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The first time it happened, on a Saturday, Ty had been seriously annoyed. Who did this guy think he was? Obviously some rich kid who didn’t have to work to pay his way through school but thought it would be fun to mess with the people who did.
But when he’d confronted the guy, he’d given Ty the most serious expression when he’d said, “I’m just correcting the mistake that your store made. The Walking Dead belongs in the How-To section, not Comics.”
Ty went from thinking the guy was an asshole to thinking he was just plain nuts. So after backing away slowly, he’d waited until the guy left and then moved the books back to their rightful place.
Exactly one week later, the guy came back. After browsing for a while in other parts of the store, he made his way back to Ty’s section carrying the same books again. He winked-actually fucking winked-at Ty and then started placing them onto the How-To shelf yet again. Ty was livid. And obviously back to thinking the guy was an asshole.
Which must have been clearly apparent on his face because the guy stood and held his hands up in mock surrender before saying, “Before you yell at me, maybe we can have a nice and civil discussion about why you’re wrong and I’m right.”
That should have pissed Ty off even more, but there was something about the easy grin on the guy’s face that made him pause. And Ty was honest enough with himself to admit that the fact that it was a particularly handsome face didn’t hurt either.
Before he knew it, he was grinning back and saying, “Sure, Lone Star. We can be civil. But I think you have it backwards.”
One dark brow arched up, but the grin didn’t falter. “Lone Star?”
“Yeah. You’ve got a Rangers shirt on and you speak with a drawl. Are you gonna try and tell me you’renot from Texas?”
Lone Star laughed.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He pointed at Ty’s t-shirt, which today had a picture of a cat wearing headphones and sitting in front of a turn table. “But if you’re going to call me Lone Star, then I get to call you Meow Mix.”
Ty snorted. “Fair enough. So. Care to tell me why you’re rearranging my shelves?”
And that was how it started. They debated, good-naturedly, for the better part of an hour about the probability of a zombie apocalypse, and the best methods for surviving in case it did ever happen. It was one of the most ridiculous conversations that Ty had ever had, but he was so engrossed in it that he didn’t even realize that his shift had been over for twenty minutes until his boss came over to ask him why he was still there. He’d apologized for losing track of time and when he’d turned back around Lone Star had disappeared.
But he was back the following Saturday. Ty had caught sight of him when he’d walked in but had been busy helping a little old lady find the perfect pattern book for her granddaughter, who was coming to stay with her for a month, and who she was very much looking forward to teach how to knit. She’d gone on and on about how her grandmother had taught her and she was so excited to carry on the tradition, since her own children hadn’t been even remotely interested in learning, and it had all been very sweet but all Ty wanted to do was find the cute Texan and…well. Not think about when and why he had started thinking of him as the cute Texan.
But by the time he had finally gotten the woman settled with not one, but five new pattern books, he’d turned around to find Lone Star gone. But the books were once again in the wrong spot on the shelf. When he went to move them back, he noticed a folded slip of paper sticking out the top of one of them. It had two words written where he could see them: Meow Mix. Grinning to himself, Ty pulled out the paper and unfolded it to find a drawing of a sheep with the words “I missed ewe” written in the middle.
Ty blushed and groaned at the same time, mumbling to himself, “Bad pun penalty, Lone Star.” But he folded up the note and put in his pocket.
It continued the same way for several weeks. Lone Star would come in every Saturday to shuffle books around and if Ty was free, they’d chat. Eventually they learned each other’s real names and Ty wasn’t terribly surprised that he and Zane Garrett attended the same university. He’d assumed as much the first time be saw him-this was a college town so it was a safe assumption to make.
On those weeks when Ty was busy with a customer, he’d find little slips of paper stuffed into the books, always containing some horrible pun or another. He would never admit that he kept every single one of them.
Such was the case on a Saturday nearly two months after Zane had first walked into the bookstore. Ty finished with the customer he’d been helping find vacation guides and walked back to the How-To section, once again finding several of the zombie books on the lower shelf, a slip of paper sticking out of the closest one. But this time when he opened it up, his breath caught in his throat.
A crudely drawn peapod awaited him, with a speech bubble next to it. In Zane’s neat handwriting were the words “Peas go out with me?” and a phone number.
Ty groaned, but then found himself grinning as he pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number, not even caring that he was still on the clock.
Zane answered on the first ring. “Is that you Meow Mix?”
“Bad pun penalty, Lone Star. You’re lucky you’re cute.”
“Cute, huh? So…is that a yes?”