Note to self: Don’t Drink and Antique!
Bookworm, an all-new college workplace, second chance romance with a bookworm heroine and a romance novel hero from USA Today bestselling author Katana Collins is now available!
That’s how you wake up hungover, having spent your entire life savings on a first edition of Pride and Prejudice… that your cat just peed all over.
To make matters worse, you also drunkenly emailed every Ivy League university last night and sold the nearly priceless cat-pee book to Dartmouth.
In my defense, I was celebrating finally getting my masters degree in library science with a focus in book restoration from Oxford University.
And let’s be honest, I’m sort of awesome when drunk. I not only leveraged a book sale for a profit, but I also talked my way into an eight-week freelance gig restoring books in my hometown of New Hampshire at the Dartmouth library.
What’s less awesome? Realizing the Dartmouth English Literary professor who hired me is actually Adam, the ex-boyfriend that I ran away from seven years ago. My first love. My first kiss. My first… everything.
And as it turns out, Adam has very much turned into every dreamy hero I’ve read about in every romance novel through the years. It might be time for me to put the book down and write my own Happily Ever After…
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7 years ago…
Last Dance by Donna Summer crooned in our ears as Adam held me close and swayed with me on the dance floor at my dad’s wedding.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever been happier. It had taken me a while to settle into that feeling. The feeling that I was secure. That I knew who I was. That I could be me and not some rebellious version of myself trying to prove a point by being someone I wasn’t.
I was Harper Meyer.
Booklover. Introvert. Semi-punk girl who loved changing my hair color as often as my nail color. Kind of a weirdo, but of the best variety. I wasn’t always great at focusing on my studies, but when it was time to choose a book I loved? I could devour that thing in a matter of hours.
Adam was my opposite in almost every way—extroverted, sporty, popular, academic. He was on track to start Dartmouth in the fall while I couldn’t decide what college to go to… and thus, I decided to take a gap year.
In fact, I wasn’t sure Adam and I had anything in common other than the fact that we both loved reading… and each other.
That, and we both hated Adam’s father.
Okay, okay, I know how that sounds and trust me, I don’t say that lightly. But that guy is the biggest dickwad.
A couple years ago, he tried to hit on my dad’s girlfriend—well, now wife—and he literally started a fistfight with my dad on our front lawn. Then proceeded to say that I was the equivalent to trailer trash and that both his son and Addy deserved better.
See? Dickwad.
I didn’t hate many people, but I hated him.
But I loved Adam and at the end of the day, that pile of human crap was still his dad. So I swallowed down those contemptuous feelings and bit my tongue like any good girlfriend would do when I had no choice but to be around Mr. Stone.
“I wish I didn’t have to go home tonight,” Adam whispered, swaying with me to the music.
I glanced around the dance floor at everyone who’s played a huge role in our lives this far.
Dad held Addy in his arms as they kept rhythm with the music. Even though her hair had fallen out of its updo and her dress had a tear in the hem, she still looked as radiant and gorgeous as she had hours ago walking down the aisle.
Her friends Haylee and Enzo danced with their partners nearby. Linda, Addy’s mom, sat off on the side, sipping a coffee and tapping her foot to the beat.
We were completely and utterly surrounded by people we loved.
“Maybe you don’t,” I whispered.
Adam’s brows lifted. “What’s that, now?”
“Well… Addy and Dad are spending the rest of the weekend at the Maple Grove Inn. Now that I’m eighteen, I convinced them to let me stay home alone for the weekend.”
Adam’s eyes brightened at that and he raked his hand nervously through his dark curls. “Are you saying, um, that… you want… company?”
I smiled up at my boyfriend of two years. Though we’d been inseparable basically since the moment I moved here to Maple Grove, he and I had never taken that next big step. We’d done… stuff. But I was still a virgin. Technically.
“I’m saying, I want you to spend the night,” I whispered. “Do you think you could convince your Dad that you’re staying at a friend’s house tonight?”
I was finally ready. I loved him. And even though he was going off to college and I still didn’t know what I was going to do for the better part of the year, no matter what happened between us, there was no doubt in my mind that Adam was who I wanted to take this next step with.
There was no one else more loving or special to me that I could imagine losing my virginity to. Even if we broke up tomorrow.
With the spark still in his eyes, Adam lowered his mouth to mine, brushing a chaste kiss to my lips as the music switched from slow to fast.
I groaned with the light peck he gave me, craving more. Even though I knew that with my parents around he couldn’t kiss me like he wanted to.
“My dad doesn’t care what I do or where I sleep at night,” he said.
It wasn’t a sentiment that should make me smile, but it did. Just this once, his dad’s level of assholedom would work to our benefit.
“Dad arranged it so that Haylee is going to drive by the house and check for cars in the driveway and noise and stuff.” He didn’t know I’d overheard him asking her for that favor. “So as long as you don’t park near the house—”
“I can leave my car at Marco’s and walk over through your backyard,” he said, eagerly.
Again, my grin widened. “I’ll be waiting at the backdoor for you at midnight.”
For more information about Katana Collins and her books, visit her website:
https://katanacollins.com
📘Review📘
Now that Harper has finished school, she is planning on putting her love of books to good use. To celebrate the happy event, she enjoys a few drinks too many and then reaches out to the University in her hometown letting them know about the priceless book that is in her possession, even if it may now be a little tainted, and secures a job even if she isn’t sure how.
It’s been seven years since Adam has heard from Harper but speaking to her and seeing her again brings up all the dormant feelings from the past. When she arrives, he is disappointed when he realizes she hasn’t only forgotten their conversation but the fact that they are working together and that is when the hijinks begins to amp up.
The way that Harper and Adam interact is entertaining as they both still feel the emotional impact of the past. They have both matured and grown while they have been separated but they will also have to deal with what drove them apart in the first place.
Kari's Book Reviews and Revelations 