The Cinnamon Bun Book Store: TikTok Made Me Buy It (Dream Harbor, Book 2)
The Cinnamon Bun Book Store: Chapter 3

Another book was crooked. And backwards. And Hazel was refusing to look at it. She didn’t care. It was just a poorly shelved book that some customer had haphazardly put back on the shelf. It happened all the time.

Alex would handle it later when they came in for their shift. Hazel had more important things to do, like work on next month’s book order and schedule September’s author events. She was the operations manager after all. She could leave the book straightening to Alex or Lyndsay or the new hire who came in on Sundays or literally anyone else but her.

Damn it. She was looking at it again.

It had been two days since the last crooked book incident and Hazel had officially decided it was a weird occurrence that definitely wasn’t about her and definitely wasn’t going to happen again. And now look. Another one.

Someone was messing with her.

An image of Noah’s excited face when he’d thought maybe it was a clue flashed in her mind. She’d shut that down quickly. Too quickly. His handsome face had fallen in disappointment when she’d dismissed the idea.

She’d felt bad about it, but clues, really? That was absurd. And just because she’d gotten in her own head about her stuck-ness and then Noah had flittered in with all his confusing handsome-ness, did not mean there were suddenly secret messages in her books. Because that would be crazy.

Hazel tapped her fingers on the counter. Another slow day. Did people not read in the summer? She straightened the already straight bookmarks and sipped her tea.

Damn it.

Hazel marched over to the Romance section to fix the book and possibly give it a piece of her mind because she was that kind of crazy lady today. She pulled it out and found a corner turned down, just like in the other book. She couldn’t just put it back on the shelf if it was highlighted, too. She couldn’t sell a defaced book.

She had to check.

The blueberries popped tart and bright in her mouth. They tasted like summer and new beginnings.

Hazel was instantly transported back to picking blueberries as a kid, the sweet burst of fruit on her tongue, scanning the bushes for the ripe ones, and the ice cream her dad would buy her on the way home. She closed her eyes and leaned against the shelf. When was the last time she’d gone blueberry picking?

‘Napping on the job?’

Hazel’s eyes snapped open at the sound of Annie’s teasing voice. She had to stop getting caught doing weird things in the Romance section. She shoved the offending book back on the shelf and turned to greet her friends.

‘No, of course not.’

‘We brought you lunch,’ Annie said, dropping into her favorite comfy chair by the window.

‘And an iced tea.’ Jeanie held out the drink and Hazel took it, happy for the distraction.

‘Thanks.’

‘Everything all right?’ Annie asked. Her blonde ponytail slipped over her shoulder as she tipped her head, studying Hazel. They’d been friends since Hazel’s family moved here in the ninth grade and Annie knew her a little too well.

‘Yep. Fine.’ Hazel grabbed the other half of Annie’s sandwich and sat across from her. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and tucked them underneath her. Normally she would have insisted they eat in the backroom but the store was empty enough that it didn’t seem to matter.

‘You sure? You look kinda strange.’

‘You look kinda strange.’

Annie stuck her tongue out and Jeanie giggled.

‘The heat always makes her grumpy,’ Annie whispered to Jeanie, like Hazel couldn’t hear her.

‘It doesn’t make me grumpy. It’s just not my favorite.’

‘Hazel hates sunshine. She’s like a vampire.’

‘I am not! I just prefer to be inside. I’m an inside cat.’

Jeanie laughed again, her gaze flicking between the two old friends. ‘Well, since you’re an inside cat, you may not want to come, but I convinced Logan we should have a bonfire tonight.’

‘A bonfire?’

‘Or like a regular campfire. I don’t know. But there will be s’mores!’

‘And drinks?’ Annie asked.

‘And drinks.’

‘Great, I’m in. And you, little inside cat? Can you manage the outdoors for a few hours to have fun with your friends?’ Annie was just teasing but her words hit a little too close to home. Hazel’s friends thought she couldn’t even tolerate a campfire?

She scowled. ‘Of course I can.’

‘Perfect!’ Jeanie clapped her hands in excitement and Hazel realized what she’d just signed on for. Bugs and smoke and dirt. And quite possibly Noah, considering he was Logan’s friend. Her stomach did a concerning swoop at the thought of the fisherman.

Damn it.

It was too late to back out. Jeanie was already packing up the rest of her sandwich and hustling out the door. ‘I gotta go. I left Crystal alone with the lunch rush, but I’ll see you guys later. Around eight!’

Hazel gave her a weak wave before meeting Annie’s eye again. Her best friend raised a blonde brow. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

Hazel sighed. She wasn’t okay. She was having some kind of mid-life crisis. Or quarter life crisis? Was that a thing? Either way, she was considering going on a scavenger hunt, inspired by some town book-defacer, just to have something to show for herself by her thirtieth birthday. None of that really seemed okay, but she didn’t feel like sharing it all with Annie just yet.

‘Yep. I’m good. Just a little worried about the lack of customers.’

Annie glanced around the empty store. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much, Haze. Everyone is just a little stir crazy after that long, wet July. They’ll be back.’

Hazel nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

Annie smiled and passed her a fresh baked cookie. A peace offering.

They ate the rest of their meal in companionable silence but Hazel’s attention kept slipping back to the crooked book and the blueberries and the rest of the summer stretching out, hazy and hot and wide open in front of her.

Hazel had already been bitten by no fewer than fifteen bugs and no matter where she sat around the fire the smoke seemed to blow in her face. She held a lukewarm beer in one hand and a s’more with a burnt marshmallow in the other hand. She was pretending to have a good time.

She wasn’t having a good time.

And Noah had just strolled in all sun kissed and freckled and her stomach was doing that swooping thing again.

‘Hey, everyone.’ He held up a hand in greeting and everyone called their hellos.

Hazel was flanked on either side by Annie and book-club Jacob, who were sitting in camp chairs while she got stuck with an old kitchen chair she was pretty sure might give out at any moment. George from the bakery was also here, standing with his beer while toasting a marshmallow. Isabel, Jeanie’s other book-club friend, had wandered away from the group to call home and make sure the kids had fallen asleep without her. Everyone seemed happy and relaxed. No one else seemed to be getting eaten alive.

Logan was tending the fire with more concentration and strategy than Hazel felt should be needed to tend a fire, but even he seemed pleased with how the evening was going. Annie was right. Summer made Hazel grumpy.

‘Hey, Noah!’ Jeanie greeted him with a hug before he grabbed a beer from the cooler and joined the rest of the group. ‘So happy you could make it.’

‘Uh, yeah, of course. I’d do pretty much anything for a s’more.’

Hazel thought she was sufficiently hidden in the shadows but somehow Noah’s gaze found hers and his mouth tipped into that confusing smile. She looked away and focused on her s’more which she had to admit was pretty good despite the charred flavor. When she glanced up again, Noah was watching her lick marshmallow goo from her fingers.

‘Hey, Noah, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.’ Annie’s voice tore his attention from Hazel’s fingers, thank God, because Hazel was about to turn as gooey as the marshmallow she was licking off of them.

‘Oh?’ He lifted an eyebrow and smirked in that way he did when he was amused. Hazel paid attention to her sticky fingers and not his face.

‘How come you never smell?’

A laugh burst from Jacob’s mouth. ‘What the hell kind of question is that, Annie?’

‘He’s on a stinky fishing boat all day and I’ve never once smelled fish on him!’

‘So are you accusing him of lying about what he does all day?’ Jacob asked, taking a sip of his beer.

Annie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, it’s kind of suspicious.’

Noah laughed. ‘I replace showers work pretty well.’

Annie narrowed her eyes, studying him. ‘You must have some really strong soap.’

‘I scrub really hard.’ He winked at her and Annie laughed.

Everyone was laughing now, actually. Except for Hazel, who was using all her mental energy to not picture a soapy, naked Noah scrubbing himself in the shower.

‘What did I miss?’ Isabel asked, re-entering the ring of firelight.

‘Just discussing Noah’s showering habits.’ Annie gestured to Noah with her beer and he held out his arms as though to let Isabel admire his cleanliness.

She didn’t seem impressed, which was strange because Hazel could swear the heat of the fire increased when Noah’s biceps flexed against the sleeves of his T-shirt.

‘Wow, my first night out away from the kids in months and we have to talk about Noah showering?’

‘I also vote for a change of topic,’ Logan muttered, standing from his crouch near the fire. Jeanie planted a kiss on his cheek.

‘How about our August book choice?’ Jacob chimed in and Logan groaned.

‘We’re going to go from discussing Noah in the shower to smutty books?’

Jeanie giggled. ‘Yep.’

‘We need something summery. Ooo, maybe pirates!’ Isabel’s eyes lit up with her idea.

‘Hazel was reading an interesting pirate book the other day.’ Noah met Hazel’s gaze with a playful grin.

‘I wasn’t reading it. I was reshelving it.’

He shrugged. ‘It looked good.’

‘What was it?’ Jacob leaned forward, all interested now in this smutty pirate book and Noah was still looking at her and another mosquito landed on her thigh. What fresh hell was this?

‘Kidnapped Lover… Or no, that wasn’t it … Trapped? Caught? Bound up by the Pirate?’

Oh. My. God. If Noah uttered another word about this book or being tied up by pirates, she was going to skewer him with this marshmallow stick.

‘It was Love Captive,’ she ground out, happy for the semi-darkness to hide her heated cheeks.

‘That sounds perfect!’ Jeanie clapped her hands.

‘I bet pirates smelled pretty bad.’

Jacob reached over Hazel to smack Annie on the arm. ‘Don’t ruin sexy pirates for me!’

Noah was still looking at her while the rest of the group descended into chatter about the cleanliness of pirates. He was looking at her like he knew that she had taken that book home and read it cover to cover and that the pirate she was picturing looked nothing like the one on the cover…

‘I need to g—’ Hazel stood too fast and her chair tipped over. ‘Uh … to the bathroom.’ You did not need to announce that to everyone!

‘Just be careful making your way back to the house. It’s getting dark and the Bobs got out again,’ Jeanie said with an apologetic smile.

‘Okay, yep. No problem.’ Hazel scurried away from the ring of light around the fire and the laughter of her friends. The sun had dipped low enough in the sky that long shadows concealed the dips and pits of the field. Great, I’m either going to break an ankle or get attacked by goats.

She knew her way from the back field to Logan’s grandparents’ house well enough to do it in the dark; she’d been coming here for years. But in her current state she wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up in a ditch. Or worse, pecked to death by Logan’s precious flock of chickens.

Hazel shuddered and hurried to the house. She didn’t even have to go, but she did need to get away from good-smelling fishermen and bloodthirsty bugs, so this seemed as good a plan as any.

She let herself in the house and found Nana and Grandpa Henry dozing in front of the TV in the living room. They startled awake when she walked in.

‘Hazel Kelly is that you?’

‘It’s me, Nana. How are you?’

‘Oh good, good. There’s leftovers in the crockpot if you’re hungry.’

‘No one wants that, dear.’ Henry patted her leg lovingly and Estelle shot him a glare. Hazel smiled. It was like coming home with Logan in high school all over again. They’d adopted each other as siblings a long time ago since neither of them had any.

‘I’m full of s’mores actually. Just came in to use the bathroom.’

‘Okay, dear. You let me know if you need anything.’

Hazel nodded and made her way down the hall to the little bathroom off the kitchen. It still had the same faded wallpaper, the same blue-tiled floor. She looked in the mirror and found the same reflection she’d seen in high school.

Well, maybe a little different. A little older.

But she felt the same.

Same old Hazel.

Could you have memories of things you hadn’t done? Standing in Logan’s bathroom, Hazel couldn’t help but remember everything she didn’t do. Like the fact that she never skipped a single day of school because she’d been too worried she’d miss something important. Or the fact that she’d only ever gotten tipsy in high school once and it was here at the farmhouse and then she’d felt so guilty she’d confessed to Nana.

She lived at home during college, too. Hadn’t gone out to clubs, hadn’t ever had a one-night stand, hadn’t been arrested.

Okay, so maybe it was good she’d never been arrested, but the point was she had never been reckless, not even a little bit.

Hazel liked herself in general. She liked her life. But she still couldn’t help feeling like something was missing. That all those holes in her memories were turning into something like regrets. Regrets she didn’t want to bring with her into her thirties.

She thought about Noah’s smiles and those crooked books and blueberry picking. Maybe she didn’t have to be stuck. Maybe for the next two months she could be … fun. She could have fun, right? That’s what summer was for, wasn’t it?

The floorboards creaked under her feet as she went through the kitchen, grabbing the wine on the table that Jeanie had forgotten to bring out.

Fun. Adventure. A teensy bit of recklessness…

She could do it.

She would start tonight.

She went out the side door, the one that led to Grandpa Henry’s private garden, and found an unexpected surprise. Blueberry bushes! Blueberry bushes she had totally forgotten existed on Logan’s farm. She stood there on the edge of the garden, darkness creeping in around the edges of the sky, and felt every bit her age. She wasn’t in high school anymore, or college. She couldn’t go back and change the past and she didn’t want to, not really. But in the months leading up to her birthday, she wanted to step outside herself. To let go. To be young and fun and twenty-something before it was too late.

And maybe she’d inhaled too much woodsmoke but the fact that she’d ended up right where the crooked books had pointed her just felt like too much of a sign to ignore. The books were the key to her adventure. It was time she started paying attention.