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If you didn’t count the text messages, the phone calls, and all the facetiming, you hadn’t seen Joe for forty-seven days. Forty-seven days. Had it felt excruciatingly long? Yes. Were you absolutely fine all throughout it? Also, yes. The long periods of time before, where you wouldn’t contact each other at all, had really trained you into managing yourself through missing Joe.
It had also been nice that fans knew he was out of the country, and they stopped coming into the store to solely see if they could catch a glimpse. Although, some of them learned your name and would try to strike up friendships you weren’t interested in, because their motive would obviously be to get closer to Joe, which was awkward. It really took some getting used to, but when your best friend had shown you how some of them would stick up for you online, you stopped worrying about it.
“Anne, could you help me get these up there?” you called out from a corner of the shop, ladder set in place, big cardboard box at your feet and an empty shelf high up above you.
Anne’s responsibilities had grown as she’d dropped out of college. You had tried to encourage her to stick with it, but you remembered how much you had wanted to drop out of college when you were her age, so you didn’t berate her. Instead, you offered her more hours, because honestly, having an extra pair of hands just on the weekends wasn’t cutting it anymore.
Anne said goodbye to a customer before stepping around the counter and holding onto the ladder as you climbed up it.
“Can I take one of these?” Anne asked, eyeing the books that were going up as she handed them to you.
“Of course, put one aside.”
You’d felt for the longest time you needed to have read every single book you put out in the store, because it meant you could help your customers best. It was nice that now it felt like a shared task with Anne which meant that you were putting more time towards cooking actual nutritious meals – something Joe enjoyed greatly. You know, when he was actually around to enjoy them.
The door opened and a mother walked in with two teenage boys. You both greeted them in your best customer-services voices, and as Anne handed the last couple of books from the box, she made her way over to ask if they needed any help.
They didn’t. They’d browse.
You still weren’t sure if Anne’s demeanour was the reason people hardly ever wanted any help from her, but you had to admit that she’d warmed up loads compared to when she’d first started working at the store. She’d sometimes even smile – smirk. It was more of a smirk, with sort of an evil glint in her eyes as she did. But if you squinted, you could mistake her for looking friendly.
Anne stepped back to pick up the empty box from the floor and held onto the ladder as you started to descend it, when suddenly the door flew open forcefully, triggering the bell above the door with a bang.
“There she is!”
“Joe?”
You had heard him before you’d seen him, and just as your feet were about to take the last step down, two arms wrapped themselves around your waist and yanked you from the ladder.
“Oh my God, put me down!” you squealed in his arms, very aware that there were customers a couple of steps removed from you, but Joe didn’t care.
When your feet found the floor, Joe turned you in his arms and you didn’t even have time to look at him. His lips found yours fast, and Joe’s hands moved from your waist to your face, cupping and caressing. What could have been a cute welcome home kiss quickly grew deeper, inappropriately so for the time of day, the location you were in, and the people you were around. Joe pressed his full body against yours and you fell back against the ladder that you’d just been perched upon seconds earlier. God, you had missed him.
“This is great...” Anne deadpanned sarcastically, still stood right next to you. Joe comically placed his full palm over Anne’s face and pushed her away from him, and then used both his arms to wrap around you in a tight hug, lips never leaving yours.
Anne could deal with it, you thought. She knew it’d been well over a month since you’d been able to share your affection for each other with her. You swore Joe would some days wait with his kisses or bum pinches until Anne would be around, just because she was so vocal about hating it.
When you felt Joe moving back, you chased his mouth and pulled him back into you by the back of his neck. You weren’t finished.
“These ones? Did you find everything you were looking for?” you heard Anne from behind the counter as she helped the lady who’d stepped in earlier and rung her up for the books she’d picked out.
“I thought you wouldn’t get here until tomorrow?” you spoke whilst Joe’s lips found different spots of you to press kisses into.
“I lied.” Joe simply replied, not satisfied with the short absence of the feel of your mouth and getting straight back to it.
You were overcome by how many things you’d missed of Joe, a realisation you were happy to have now that Joe was actually there in the flesh. You would’ve driven yourself mad had you had it earlier. You’d missed the way Joe’s hips would press into yours, for one. And the way Joe’s breath would hitch and sigh in your kisses. And, perhaps this was your favourite thing, the way you could leave Joe a moaning puddle by scratching your fingertips up the back of his neck into his hair. Doing it then, just to check if it still worked, left Joe moaning loudly into your mouth.
“Honestly, get a fucking room!” Anne spoke from behind the counter. You didn’t even care that she swore before you could hear the door close behind the customers that had just left.
Joe thought Anne’s suggestion was an excellent idea and you felt his hands grip the back of your thighs, hoisting you up in a tight hug around his body. You wrapped your legs around his hips and held onto him for dear life as he started moving towards the backroom.
You couldn’t help but giggle into your kisses, and just before you were about to disappear from Anne’s view, you broke from Joe for a second and shouted, “Double-time wage!” at her, as Joe kicked open the door.