Top Shelf: A Seacroft Novel Read online

  Oliver laughed. “Yeah, he was. Just took me a while to figure it out.”

  Another lapse into silence. Seb’s finger hovered over the button that would end the call.

  “Have you talked to Nana lately?”

  Oliver’s question caught Seb by surprise. This was a departure from their usual pattern. Every few months, Oliver would call on a day when Seb was too busy to check the phone’s screen before he answered, or when he was feeling sorry for himself. The conversation was always brief and pointless, small talk between two people who shouldn’t have treated each other like strangers. Then Oliver would say he would come visit one of these days, and Seb would say he looked forward to it. The promise would hang there until their next stilted phone call.

  The unspoken rule was that they never talked about the rest of the family. No matter what news Oliver might be calling to relay, they did not talk about their relatives. Ever.

  “No, I haven’t talked to Nana in a bit.” He squashed a fluttery feeling in his chest.

  “You should. She’d like to hear from you.”

  Seb bit his lip but forced himself to keep looking at his brother. Whatever Oliver was playing at, Seb wouldn’t let him win.

  “I don’t think I have her number here.” Another lie. He’d had it memorized since he was a kid and called it more than once when he needed to get away from the endless tension at home.

  “I’ll email it to you.” On Oliver’s side of the computer, there was a tapping of keys on a keyboard. Seb bit his lip. There was no way to protest without being the bad guy.

  “Is she—” The question caught in his throat. “Is she okay?” The idea that their Nana, who had been such a solid constant figure in his childhood, might not be was impossible. Seb remembered her strong hands, showing him how to grip a paintbrush to get the texture he wanted on the canvas. Her lilac and sugar smell as she listened to Seb try to explain the image he had in his mind.

  “Oh! No!” Oliver seemed to realize he’d said something wrong. He shook his head so hard his image blurred on the screen for a second before it settled back into place. “She’s fine. Fine.”

  Guilt rumbled under Seb’s collarbones. As infrequently as he spoke to Oliver, he talked to his grandmother less. She was his biggest supporter, yes, but she was still his father’s mother, and there was a Philip Stevenson-sized gap in their relationship. Seb had no interest in filling it, never mind how hard it must be for her.

  “Well, I’ve got to get some work done tonight,” he said, patience waning. “If you’re ever in town, let’s—”

  “It’s her birthday.” Oliver’s voice was pained.

  Seb’s eyes narrowed. “I know that.” He sent her flowers every year.

  “There’s—” Now Oliver looked uncomfortable. He leaned back in his chair and loosened his tie. “There’s a party, alright?”

  “What party?”

  “A swingers party. What kind of party do you think, asshole? A birthday party.”

  Oh. Oh no. That was bad. Seb would much rather hang out with a bunch of horny suburbanites than do what he was pretty sure Oliver was proposing.

  “Where?”

  “At the house, okay? Mom and Parker, they’re organizing a family dinner and then—”

  “No.” If their sister, Parker, had any involvement in planning this, it would have all the pomp and circumstance of a military pageant, and Seb was not putting himself on parade.

  “Seb.” Oliver leaned toward the screen.

  “No!” Seb stood up so fast he knocked the laptop off the edge of the coffee table. He swore as it crashed to the floor.

  “Come on,” Oliver was saying, even though he was tilted sideways.

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “But Nana—”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to the house. You know that.”

  “I told Parker you wouldn’t come to the dinner, but if you could—”

  “No.”

  “I promised Nana you’d be there.”

  Angry words and years of hurt clogged Seb’s throat. Shaking his head, he picked up the laptop. Oliver’s face on the screen was miserable, but Seb could see it all. The spontaneous call. The way Oliver had tracked Seb down online, so they’d have this conversation face-to-face and turning his brother down would be harder. It was such a scummy lawyer thing to do, and Seb had fallen for it.

  “No.”

  This was why they never talked about family. Oliver should have stuck to the rules.

  “Please.”

  Seb shut the laptop.

  * * *

  As he left the store, Martin was still rattled by his ghostly visitor. He’d checked all the doors twice. Everything had been locked, but there was no sign of the man in the store either. Martin had checked every aisle and every corner. Finally, with no other option but camping out in the empty store, waiting for what? The man to return? For him to slide through the walls and throw around more books like a Ghostbusters extra? Martin let himself out, locked up the store again, and headed home.

  The bike ride back to Brian’s took less than ten minutes, and the wet salt smell of a town so close to the ocean made his head spin. When Martin previously came to visit his brother in Seacroft, he always assumed the town felt small because he only knew a few places in it. Now that he lived here, it turned out there wasn’t much to see, especially once the tourists went home after Labor Day. The beachfront souvenir shops pulled down their shutters for the season, and the whole town got sleepy.

  He pedaled home, trying to relax. He’d always preferred cycling to driving. Too many things could go horribly wrong inside a giant metal box hurtling down the road. The bike was safer. The physical activity was good for him too, and he was calmer by the time he got home.

  “Hey, Smarts!” As Martin came in the front door, Brian was sprawled out on the couch. Martin cringed at the use of the childhood nickname. It had been funny when he’d won the city spelling bee in fourth grade. It wasn’t funny now.

  “Hi.” He let his backpack drop to the floor. His collared shirt stuck to his back where he’d sweat through it from the last of the late summer heat.

  “How did it go?” Brian turned the sound down on the TV and pulled himself up to sitting. He smiled up at Martin, but its wary edge flared the buzzing feeling under Martin’s skin. How had it come to this? His brother was worried that Martin couldn’t handle a part-time job in a used bookstore.

  He shrugged, slumping onto the couch next to Brian. He considered telling his brother about his encounter with the blond poltergeist, but ghost stories were more likely to worry Brian than anything.

  “Good, I guess.”

  “Did you smile?”

  Martin grimaced, which was as close to a smile as he got these days.

  “C’mon, Smarts! You gotta smile more! Women like men who smile.” To demonstrate, Brian grinned, showing the tooth knocked out during a high school football mishap. Something green was wedged in between two of his lower teeth too.

  “Charming.”

  Brian snorted. “Smarty! You gotta try!”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “But you’ve been doing so good lately!”

  He’d been fine at home with Brian, where things were simple and predictable. Outside, in a public place where anyone could come in, was a different story. It shouldn’t have been, but should wasn’t worth much these days. Martin should also still have been at Mount Garner, assigning readings and figuring out what he was going to do when his funding ended after Christmas.

  Martin squirmed, putting as much space as he could between him and his brother, which wasn’t much. Since Brian’s ex-wife had literally taken half of everything they owned when she moved out, the old pull-out couch that doubled as Martin’s bed was also the only piece of furniture in the room.

  “I’ll be fine.” It was his mantra, meager though it was. He had to be fine. He’d lost too much already. Too much time, too much credibility. His academic career had gone
up in flames, and now his older brother was hovering like a mother hen.

  They watched some reality show where middle-aged dads brought in their minivans and their rusting sedans, and a crew of guys with a lot of tattoos and even more piercings sent them home in the same car but with a bigger engine and a paint job that almost always involved flames or barbed wire. It made no sense to Martin. Brian heckled them the whole time.

  “What’s for dinner?” Martin asked as the credits rolled.

  “Hmm?” Brian’s expression was blank, flipping through channels.

  Martin mashed the heels of his hands against his eyes and groaned. “It’s your night to cook!”

  “No it’s not! I just cooked . . . ”

  Martin waited for realization to dawn. It was Brian’s turn to cook and—“Shit. I forgot.” Brian at least had the good grace to look ashamed.

  “Did you remember to go shopping?”

  Brian shifted and glanced away, like a guilty golden retriever. Martin sighed and stalked off to the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry!” Brian called after him. “I’ll order a pizza.”

  They’d eaten more pizza since Martin had moved in than his first year in undergrad. Back then, his Freshman Fifteen had been more like Freshman Eighty. Undoing the damage had taken years, and Brian seemed intent on luring him back to the dark side.

  The old landline phone rang on the wall.

  “If that’s Nick, do you want to come to The Dugout to watch the game tonight?” Brian asked from the other room.

  Martin didn’t follow baseball, and he would need a tetanus shot before entering Brian’s favorite bar, and anyway, his brother didn’t want him to come. It was an excuse to keep an eye on him. Since Martin had come here, Brian was nervous leaving him alone at home. The first few weeks, it was reasonable; Martin had barely been able to dress or feed himself. Now, though, Brian’s attention was getting oppressive.

  “I’ll pass.” He picked up the phone’s handset. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Marty!” The woman’s voice was cheery, but the sound made Martin’s heart skip.

  “Hi, Jess.”

  There was a loud thump, like a body crashing to the floor. Martin stuck his head out into the hall and found Brian on the ground, groaning where he’d fallen off the couch. He flailed his arms like he was warding off a swarm of bees, his eyes turning desperate as they met Martin’s.

  “How’s the job hunt going?” Jess asked.

  “Pretty good. I’m working a few days a week at Dog Ears downtown.”

  “That’s great!”

  It wasn’t, but he appreciated her saying so.

  There was a pause, and Martin waited for what he knew would come next.

  “Is Brian there?”

  Martin glanced to where Brian was still crouched on the floor. His older brother shook his head so violently it bounced off the side of the coffee table. He slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his shout.

  “No. He’s at work.” Martin went back to the kitchen. Lying to his brother’s ex-wife had not been part of the agreement when he’d moved in.

  “Oh.” Jess sounded disappointed. “Doesn’t he usually have the day off on Saturdays?”

  And that right there was why lying was a bad idea. Lies had very short legs.

  “Yes! Usually. But not today. Um. He got called in to cover for someone. He might be done, though, so don’t call the firehall, but then I think he said something about going to get some pizza for dinner.” On cue, his stomach growled.

  “I called his cell too. He’s not picking up.”

  “Maybe he’s driving? Shouldn’t talk and drive, you know?” Shouldn’t lie for the older brother who couldn’t even remember to buy the necessities of life, but Martin had always been loyal to a fault.

  “I guess so.” Jess didn’t sound convinced.

  “I’ll tell him you called?”

  “Do you know if he got the letter from the lawyer?”

  Martin gritted his teeth. Brian owed him more than a pizza over this.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll get him to call you when he comes back, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Jeez, Smarts.” Brian wrapped an arm around Martin’s head as he hung up and ground his knuckles into Martin’s scalp. “All those years of university and no one ever taught you how to be a better liar?”

  “Get off!” Martin shoved at him.

  “Oh come on! Lighten up!”

  “Stop!” Martin stumbled back as Brian released him. Brian laughed, and Martin glared as he smoothed his hair back into place.

  “You never did like it when I did that to you when we were growing up either.”

  “Maybe you should take the hint.”

  Brian laughed. “So you coming to The Dugout tonight or not?”

  “You can’t keep hiding from her.”

  Brian’s grin went tight around the edges. “I’m not!”

  “You are! It’s not fair to make me cover for you like you’re still the high school football star trying to date two girls at once.”

  Brian’s smile fell completely. Guilt twisted in Martin’s throat, and his cheeks heated. He shouldn’t have said that.

  “I’m not hiding.” Brian pulled a beer from the fridge. “I’m right here. She’s the one who left.” He stomped out of the kitchen.

  Martin sighed. It wasn’t fair to judge. No matter how many letters hung off the end of his name, he wasn’t exactly the poster child for successful adulthood. He didn’t know what had gone wrong with Brian and Jess. Maybe implying Brian had cheated was too close to home.

  “She wanted to know if you got a letter from a lawyer?”

  “If she has something she wants to say to me, she can say it herself!”

  The back door slammed, and Martin was left alone in his brother’s half-empty house.

  3

  The bookstore on Monday turned out to be less of a hotspot. Fewer customers and no supernatural visitors. Martin turned the “Open“ sign over at ten, but the first customer didn’t come in for hours.

  The poor hotspot metaphor extended into the literal when Martin discovered the store had no reliable Wi-Fi signal. He’d been so busy on Saturday he hadn’t even noticed. There was one network called Get Your Own, but it was password protected.

  At noon, an elderly man arrived with a box of books. Martin, who had been hunched over Heart of Darkness, got through initial greetings and chitchat without too much stammering. He’d always been better in one-on-one situations, but even those had been difficult in his last months at Mount Garner. Another small victory for him now.

  The man’s box held a variety of old hardcover mysteries and political thrillers set in countries that didn’t exist anymore. Cassidy had shown Martin the cheat sheet, kept beneath the cash register, laying out pricing for books brought in. It was organized by decade published and whether the book was hardcover or paperback, but that was as scientific as it got.

  Martin kept a running tally as he sorted through them. When he came to the end, the total felt disappointingly low.

  “I can give you fifteen dollars and twenty-five cents.” He couldn’t even look the man in the eye as he said it.

  “That’s fine. I have to buy a few books for my wife anyway.”

  Martin’s head shot up. “You’re okay with that? You could make a lot more if you sold them online.” He ran his hands over the spines of some of the books in the box. They weren’t exactly literary masterpieces, but there was a market online for everything, and these books were nearly perfect. Uncracked. Even the dust jackets were pristine.

  The old man shrugged. “What do I know about that? Just need these off the shelf. Our new place doesn’t have as much space as the old one did, and these hardcovers take a lot of room. I’m glad someone else will have a chance to read them.”

  Martin went to hand the man his money but was waved off.

  “I told you, I need some books for my wife.”

  “Doesn’t that defeat th
e purpose of making space by selling these?”

  The old man chuckled and raised a white eyebrow. “Are you married?”

  “No.” Martin’s skin heated around his shirt collar. He hadn’t expected for the conversation to turn its attention on him.

  “Girlfriend?”

  Martin shook his head. What would his customer think if he knew he was being served by a real live homosexual?

  “Well, someday you will, son. And then someday after that you’ll learn that things don’t take up as much space if they’re hers.” The man’s eyes twinkled like a Christmas card Santa.

  Despite his discomfort, Martin couldn’t help the soft laugh that bubbled out of his throat. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The old man patted cold fingertips over the back of Martin’s hand.

  “You do that. Now help me find something for my missus. She likes those chick flick novels where the girl always gets the billionaire in the end.”

  It took some work because of course no one would file the kind of book they were looking for under a heading as simple as ‘Romance.’ Martin led them on a slow weaving tour of the rows of shelves. The whole way, the man kept up a pleasant stream of conversation without requiring Martin to do much of the talking. He reminded Martin a bit of a friend. Doug was a more-than-mature student who had gone back to school for a history degree after retiring from thirty-five years as a manager at a shipping company. He’d been fond of popping by Martin’s office to chat during office hours. Martin had never been particularly in demand, so knowing Doug would show up at one point or another was nice, and Martin enjoyed his company. They hadn’t kept in touch as much as they could have once Doug had finished his degree, though.

  Eventually, they found a book that seemed to appeal under a chalk board marked ‘You Go, Girl!’ and they made their way back to the front of the shop.

  The blond man from the other night had materialized.

  He was leaning against the counter like he was waiting for them, running a hand through his platinum hair. Martin’s breath caught as the man smiled at them. It was a bright, confident smile, the kind that drew attention as the wearer walked into a room.