Chapter Text
It was a rainy September morning. The icy air cut into your shop, the kind that had you yearning for a holiday in Spain and missing the sweltering weather from June. Maybe the heat was only short-lived, but you enjoyed it.
You ran a small bookstore in Notting Hill - a cosy, warm, full-of-life kind of establishment. Chairs not being put into their usual spots, plants hanging from every conceivable space, the message ”You need to trim those!” from your best friend Mara, it all fulfilled your life in a way.
You finished ringing up a young girl, maybe fourteen, when another customer walked in, soaked from the rain like everyone else.
He caught your eye; he looked familiar, but you didn't think much of it as you spoke with others. You watch him out of the corner of your eye. Who was that?
His hair fell in front of his hooded eyes, his face had those distinct features, the Roman nose, the high cheekbones, and he wore a big trenchcoat, maybe to hide from the world.
It’s probably someone from high school. That’s what you told yourself.
You watched him out of the corner of your eye. He first went to the Romance section. You watch as he picks up Icebreaker. You huff out. That was probably not the book he was looking for; that was the kind of book for people who are clearly too into Booktok. You stifle a laugh before looking back down at your forms.
He’s now in the thriller section, although he does not pick up a book. You judge and guess that maybe he’s here to find a fiction or self-help kind of book, which is not exactly your speciality.
He weaves into the back, where you cannot see him from the register, and he stays there for a long time. Enough time that you’d completely forgotten about him until he’s gazing right at you, and attempting to speak to you.
His words end up in a bunch of garbled nonsense in your head, and you make a confused sound as you look up.
“Huh?”
"I've never read a modern classic before. What do you recommend?" He asks quietly, and you glance up at his tired eyes, realising who it is - Damiano David.
The frontman of Måneskin. The guy on every single magazine cover, billboard, and all over your Instagram feed. Hiding behind his coat like you were ever going to do a damn thing to him.
Damiano David was inside your bookstore looking for a book, and you’re trying not to panic. You feel your chest tighten up with excitement, it wrapping around your heart, almost trapping it in there. You try to stifle the blush that creeps up your cheeks, and you stand up and walk with him to the classics section.
Act normal.
"Oh, yeah. Hm, what are you more into? Something tragic?" You try to mask your surprise because he looks like he is in no mood to be recognised.
"Yeah, I guess."
"How about something simpler? I think you might enjoy 'The Great Gatsby', it's tragic, romantic, and an easy intro to modern classics, and also other classics." You spoke, and he seemed thoroughly engaged, no longer hiding behind his coat.
"That sounds good. Doesn't look like it'll take forever." He blurts.
"Is that important to you? The length of the book?" You quipped, maybe with a bit too much excitement, it was setting in; you were speaking to none other than Damiano David.
"Yeah, I guess. I don't get much time to read 'cause of my job." He muttered. 'His job' is a world-famous musician.
Should you be ignorant or bring up that you know him? The questions seemed to linger in your mind. What if you messed it up? What if you sound like a fan girl gushing over your favourite singer? What if you made yourself as out of place as he probably feels?
You should make him feel welcome, as if he were any ordinary person through your door and probably more like a normal person than he's probably feeling.
As you came behind the till, you tripped over a little step coming up to the platform. Smooth. You catch yourself on the corner of the table and push yourself back up.
"Sorry." You quietly brush your wounded ego. Tripping in front of him was not exactly your best move.
"No worries, you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah." You shake your head and mess with your hair. You were okay. You were okay.
It isn’t that Damiano David is standing in front of you, with messy hair and smudged eyeshadow. It isn’t that the most famous rockstar of your generation is nervously biting his lip at you of all people. It isn’t that he is your crush since Eurovision.
It has your throat tightening, and your hands becoming clammy. You punch the wrong thing on the register a bunch of times, you’re so nervous you’re fucking up. It doesn’t help that he gazes into the window, a group of girls who were also clearly quite young screech. Like awkwardly loud screech. It rips against your eardrums, and he scrunches his face.
"Damiano David!!!" One of the girls announces.
Then you had people coming out of every corner looking at him. All of their eyes were almost trained to land on him. They hit the target straight on the bullseye. You watch as he rolls his eyes, thinking “not again...”
Well, that's how it shouldn't have gone.
“Damiano, can you sign my-”
“You are my favourite singer!”
“When is Måneskin-”
He tries to hide his annoyed expression and reluctantly signs the girl's things. He turns back to you after about ten minutes of being trapped in endless questions.
"Sorry." He speaks quietly.
"It isn't your fault, guess it's what happens when your fanbase is all young girls." You nod as they walk outside, giggling amongst themselves.
"I hate it." He rolls his eyes and stares down at the book; his expression is uncertain, and anxiety hides in the furrow of his brows. Would he maybe like some space? Is that why he is so unsettled?
"Listen, if you need some space, you can go to the back. There are snacks and espresso." You offer, gesturing to a door behind you.
The door stood ajar, revealing a small room. There were books everywhere, plants hanging from the ceiling, and it had soft lighting, making it seem like the perfect little entrance to paradise before him. You watch as the light somehow comes back into his eyes again.
"I'd like that." He muttered quietly before you helped him into the room. "Here's your book, it's on me."
"Oh, damn, you don't have to, really." He tripped over his words.
"It's the least I can do. You can just call me if you need anything." It's actually because I’m so nervous I kept messing up your order, but you know what, we can call it a service between friends.
Friends? You can’t say you’re friends yet. You just met him, just like how those girls are also not his friends; they also just met him. And you’re not friends just cause he bought one book from your bookstore. You’re well, half-friends? Maybe?
He sits down on a chair in the corner. The room was warm and heated, and it smelled like espresso and biscuits. The piles of books hid him from the world, and he could zone out here for as long as he wished.
"Thank you, really. I appreciate it." He smiles softly before taking the book you handed him, and he rests his head against the wall. His Adam's apple bobs a little, and you drill holes into the floor so as not to look at him. Where are your manners and respect?
"I'll be at the till."
You walk out of the room, closing the door.
You sigh, almost feeling like you left all the oxygen in your lungs in the back room with him. You feel a little shaken, in a good way. You have a little skip in your step as you go to the storage room to grab some boxes. Damiano David just visited your bookstore, and he liked it enough to stay in the back room.
-
You walk back in about two hours later, and he's leaning against the wall, tiredly glaring at the book. "How are you doing?" You ask quietly, and he glances up from his dazed state and looks at you.
"Better. I like the book." He states.
"I'm glad, it's one of my favourites. F. Scott Fitzgerald has some wonderful works if you're interested." You smile softly at him, turning on the espresso machine and its rich smell exploding into the room.
"It smells very much of espresso in here." He giggles softly.
"We love espresso here, nothing like it." You put the little cup under the machine as it dispenses the dark, gorgeous liquid.
"Would you like one?" You ask quietly. He makes a sound of agreement before you move your cup, which has finished dispensing, and puts his underneath as well.
You see him picking at the corner of the book, his eyes slowly moving away from the words and towards his anxiety-riddled thoughts. What happens if he leaves this room and there are fans outside?
Would they bombard him again? He's human too - wouldn't a quiet day at the bookstore be too much to ask? He glanced out the window, girls giggling loudly in the distance, and his heart felt seventy times heavier than it did before.
"You're so lucky." He spits out of nowhere, his words land on a thin tightrope between your heart and your mind. Why would he say that?
"Why?"
"To not be recognised for five minutes."
"I mean, everywhere I go, someone wants a picture or an autograph or to ask me a question, and all I want is to be left alone."
You sit down on the floor next to him, your knees brush against his. It's quietly intimate; soft and kind. It's not a loud, intimate touch, just a simple caress of skin.
"I might not get everything you say, they'll never appreciate you, just that you're Damiano David." You muttered. His eyes drooped.
Your heart contracted upon itself in a painful way - you were seeing none other than raw, anxious, and broken Damiano. He was human, just as you were, and just as unpolished as you felt yourself. All the jagged edges of your personality, and all the ways he was melancholic as you were.
He made a sound of agreement before letting the coffee burn the feelings off his tongue and throat.
-
It was another quiet afternoon at the bookshop; it wasn't anything like the crazy day you'd had a week before. The rain wasn't beating against the window, and there wasn't a group of crazy girls screeching in the otherwise dead-silent store.
Filling in paperwork (once again), you hear the little bells on the store tinkle and chime. When you look up, a familiar face meets your eyes.
"Back so soon?" Your words left your mouth before you had time to think about what you were truly saying.
"I finished the book." He nods, looking down at the little copy of 'The Great Gatsby.' "You didn't tell me the ending would crush me."
"I told you it was tragic." You blurted.
"You undersold the tragedy."
"Did I now?" You tsk, throwing the papers under the desk, "So you're back for more?" You giggled.
"Yep."
"So you're like a little sap?" You walk around the counter and towards a little shelf behind him. "What'd you like 'bout the Great Gatsby? The romance? Tragedy?"
"Eh...I liked the romance, it was well, tragic." He muttered, standing awkwardly by your side.
"Romance!" You laugh quietly, and he giggles awkwardly to your side, almost ashamed to admit it. His legs are half-crossed by the ankles, and he holds his hands together in front of him.
"Well, all things aside, I think you might enjoy some more of those shorter, more impactful stories. How much do you like books that kind of take a long time to build up but have a really grand and exciting ending, or would you rather have a more condensed story, but it has action throughout?"
"I don't really mind. Maybe we could try new things." Damiano smiles curtly, and you're faintly aware that he is probably putting on a little act. He wishes to be something lighter, easier, but you're not sure what he's doing it for. You see through it anyway.
"Well, how about you try something a little more girly? You okay with that?" You suggest, conveniently ignoring his act.
"Uhm, sure."
"Pride and Prejudice, has all the same romance themes throughout, and you'll probably enjoy Austen's short chapters, even though the book is almost 350 pages long. Lots of notes on the internet if you need them." You summarize.
"Okay..." He seems doubtful, holding the book in his hand, caressing the lady's face on the cover, almost as if he were consoling her.
"The book isn't going to run away. If you don't want to read it, you don't have to."
"Yeah, I'm just not sure 'cause English isn't my first language, you know, high English is well..." He trails off.
"That's okay. You might enjoy To Kill A Mockingbird as well. Well-loved book." You hand him the iconic cover with the bird on the front. He stares down at the cover and reads the blurb.
"Seems good, I'll try it." He wraps his fingers around it, almost claiming it as his. His eyes bore down into it, almost pleading to read its soul between the pages. You shiver, feeling his intense gaze through your body.
You ring it up on the till, and this time, you don't take it up on the house. He stands quietly in front of you, his eyes almost pleading for something. You were vaguely aware that he was nervous about something, but you weren't going to ask him what - at least, not now.
He says a muttered thanks before leaving. His footsteps echo as he leaves the shop, leaving you in a rather full and dull silence behind the register. You run a hand nervously through your hair, and you look down at the paperwork you still hadn't yet filled in.
Your heart flutters at the thought of him returning, but like all things, you shut it down before you could get too excited about it. People like him didn't come back, not really.
To be fair, you'd thought about it more than you'd like to admit.
But who wouldn't think about Damiano David? He was the best, most up-and-coming rockstar of your generation. He practically demanded attention even when he was almost hiding, ashamed of his own skin. For a rockstar, he was strangely vulnerable.
On stage, however, he was extremely different. He screamed charisma, he demanded your eyes to sit and stare, he wanted to be the centre of attention. His movements were erratic, egotistical even. He really sang into his microphone, and every person in front of him at a Måneskin concert was captivated by him.
So seeing him in your little bookstore was perhaps a bit odd, but maybe his returning meant that he liked it here. After all, you gave him espresso on tap and a book for free.
-
It was a freezing morning, the icy wind blows through the shop and makes you pull your face every time the door opens. It somehow looked like it was twenty degrees and beyond freezing all at once. You hadn't seen Damiano in about a month. By following him on Instagram, you saw he was in Italy.
In interviews, he always spoke about how Rome was his home. Despite being a plane ride away, you’d never been. However, he always spoke of the little crinkly side streets and the food vendors in the square, the grand cathedrals with history that could take hours to explain, the way the streets were filled with young people like himself - with dreams and ambition.
You hadn't even told your best friend about Damiano. Somehow, through all the stolen glances, the ripping feelings in your stomach, the way your heart curled when you saw him on the TV, you absolutely couldn't tell Mara this.
Mara was, unfortunately, the only grounded force in your life. She would be the one objecting to any stupid ideas you manage to cook up, and also brings up the legal aspect of each and every one of your endeavours.
Between the two of you, Mara was always the one to be responsible. She would plan ahead and not keep anyone on their toes. You worked brilliantly as a team, as Mara was no good at finding trends or even keeping up with them, whereas you were always first on the ball.
Mara handled legalities and finances, and you managed the shop and the stock. It was a foolproof combination, which is why you’d been open for nearly 10 years now. It wasn’t the best money, but it paid the bills, and that is all you cared about.
As you started packing up some boxes in the back to put new books on the shelves, you got a phone call. When you pull your phone out of your pocket, it's Mara. You accept it quickly.
"Hello." You speak quietly.
"Hi! I'm in the area. Do you need any help with the bookstore?" Mara speaks over the line. It sounds like she's driving from the noise of the speaker.
"Uhm, sure, I need to put those new books on display if you'd like to help." You glance down at the five boxes of books you need to put in the window and on the shelves.
"Okay, I'll be there in 5."
The line dies, and you put your phone in your pocket, carrying the boxes to the front.
It seems no time has passed at all before Mara is sitting on the floor with you, helping you unbox books and pack them into the displays.
"So how's it been?" She asks.
"The bookstore or me?"
"The bookstore."
"Busy, more busy than usual. I don't know why." You lie, it's cause Damiano's hoard of fans invaded one day, and you were not ready for a lecture from Mara. Mara would absolutely find a reason to fault you on this, not even noticing the huge amount of revenue it was bringing in.
"Really? I mean, I saw you've ordered a lot more books than usual." She notes.
"Yeah, cause they disappear faster than I can get them on the shelves. Some influencer must've posted something about our store." You laugh, Mara seems to believe it.
She begins packing the books in a flower arrangement on the table. They surround a clear acrylic stand that holds a copy of that very same book to make it stand out. You help her stack books in the arrangement before going back to grab even more boxes of books.
When you come back and open boxes on the floor, she's nearly done unpacking the entire thing.
"Must be an influencer, I mean, there are even more people than normal in here as well!" You sigh in relief; she's buying it.
Your lie is only short-lived; it flies fleetingly and dies the second you look up from the window, and Damiano is standing in front of the display, looking at you from outside.
Mara continues packing books, but notices you've gone still. "What now, you can't already be distracted- Damiano David?" She exclaims quickly, her head darting towards yours. "Do you know him?!" She cries, almost in shock.
"Long story." You stand up. You weren't going to explain it to her, not now. Wasn't he meant to be in Italy? What the hell is he doing here? You open the door for him. Act normal. That's all you gotta do.
Smiling softly when he walks in. Mara pulls her face at the icy air entering the warmed shop.
"Hello again!" You speak happily to him. "I thought you were in Italy?"
"I was. The record label wants to have some English producers on the team, so we're going to record here." He speaks quickly, almost brushing it off. "Knew I'd have to come drop by. We're actually not that far, a couple of streets up."
"Ah, okay. Uhm, this is my friend, and co-owner of the shop, Mara." You introduce her, and she seems to be a little skeptical. She always squints her eyes when she's unsure and bites the corner of her lip.
"Nice to meet you, Mara." He speaks quietly, shaking her hand.
She nods back before going back to unpacking books.
"Are these new?" Damiano picks up the book on the acrylic stand. "Yep, we're still unpacking them, as you can see by the millions on the floor." When you look down, he's wearing dark jeans and heels. Platform heels. Is he going out to something?
"Mhm, well, may I try read one? I- I'll pay." He asks sweetly, making you feel like rejecting the offer would make you the worst person in the world. You cave under very little pressure.
"Sure, but maybe another day. It isn't listed on our system yet, and I can't process the transaction." You hear Mara hum in approval.
"Ah, well, next time." He shrugs and puts the book back on the stand. "You don't even like romance-" you cut yourself off, imagine he enjoyed it, and you're now accusing him of liking romance!
"Listen, you can't yuck other people's yum." He crosses his arms in a mock-playing manner. So was that a yes?
"Oh- uhm, okay." You stutter, you have to get back onto the floor and begin unpacking books as well, before your insides become one giant lump of nothingness and you fall over your words.
You crouch next to Mara and pick up a big pile of books, bringing them to a shelf near the front. Damiano watches and analyses deeply. Every move is scrutinised like you're a gymnast and he's the judge, watching every movement of your hands, knees, and face.
"May I help you guys?" He asks, again in that sweet tone that has your heart melting. This time, Mara replies. "Sure, here's a box, go pack it on that table." She points to another blank table near your shelf. He walks over there, and as you are packing books, you watch him too.
Silence overcomes the bookstore. Mara helps a customer here and there, but for the most part, you quietly pack books and try to calm the desperate need for oxygen whenever he is near.
When he is done, you're unfortunately done too, which means you'll have to now face the feelings of sparks inside of you for who knows how long.
Mara finishes up with a customer, and you stand next to her by the register.
"I'm calling for a snack break!" She smiles before going to the back and grabbing some biscuits. "You're going to make me eat the whole plate, Mara, you know these are my favourites."
Lemon cream biscuits were all over the plate, and they were a sight for sore eyes. You practically couldn't eat them fast enough. Maybe this weird, dark feeling that was merging with the sparks was just because you were hungry.
It was just because you were hungry, right?
Damiano sits next to you by the register, also occasionally stealing a biscuit, but you were the main damage to the plate.
"So, how's London for you?” Mara asks Damiano, still giving him a scrutinising eye. "Ah, well, it's a bit different from Italy. Food is definitely not as good!” You laugh, still with half a biscuit in your mouth and crumbs on your lips.
You feel the crumbs all over the corners of your lips, and you were about to reach out and brush them away when Damiano somehow beats you to it. His fingers swipe over the crumbs, brushing against your lips. Everything dies on your tongue.
Mara’s eyes flick to his hand, the way his fingers were softly touching your lips, her face briefly passing with an unreadable expression, and she tries to hide the way her eyes narrowed at him, and her jaw clicks. Damiano briefly notices her change in mood before she quickly hides it away.
Damiano looks down at your lips too, and then away. It was momentary, and he felt like he'd broken a rule looking at them. Mara's eyes were the law, and he was the criminal.
The taste of lemon cream biscuits mysteriously vanishes from your mouth, and your eyes move towards his finger, slowly pulling away. It was warm, and his tattooed hand lay on his leg, almost as if he was guilty about it. He seems to hide it away quickly, wrapping his other hand around it.
Mara goes quiet, her laugh no longer filling the air, and it wasn't even "too quiet." The cars zipped by on the street, two girls in the back snicker quietly, and the wind still howls by.
Nothing stopped.
You shake your head, touching your lips where he did, feeling them still tingle from his caress. Your whole body felt tight and too big for the frame it was unfortunately stuck in, and your mind was threatening to spill out of the very lips he touched. You told yourself to act normal, to retract the flush from your cheeks. It's funny how normal feels nearly impossible now.
"So- like, what's going on with the band? I mean, you could probably do anything, and girls would be at your feet." Mara interjects, almost too quickly, and you're secretly grateful. You sigh, and Damiano continues speaking. You don't hear what he's saying. You're too fixated on the feeling of him touching you and how much you enjoyed it.
A customer walks up to the counter, unaware of the tension between the three of you. Mara accidentally drops a book onto the floor that was lying on the counter, and you watch it fall. It lands with a violent bump to the corner "Shit, look at the corner!" She shows you, it's all banged up now.
"Looks like it's one of our books now." Mara laughs, gesturing to you, and Damiano snickers behind you. A shadow of a smile is burned onto his lips, half-amused, and half wanting. Your heart seems to transform into a lump of feeling, aching, sore and full of lighting.
-
“Alright, okay, I’ll see you in ten.” Damiano puts down the phone. You tried to appear distracted, replying to emails and browsing on your phone. The weather app never seemed so interesting.
“Guys, I have to go.” He announces, Mara looks up first, then you. You almost couldn’t look him in the eyes without thinking about his fingers on your body, the way they burned into your lips, and his eyes bored into yours.
It made you feel a little special. The little touches, the way he gazed at you. It almost made you feel chosen. You always felt your stomach tingle just a little as he stared at you; it was never longing or intense, but rather friendly, almost like coming home.
“Ah, okay. Well, you can just give us a call next time you want to hang out.” Mara announces. “Also, call me, she gets a bit, well, overwhelmed.” Mara gestures to you. You’d dismiss this as normal banter in any other circumstance. It was never that deep, but it just seemed a little too on the nose and had a sting to it.
Still not looking at Damiano, you try to reply to Mara, but you just hum instead. Suddenly, everything felt as if it was closing in on you. The walls of the shop are just a little bit too small and claustrophobic; your chest felt like it could not expand any further than it already does.
Mara was always nice, but something changed. She would never say something so dismissive; she never pushed you down. Especially not to someone she probably knew was your type.
Before you know it, he’s left, his empty seat standing next to the register almost taunting you.
“So, Damiano, huh?” She goads, almost trying to get you to snap at her. You already felt constricted, your hands angrily typing on the keyboard in front of you.
You don’t reply, letting the question hang in the air.
“How’d you meet him?”
“He walked in one day.” You reply curtly.
Mara hums silently, not convinced.
“And he just kept coming back?” You shrug your shoulders.
“Oh, that’s interesting.”
“What’s the problem with that, Mara?” Your voice rises, almost a little too loud for this bookstore. Some people look at you. They stare at you the same way they did Damiano, like you didn’t belong here, all because you raised your voice in an awkward way.
“Well, it’s not like this is his scene.” She pokes.
The more you thought about it, the more your feelings seemed to bubble over. It felt special before her. He kept coming back. Is she seriously suggesting he only came back because he pitied you?
You take a breath. You can’t let her words continue to spiral in your mind like this.
“I mean, I’m just looking out for you. You can’t be reading into something that’s not there.”
“When did I say I was reading into it?” You snap back, your tone a little harsh.
“Well, I know you, you’re not exactly the kind of girl to let just any guy go. You seem to like him, too.”
“We’re just friends, Mara.”
“Really?” She taunts, “It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“We’ve only seen each other a handful of times, trust me. It’s like the third time we’ve seen each other. He probably feels bad cause I-” you stop yourself, you can’t tell her you gave him a free book, or sit in the back and drink espresso, or speak about that confession, the one where he said he just wanted to be human.
You suck in a breath, and Mara’s eyes once again scrutinise you.
“I just helped him when people recognised him here.” You recover. It was a lie you knew would not pass Mara's scrutiny, but you had already said too much. Mara gets fuming when she finds out that you give away things for free, like bookmarks. Little paper bookmarks. How would she feel about a whole book?
She hums. “Okay.” She raises an eyebrow, pulling out her own laptop. The air is suffocating; your eyes feel a little glassy.
The doubts were starting to fill your mind; did Damiano really only feel pity for you? Did he only feel like he owed it to you because of the books and the coffee and the biscuits? You bite your lip thinking about it.
Your lips still tingle and feel warm from the soft touches. It makes you feel quietly broken.
-
Mara left not long ago. You felt a little strange about it, not anything major but it made your stomach churn uncomfortably. You began doing your regular closing chores. She didn’t even say goodbye. You heard the bells on the door chime, and you saw her tall, blonde silhouette fade into the fog of the London streets.
Flipping the sign hanging on the door to say closed, you grabbed the broom in the corner and began to sweep.
You get behind the counter, where you pick up the remnants of your crumbs from the biscuits. Your heart momentarily twists as you think about Damiano - his bashful expression as he did it, and Mara’s narrowed eyes. You sat cruelly between the two of them, conflicted.
You let out a shaky breath as you move Damiano’s seat back to its original place, the remnants of him slowly leaving the shop.
You take the book Mara dropped and put it in the pile next to the register. The pile had a lot of damaged books you couldn’t sell, but were perfectly okay to read. That’s usually the sale for one pound pile.
The sun let out its final rays of light, before you were bathed in darkness in the shop. It seems quiet, too quiet even. There isn’t even a car coming past or another person potting about. It’s as quiet as an abandoned field.
You slowly rise in the darkness, watching as the light from the street lamps warmly pours into the shop. The stand of books that you helped Mara pack bathed in its light. You bite your lip nervously at this, as you turn on the light.
You wonder daftly what Damiano was doing now. Probably in a bar with his bandmates or kissing some supermodel. He could land anyone he wanted. You found it strange that he was single; he was always so charismatic and captivating.
It was almost comically easy to fall in love with him. The brown eyes, luscious hair, sense of style, and the way he could make everyone laugh in a room.
Your heart fluttered a little at all the laughs you had shared already. You’d only seen him three times, but you almost thirsted for more. You wanted everything he could possibly give. You would take, and take, and take until he couldn’t give anymore, and possibly that was in 7 years, or worse, an eternity, because he never failed to make you laugh, or smile, or make your stomach do a little flip.
You continue with mundane tasks until about 19:00, before you gather your belongings and lock up the shop. Your feet click against the cobblestones of the street, the only sounds you'd hear until you got home.