Top Shelf: A Seacroft Novel Read online

  “Mom.” Penny’s eyes widened. “He doesn’t need all of that information in order to be our MC.”

  Martin had no idea what was happening, but he was sure of one thing. “I’m not very good at public speaking.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Carol Anne wriggled her fingers at him. “Look at that face, Penny. Isn’t he perfect?”

  “Wouldn’t Mrs. Green be a better choice to MC anyway?” Martin scrambled for a way out of this. “It’s her store after all.”

  Carol Anne’s eyes narrowed, and she grabbed up the papers spread over the counter. “I think we’ve been stood up. Penny, let’s go over to the florist’s. Martin,” she smiled, “it’s been a pleasure. Here’s Penny’s business card. Email her your measurements, and she’ll get you squared away for a tux rental, okay?” Without waiting for his agreement, Carol Anne exited the store.

  “Tux rental?”

  “Don’t worry.” Penny shook Martin’s hand. “I’ll get you through it. A suit will be fine.”

  Martin’s head spun like he’d just been run through a laundry machine spin cycle. Now Penny and Carol Anne were leaving under the impression that he’d volunteered to MC a concert?

  Penny must have seen the growing panic on his face, because she set down her folders and leaned across the counter.

  “How long have you been in town?”

  “A few months.”

  “You have family here?”

  “My brother, Brian Lindsey. Do you know him? He’s a firefighter.”

  She shook her head. “That’s okay, though! My husband and I own the diner next door. Why don’t you come by sometime? Bring your brother!”

  Some of Martin’s tension leached out. When Brian had tried to get Martin to hang out with Nick and the rest of the guys, Martin balked. He wasn’t the most sociable person at the best of times, but Penny’s kind smile and the warm light in her eyes made him believe he could trust her.

  “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  Penny grinned. “Give me a call and let me know when you’re coming. My husband, Tim, makes the best baked beans in the state. You’ve got my number.” She waved one last time and left the store.

  As the shop fell quiet, Martin grinned. He might have just made his first friend in Seacroft. Being so excited seemed stupid. His first friend? What was this, kindergarten?

  Brian would be pleased to hear about it at least. Especially if it meant a decent meal. Maybe he’d give Martin more breathing room.

  And then Martin’s happy little mood burst because had he also just agreed to MC a public event? That sounded an awful lot like talking to a crowd of people, possibly even trying to be funny, or smart or—

  He sank back down onto his stool and buried his face in his hands.

  He’d made a friend, and now he was doomed.

  * * *

  Cassidy came into the bookstore late on Thursday afternoon.

  “Hey!” She pulled down the blue hood of her rain coat, shaking water droplets onto the counter.

  Martin put down Little Dribbling. “Hey. I thought you weren’t working again until the weekend.”

  “I’m not. I just need to get something upstairs.”

  Martin stiffened as the weight of Seb’s silent presence pressed down on him. He hadn’t seen Seacroft’s artistic genius in a few days.

  “Upstairs?”

  “I left my charcoals in Seb’s apartment. I need them for class tomorrow.”

  A tiny ping of worry shivered down the back of Martin’s neck.

  “I don’t think he’s home.” Despite the silent certainty that Seb, with his sly winks and his dominant stride through the stacks, might appear at any time, Martin hadn’t heard him at all that day. No muffled music. No creaking footsteps.

  “It’s okay.” Cassidy fished around in the pockets of her coat. “I have a key.”

  Now the worry ratcheted up another notch. Remembered voices hurled accusations at him. They said he should have done more, said more. Instead, he’d done nothing until it was too late. Panic was a vice that tightened at the bottom of his skull and forced him to think over what he really knew about Cassidy. She was seventeen, he was pretty sure, and she had the key to Seb’s apartment.

  He followed helplessly as she made her way toward the back of the store.

  “Maybe you should wait until he’s back?”

  “It’s fine! I can’t stay long. I borrowed the car, but I have to pick my mom up from work at six.” Cassidy put the key in the lock and gave the door a push with her hip, like she knew exactly where it would stick, before she turned the key and the door popped open. Martin’s breath went shallow as he looked up the narrow, dimly lit staircase.

  “Come see my work!” Cassidy set her foot on the bottom step, which popped as something shifted under her weight. She didn’t look back. Martin was left to watch as she turned at the narrow landing and disappeared. He hesitated. She was probably telling the truth. He was catastrophizing for no good reason. But the idea that she was there alone propelled him forward, up the enclosed space of the staircase.

  As he reached the top, new scents replaced the bookshop’s overwhelming smell of dust and old wood. There was coffee and something faintly chemical. Dusty windows facing out over Seacroft’s main street let in thin rainy light.

  A flash of color caught his eye. A hardcover book sat on a table below one window. The spine said Songbirds of North America, but the cover had been carved away, revealing the menagerie underneath. Layer upon layer of birds took flight from the pages. Someone had painstakingly cut out the space around bird after bird, going down and down, page by page, so tiny beaks and bright feathers peeked out at him, one beneath the other. An entire flock, contained in a book that couldn’t be more than a few inches thick.

  He was about to trail his finger over the bright crest of a cardinal, partially obscured by a dull brown bird, when Cassidy’s voice broke into his silent awe.

  “Do you want to see?” She was at the far end of the room, holding a large tube of heavy paper. Her smile went a little shy, and his throat tightened at the reminder of how young she was.

  Cassidy knelt to roll the paper out. It was long, and stiff and tried to curl up on itself.

  “Can you pass me one of those?” She gestured to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf against the wall, and Martin obligingly pulled out a couple books. Like the book on the table, these were old and hardcover. He dropped them as he pulled them off the shelf, because they were significantly lighter than he’d expected.

  “Cass?” a voice called, and Martin’s mouth went dry.

  “Hi Seb! We’re upstairs!” Cassidy answered without any hesitation. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, like listening to Jack’s giant climb the beanstalk.

  One of the books had flopped open when Martin dropped it, and he was momentarily distracted as the words on the page shifted. But the words weren’t moving; he was seeing several pages at once. He bent to lift the book, and the pages rolled as the spine shifted in his hands. Once again, he was struck by the sense that the book was lighter than it should be. The pages had been cut, but unlike the bird book on the table, this one had no images. Instead, small rectangular-shaped perforations dotted the lines of text so words on subsequent pages were visible. He turned the page, delicate as lace.

  He flipped the cover shut. The title had been carved away, but the author’s name was left. Calvin Forrester. Martin turned through the first few pages again. The original book’s topic was nearly unintelligible with so few of the words remaining. How would Mr. Forrester feel?

  “What are you doing?” Seb was standing surprisingly close.

  “I was just—”

  “How did you get in?”

  “I was showing him my project.” Cassidy was still crouched on the floor.

  “That’s not your project.” Seb’s cool eyes were on the book in Martin’s hand.

  “She asked for something to weigh it down.”

  “It’s not a paperweight.”r />
  “No, I can see that,” Martin said as he bounced his hand up and down with the open book in it. The spiderwebbing of pages fluttered in the breeze. Seb’s eyes widened, and his nostrils flared.

  “Stop that!” He pulled the book out of Martin’s hands. “It’s not a toy.”

  Martin’s face flushed, and his insides squeezed. He hated how he couldn’t control the reaction. Who was Seb to make him feel like this?

  “It’s art.” Cassidy interjected from her spot on the floor.

  “Cass.”

  “You cut up a book?” Martin’s frustration tried to boil over. He shouldn’t be the only one upset here. He wanted to hold the book again, really heft it. If the rest of the pages were like the ones he’d seen, only a third of the words remained.

  “And what if I did?” Seb’s voice was flat.

  Didn’t he understand? “Those are someone’s words.”

  “Words no one was going to read. It was about agricultural best practices in New England, printed in 1977.”

  “That’s not the point. It was someone’s work. You can’t deface a book like that.” Despite everything, Martin’s spine straightened. Whatever awkwardness he normally felt in Seb’s presence gave way to anger on behalf of the unknown writer’s lost words.

  “What do you know about it?” Seb brushed past him, his shoulder pushing against Martin’s.

  The casual dismissal made Martin’s face heat. He never seemed worthy of Seb’s time, but he was suddenly unsure Seb’s interest was something to aspire to. “What gives you the right to ruin someone’s work like that?” He thrust his chin out. This was one place where he could hold his ground. He’d made a career out of unearthing the words of lost writers.

  Seb slid the book back onto the shelf where it had been. “What gives you the right to judge me for it?”

  “I wrote my dissertation on—”

  “Your dissertation?” Seb’s laugh was low and mean as he turned back to face Martin. One blond eyebrow arched.

  “I told you he was a doctor,” Cassidy said.

  “A doctor. Is that right? Doctor Martin?” He stepped forward. Despite Martin’s conviction, the accusation in Seb’s eyes forced him to take a step back.

  “That’s right.”

  “Like a real doctor? Or one of those fake doctors? The ones with all that useless knowledge that only qualifies them to judge the rest of us poor slobs who actually had to go out and face the real world?”

  “Real” doctors. Because, those who couldn’t do taught. He’d heard all the things PhD stood for: Post hole digger, pathetic hopeless dreamer.

  “I worked hard for my degree.” Years of hard work. He’d loved those years before he’d finished his doctorate, when his direction had seemed so clear. And now he was defending them to someone who didn’t even see what was wrong with cutting up a book. How had he gotten himself into this? He’d only been trying to save Cassidy from giants.

  “What are you doing in my house?” Seb asked again.

  “I wanted to show him my portfolio,” Cassidy said.

  “Well, he’s seen it.” Seb gestured behind them without looking away from Martin. “Now you can go.”

  5

  Seb was being a dick, but he couldn’t shut his mouth off. First blood. All confrontations went that way. When Martin started to argue, Seb’s default was to go on the offensive. Hurt, anger, and then defiance crossed over Martin’s face, and Seb was momentarily impressed. Maybe he was more than a cowardly lion after all.

  Martin’s posturing about his fucking doctorate sealed his fate, though. As if all the useless information gave him credibility to be anything but a world-class snob. Seb couldn’t help his reaction, and it didn't take much to glare down the nervous professor.

  “I’m sorry for intruding,” Martin said, then walked wordlessly out of the apartment.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Cassidy said when he was gone.

  Seb had to bite back a dozen angry words before he replied. “Please don’t bring people into my apartment when I’m not here.”

  “He wasn’t hurting anything.”

  “It’s my home, Cass. You can’t bring people up here and let them touch my things.” He’d nearly gone nuclear at the sight of the book in Martin’s hand, delicate pages flapping. He hadn’t seen any tears in the paper, but that didn’t mean everything was still intact.

  “You sound like my sister.” Cassidy rolled up her drawing and secured it with a cord. “Don’t touch my things, Cassidy. It’s too complicated for you to understand, Cassidy. I’m not stupid, you know?”

  Seb sighed. He was still irritated, but upsetting Cass wouldn’t solve anything.

  “You’re not stupid. I’m sorry if I overreacted.”

  “You should apologize to him.” Cass picked up her charcoal tin and slid it into her backpack.

  Seb groaned.

  Fuck.

  She was right. He needed to apologize.

  Cass rolled her eyes as she hefted her backpack onto her shoulder.

  “I have to go pick up my mom.” She stalked to the door and thumped down the stairs, taking extra care to bang her bag against the wall with every step.

  Seb collapsed on the couch, flinging his arm over his eyes. That had been a disaster, and Martin never stood a chance. Seb had more than three decades of practice winning even the most vicious of arguments. Someone should have told Martin there was no withstanding the Stevenson men when they got pissed off about something.

  Even if the something they were pissed off about wasn’t the oblivious and well-meaning professor standing in front of them.

  As Seb had come around the last corner on his way back to the apartment, Oliver called again. Seb had been dodging pretty successfully since their ambush Skype session, but Oliver seemed to take the silence as a challenge. He called more frequently, and finally, in a fit of annoyance, Seb had picked up.

  “For god’s sake, Seb,” Oliver had said, apparently going for the direct approach since the bush beating had failed so completely last time. “I’m not asking you to move back in or get on your knees and grovel as soon as you arrive. But I need you to fucking be there.”

  Seb hadn’t responded in words longer than four letters before he’d told Oliver he had to go. If he’d stayed on the phone any longer, he would have started yelling right there on the street, cursing a stream so foul one of Seacroft’s kind citizens would have called 911 on him for creating a public disturbance. Anger and frustration had vibrated through his bones as he’d pushed into the bookstore.

  Martin’s misfortune was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, holding the first piece Seb succeeded in getting placed at a juried show. He had unleashed all of the feelings he hadn’t been able to set free, and Martin, and even Cass a little, had been collateral damage.

  The vibration of his phone in his pocket made him jump. As he prepared mentally for another yelling match, his jaw clenched. He was relieved when the caller ID said it was Kenneth instead.

  “Hello, darling,” Kenneth said as soon as Seb answered the call.

  “Hello, Kenny.” He grinned as he pictured Kenneth’s silent pout at the nickname.

  “How’s everything in the salt mine?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? Fine as in you’re ahead of schedule and you’ve come up with something even my genius wouldn’t expect? Or fine as in you’ve been frozen in indecision since my last call and nothing has been moved ahead, but you don’t want me to find out because you know I’ll be pounding on the front door of that hovel you call a studio by tomorrow morning?”

  “You’re not usually the one to do the pounding.” Seb couldn’t help the evil grin that spread across his face, which grew when Kenneth let out a cry of mock outrage.

  “Don’t distract me with your ham-fisted innuendo. You know I can give it out as well as I take it.”

  “Ugh. I don’t need those mental images. We’ve kept the whole thing professional this long. Let’s not break the
streak, okay?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve never been professional. Do I have to remind you about that New Year’s Eve after the exhibit in Charleston?”

  Seb had tried hard to forget that particular party. “I was drunk. I can’t be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth when there’s champagne.”

  “Or what goes in your mouth apparently.”

  Normally, their banter would have had Seb digging for the filthiest joke he could think of, but his earlier bad mood still clung to the edges of his laughter. He didn’t feel up to seeing who could make the other one crack first.

  “What are you calling for? It’s not really to check on my progress. I’m ahead of schedule, like I was when you called last month and the month before that.”

  Seb had known Kenneth since their freshman year at college, when they were the only two out gay boys in their dorm. Kenneth was the sole reason Seb had survived their full year business mathematics course. When Kenneth graduated with his shiny commerce degree and Seb started selling pieces more widely, he hesitated to add business to their friendship. But letting Kenneth act as his agent to the various galleries along the East Coast had been one of the smartest choices he’d made in the last ten years.

  “Of course you are, darling. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. I’m actually calling because I have news. Good and bad. Which would you like first?”

  Seb rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Just tell me the bad news and get it over with.”

  “I was hoping you were going to say that!”

  “Kenny . . . ” He toed off his shoes and lay back down on the couch with a sigh. He’d apologize to Martin later.

  “Schiller pulled out of the exhibition.”

  “What?” Exhaustion evaporated as Seb sat upright again.

  “Naomi was vague about it. I don’t know much. Personal reasons. It sounded serious.”