Siren Nights (Series Part 1) (The Lure) Read Free Page B

building. He was wearing thick
nylon gloves, which seemed odd for the relative warmth of the day. I blushed.
We really must have seemed like a couple.
    The door closed behind us. The inside of
the store was divided by a tall double row of bookshelves into two aisles. “And
keep that ‘Closed’ sign out there, Claire.”
    Claire rolled her eyes. “I would have done
it anyway, with or without you. So who is this girl and why does she look like
she’s running from the mob?”
    “Her name is Anna,” replied Jason. “Anna,
this is my sister Claire… and the guy outside didn’t seem like a mobster to
me...”
    I sighed. “No, he’s not with the mob. He
just... started acting so scary all of a sudden. He’ll probably apologize for
it tomorrow, but I don’t really want to see him now.”
    “And that’s your right,” Claire said with a
nod. “Anyone who won’t respect you doesn’t deserve your respect either.
    If only if it were that simple, I thought.
Sometimes respect had to be earned. No one “deserved” respect from the
beginning, my mother had always told me. Not that she ever gave me much
respect.
    “Anyway, glad the mob’s not after you.”
Claire seemed satisfied.
    “Um... thanks.” I said.
    “I’m going out for a bit,” said Jason. “You
can stay here as long as you want.”
    My eyes flicked nervously to Claire, but
she just nodded. “Feel free to browse while you’re here,” she said, turning her
attention to a brown ledger on her desk. “And ask me anything about the books.”
    “Are you sure?” I asked. “You’re closed.”
    Claire snorted. “That just means I don’t
want to be interrupted by a crowd of tourists while I’m doing the balances or
stopping for a bank run. Nice skirt, by the way,” she observed.
    I looked down, realizing I was still in my
waitresses outfit. “Um... thank you.” Was she making fun of me?
    I moved to the shelves themselves. They
went back further than I expected, given the shop’s small facade, and were
completely crammed with books: from the closed drawers at the bottom to the
wide shelves holding thick hardbacks in the center and all the way up to the
narrow shelves for paperbacks on top.
    Each shelf held a different selection. I
tried to discern the reasoning behind the organization, but failed. The poetry
was next to the science fiction, which itself was shelved right next to the
sparsely populated self-help section.
    And right next to the classic literature
was a combination display of atlases on the bottom and paperback romance novels
at the top. The bright pink and white bindings contrasted starkly with the
somber, plain colors right next to it. My eyes lingered over them, possibly
attracted by the garish contrast.
    Claire looked up from the ledgers. “Oh,
you’re a romance fan? I’ve got a regular who’s really into eighties and
nineties trade pubs.  Most of those you can’t really find anymore. They had
their run, so to speak.”
    I nodded without really understanding.
“Well, it’s been a while for me too,” I said somewhat lamely. Now that she
mentioned it, I had really enjoyed them when I was a teenager... why had I
stopped again?
    Then I remembered and blushed at the
memory. Brad was the reason. He always made fun of me when I read them. “Silly
chick lit,” he called those books.
    “No time like the present to pick one up
again,” Claire said helpfully.
    I stretched out one hand with trepidation.
I hadn’t seen Brad in nearly seven years, but the shame I felt then was as
alive as ever. “Girls will be girls,” he had said then and his laughter echoed
in my mind. This was stupid.
    “You know, a lot of people look down at
romance novels,” said Claire. “I don’t think they quite understand what the
appeal really is.”
    “The appeal?...Isn’t that... the
relationship?” I asked.
    “Well, yeah, sorta,” she said, fixing me
with a ‘but everyone knows that’ look. “But that’s not really the whole story.
See, a