The Bookworm's Guide to Dating

all three. “There. Do you want me to compile a list of my demands?”
He peered over my shoulder, causing me to look back. Everyone was coming back, and I could already hear Colton and Tori bickering about karaoke.
I was starting to wonder if those two had an underlying sexual attraction they needed to screw out of each other.
“Yeah, send me a list,” he said right before crazy mob we called our friends returned with two trays full of drinks.
This was going to end very, very badly.
***
JOSH: You’re not picky at all.
ME: Coming from mister “I don’t get past date three” that’s a little rich.
I put my phone down on the counter and looked around the store. It was quiet today, so I was here on my own. I’d spent the entire morning texting Josh about my very specific requirements for a future boyfriend.
I still could not believe I’d agreed to this.
JOSH: Yeah, but you’re looking for a fucking unicorn here, Kins.
ME: I have standards.
JOSH: You want a male you.
ME: I’d date the shit out of myself.
JOSH: Really? I wouldn’t date me.
ME: Good thing I don’t want to date you then, huh?
JOSH: Ouch.
JOSH: Tell me how you really feel.
ME: Sorry. *grimace emoji*
JOSH: I suppose I asked for all this.
ME: Yes, and I’m going to make you suffer.
JOSH: I expect nothing less. I’m going to go find you a unicorn.
ME: I’d start in the fantasy section of the library.
JOSH: Shut up.
I chuckled and put my phone back down. That would keep him occupied for at least the next few hours, and since he had work to do, it would be even longer.
I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Really, my demands weren’t that unreasonable. I just wanted a kind, intelligent man who could handle basic tasks in the kitchen, was a little outdoorsy but not too much, and liked long, quiet evenings while I read my book.
Let’s be realistic, I was only a little outdoorsy because I liked to find a quiet space to read.
Oh, and I also wanted him to be good in bed.
You bet your ass I told Josh that, too.
It’d taken him half an hour to reply to me on that one.
“Kinsley! Where’s my book?”
I blinked and focused on the elderly man standing in front of me. I’d been in my own little world and hadn’t even heard the bell over the door ring as it announced my grandfather’s entry.
“Grandpa!” I jumped up and walked around the counter to hug him. He smelled like cinnamon and coffee, and I squeezed him as I breathed in the familiar scent.
“Hello, darlin’.” He hugged me back tightly. “Where’s my book?”
I grinned and retrieved Dean Koone’s newest thriller from under the register. “Right here. It came in this morning, and I put it aside for you. It’s not technically available until tomorrow, so don’t you tell anyone I did this.”
He took the bag with a gleeful giggle and peered inside. “You’re my favorite granddaughter, Kinsley.”
“I’m your only granddaughter,” I replied with a hint of dryness. “How are you doing?”
“They keep finding the bourbon I smuggle in. With the amount we pay them every month to give me food and board, you’d think they’d at least let me keep my liquor.”
Ah, we were back on that carousel.
At least once a week, Grandpa Randy was allowed an unsupervised visit to the center of town. Every single week he tried to sneak a little bottle of bourbon into his bedroom, and every single week the nurses searched him on his arrival back to the retirement community and took his alcohol.
He was much better off asking me to sneak it in.
They’d never searched me.
Granted, I usually brought them all new books so I think that worked in my favor, but still.
I rang up the sale on the register before I took his money from him. We only charged our grandparents wholesale prices, and that was because they insisted on paying us.
“Want me to bring you some bourbon when I come over this weekend?”
He tilted his head to the side. “How much can you bring?”
“Not sure. Depends on how many books they want this week.”
“Bring me a fifth and you’ve got a deal.”
Wow. Was this how drug dealers felt? It was almost as if I should have been brokering this in the dimly lit forecourt of a gas station at two-thirty a.m., not my bookstore at eleven-thirty a.m.
“I’ll see if I can fit that in,” I promised, handing him his receipt. “What else are you doing in town?”
Grandpa shrugged, putting his aged leather wallet back in the pocket of his tan slacks. “I like cake. Wanna come get some cake with me?”
I grimaced. “I would love to, but I’m here alone today. I can’t really shut the door.”
He checked his watch—which matched the leather of his wallet, thank you. “It’s basically lunch. Surely you wouldn’t deny an old man a slice of coffee cake. And maybe another slice of carrot cake.”
A smile crept across my face. He knew there was no way I could say no to him, and he was right—it was almost lunch, and I’d be closing soon for half an hour anyway.
“Thirty minutes,” I said, getting up off my stool. “You go ahead and tell Ms. Donoho that I’m on a timer and I’m paying, okay?”
“No, I’m paying,” Grandpa insisted. “I didn’t get to see you yesterday, so consider this your birthday cake.”
Well, I wasn’t about to turn down birthday cake.
I grinned. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll be right there, Grandpa.”

CHAPTER FOUR – JOSH
rule four: real women do not, in fact, have pillow fights in their underwear.
Make sure he’s good in bed.
How the fuck Kinsley expected me to find that out I’d never know. I couldn’t ask him—he was a guy.
Of course he was going to fucking say he was good in bed. He was hardly going to admit if he’d