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Rhys had thought the girl was pretty when she walked into the shop, but she disappeared pretty quickly among the seemingly endless shelves of books. She had her fingers dragging along them, reading each title carefully. It took her about half an hour to find what she wanted, and in the meantime, Rhys had two other customers.
She reached the counter and plopped four books down, all very different styles by very different authors. Rhys raised his eyebrows and peered down at the girl.
“Hello,” he said. It took a beat before she looked up at him and let out a breath.
“Woah. I mean… uh, hi.” She looked down again, a blush creeping across her cheeks. He grinned as he scanned each of her books.
“Fifty-one sixty.” She handed him her card without looking up at him, and he peeked to see her name was Feyre. What an unusual name. Their hands touched when he handed her the card back, and she looked up again. They locked eyes for a minute as she slid her books into her arms.
“Well, um, my friends are waiting for me,” she said. Rhys peered out the window.
“I don’t see anyone out there.”
“They’re, uh, yeah, Well, bye!” She darted out of the bookstore, and Rhys grinned at her retreating form. She’d be back.
~
She did come back. Once a week or so, Feyre returned to the bookstore. The first few weeks they didn’t talk at all, just when she was checking out and he made the occasional comment about the books she was purchasing and if he’d liked them. Eventually, she’d run out of books that she wanted to buy, so she started asking Rhys. He’d suggested a few of his favorites, but soon he’d run out of those, too.
A few months into their bookstore-related friendship, Rhys finally had the gall to ask her on a proper date. No books, just us. She’d smiled politely and blushed, but informed him that she actually had a boyfriend. She kept coming back to his store, though.
Soon, she started coming to the store more and more. She’d come in the early afternoon and stay until they closed at 9:30, even helping Rhys to lock up the store. She’d become much more skittish and absentminded, and he was worried to say the least, so he let her do whatever she wanted. She didn’t even have to pay for the books anymore, she’d just sit in the beanbag chair in the corner and read them all while she was there. Some days, she finished three books in one sitting.
“Are you okay?” he asked her one day, squatting by the beanbag.
“What do you mean?” She looked up at him and her eyes seemed almost hollow.
“You’ve been… different. Sad, withdrawn. I thought maybe something was going on. You can… you can talk to me if you need to.” Feyre smiled and took his hand.
“Thank you,” she said, but she didn’t answer his question.
~
“Hey,” Rhys said softly, watching as Feyre sauntered into the store. She hadn’t been by in a couple of days, and he’d started to worry about her. She pulled off her sunglasses and turned to look up at him from the doorway. Rhys sucked in a breath. There was a bruise starting to blossom on her jaw, her lip was split and she had a cut on her cheekbone. He dropped the pen he’d been holding and rushed around the counter.
He took her face in his hands, lightly enough that he wouldn’t hurt her jaw, but firmly enough that she wouldn’t pull away. He inspected her briefly before pulling his hands away and looking into her eyes.
“Rhys, I-” she choked on her words.
“No need to say anything, let’s just get you cleaned up.” He maneuvered around her to flip the sign on the door to “Be Back Soon!” and led her into the small bathroom in the back of the store. He pulled the only wash cloth they had (from his brief time living in the back room) and let the water run until it was warm. He carefully dunked the faded blue cloth into the water and rung it a few times before gesturing to Feyre to come nearer.
“This might sting a bit,” he mumbled, and Feyre forced a scoff.
“I’ve had cuts before, Rhys, I know what it feels like.” Rhys looked up from her jaw briefly to give her a toothy grin before he pressed the warm wash cloth to her face.
“I don’t know how this happened, and I don’t need to, but… If you need somewhere to stay…” Feyre coughed a little and Rhys paused to make sure she was alright before continuing. “The back room here is surprisingly comfortable, or my cousin has been staying at her boyfriend’s house, so there’s an extra bed at my apartment, too.”
When he looked back up at her, Feyre’s face had become a little more closed off and a little more sullen, both at such micro intervals that most people wouldn’t have noticed a change. But Rhys noticed everything about Feyre. Like how he hated to see her hurt, but the red under her eye made the blue of her iris stand out even more, or how her lips were still a beautiful red even after he’d cleared the blood from them.
“I-” Feyre started, “This isn’t the first time. Tam is… He’s stressed a lot. He has a hard time at work and he can get pretty angry once he’s home. And he always feels terrible after he…” she gestured to her eye.
“How a person could ever hurt someone like you is something I’ll never understand.” Feyre’s eyes met Rhys’s and his heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t noticed they were so close. The tiny, blue-tiled bathroom wasn’t really built for two people to be standing in it. His hand with the cloth was still resting on her cheekbone.
“What I meant to say was that even though it wasn’t the first time, it will be the last, no matter how terrible he feels.” She smiled shyly. “That extra bed sounds pretty nice.”