Romance

by Scribe Leaf Library · 1 min read · 0 views

There was exactly one copy left of the out-of-print novel both of them wanted, and by the unwritten rules of secondhand bookshops, whoever's hand touched the shelf first got to claim it — except their hands touched the spine at precisely the same second, which the owner, delighted, declared a draw requiring negotiation. The negotiation took forty minutes, most of a pot of shop tea, and ended with neither of them getting the book, because somewhere around minute thirty they'd stopped arguing about ownership and started arguing, far more enjoyably, about whether the ending actually worked, a debate neither wanted to end by one of them simply walking off with the only copy. They split the cost instead, an arrangement that made no practical sense for a single physical book, and read it aloud to each other over the following month, a chapter at a time, in the shop's back corner, until the owner finally admitted she'd started keeping that chair free for them on purpose.