closed starter for @slwbrn
Luci hadn’t ever expected that she would be back in the town she’d ran away from the moment she was old enough to pay her way to college. There had always been something that had nagged at her, the small town life chaffing at the sensibilities of a stubborn, book smart young woman who thought she had to much to offer to the world than to whittle her days away in a small agricultural town running the book shop her grandmother had started decades before.
Life, however, had a funny way of kicking you on your ass and telling you that, maybe, just maybe, you were wrong.
Luci’s came in the form of her little sister calling on her lunch break, bent over a manuscript she was editing, to tell her mama was sick, that they needed help. Despite never wanting to stay in her hometown for longer than she needed to, Luci booked a red eye flight that evening. That had been two weeks’ ago. She’d been here ever since.
With her mother having to move between the house and the hospital and her siblings possessing their own jobs and lives, they’d all taken to working the store in shifts. Tonight, it was Luci’s, and she was just locking up when someone called her name, clumsy fingers fumbling the keys as she looked up. Her eyes widened when she saw who it was, a face she’d never thought she’d see again, older and bearded, but no less recognizable.
“Ethan Mills. Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she said, covering up her surprise with a smile and, hopefully, some quick wit. She hadn’t seen him since they’d graduated high school, some twenty, or so, odd years ago, now.
