the side of the shelf, her mouth popping open before she lets out a muted squeak and pulls herhead back like a freaking turtle retreating into her shell. "Holy shit, Olive. He's hot."
"I know," I growl. "Why is he here?"
"Because he likes to read?"
I narrow my eyes at her. "Men who look like him do not read the same things we read, Sarah."
Trust me. The last time I asked a man who looked like him for his thoughts on whether you'd still be a virgin if you had sex as a ghost and then got your virginized body back after, he called me a weirdo and then left the library without even checking anything out. Loralei wouldn't let me come back to the library for two weeks!
"Some of them do."
"Very few of them do," I sniff, fully prepared to die on this hill.
She opens her mouth to argue and then snaps it closed because she knows I'm right. Most men who find their way here are not here for themselves. Most of them don't even want to be here.
I march around the side of the shelf, determined to find out why Mason is here. I draw up short when I nearly bump into him.
"Hey, Rebel." He grins, reaching out to steady me. "I thought that was you."
"It is. Why are you here?"
He blinks, his grin slipping. "Huh?"
Jeez. I sound like I'm ready to whip out the Malleus Maleficarum and accuse him of witchcraft.
"I mean, I'm surprised to see you in my bookstore."
"Your bookstore?" His lips twitch as he glances around. "You own it? Nice."
"Yes. I mean, no. Lilah Davis owns it. I just…" I wave my hand, deciding it's probably better not to tell the hottie-next-door that the sum total of my life consists of petri dishes, arguing witha Yorkie, and this bookstore. "That's beside the point. I'm just curious what you're doing here."
"Uh, I came to get a book?"