Iris was always at work on time, but today was a special day. Today she wasn’t there as a librarian - she was there as an author. She’d finished her novel at long last, gone through the long and grueling process of editing and rewriting, and now she finally had a book to show for it.
The Guardian was her second true romance, a sweeping tale of a headstrong and sometimes reckless noblewoman and her dedicated bodyguard. She had turned the tables on them, however, seeing the guard injured and his ward now in charge of his recovery. It had turned out a good way to foster the needed intimacy between them, a relationship beginning to bloom through the care and vulnerability of the moment.
Indulgent? Sure. But wasn’t that the beauty of the genre? People read romance novels as an escape, and she was happy to provide one. It remained to be seen how it would be received, she wasn’t sure what kind of showing she would get for her signing, but even if only one or two people showed up, she’d consider it a success.
Haley had a problem. She was all set to enjoy a day at the beach with a nice, trashy paperback, which had become her favorite way to relax. Except she was out of trashy paperbacks. Oh, sure, she could reread one of her favorites - there were three with completely hideous spines on her bedroom bookshelf and a few more scattered around the house. But that was boring. She looked through her various bookshelves a few times over, sure she had an unread one sitting somewhere. But standing in her bedroom, huffing to blow the stray hairs out of her eyes, she realized today was not for lounging.
She collected her purse and her phone and scurried out the door. Before long she found herself at the library, and a good thing too - there was a book signing and what do you know, it was for a romance novel. Score. She made her way over to the table and, without so much as a hello, scooped up one of the books and pried it open. Years of reading these things had left her with an expert’s knowledge of their structure - she could crack open a romance she’d never read and nine times out of ten land on the good stuff in one try.
She skimmed the page. Grinned. Paydirt.
“Yep, it’s got the goods,” she said, setting it down in front of the author without making eye contact and reaching for her purse. “You can make it out to Haley. What’s the damage?” She found her wallet and removed it, finally looking up at the lovely lady behind the table.
Iris watched the taller blonde approach and sweep up a book with a bemused smile, idly playing with her pen. She knew that look, the look of a well seasoned reader assessing a new novel to see if they’d enjoy it. It was a look she’d worn herself many a time when picking something new to read. Life was too short to read books you didn’t like, after all.
She almost held her breath, watching teal eyes skim the page, then grinned outright when she said ‘it’s got the goods’ - flattery at its finest, to think it had been assessed so quickly and found favorable. She spun her pen and wrote Haley’s name in her flowing script, leaving the book open a moment for it to dry - an old habit from using pens that weren’t quite so good. She was selling them at traditional ‘new hardback’ price and said as much, ready to take and process whatever form of payment she had on hand. “Fan of the genre, I take it?”
