The Belle of Linley Cottage

Zach liked routines.

They helped him focus when things got overwhelming, which he definitely needed at the moment, so he let himself fall back into one for the rest of the week: wake up, go to Toe Beans for coffee, chat with Joon a bit between sending in applications, pick up Corey and Amaya from school, have family dinner, pretend to read before going to bed, repeat. It occupied him from the fact that he still hadn’t heard anything back from any of the companies that he applied to. He had continued to apply for mostly New York publishing-based jobs, but he also threw in a few local jobs as well so he could find somewhere else that he might be able to go during the week. There wasn’t much available in Lillet itself—most businesses were family-run and they had enough family members to run their stores—but he found opportunities just outside of town. None of them had gotten back to him either though.

The weekend came just in time to give him some hope. When Zach walked into The Book Haven on Saturday morning, he could feel the familiarity of his old work routine calming his anxious brain. He went back into Des’s office space behind the counter, where a little cubby was waiting for him to put his things. Des had texted him that he would meet the other employee as well since they also had an early shift on Saturdays.

It wasn’t long after he put his bag down that somebody with swoopy black hair, star stickers under their eyes, and a non-binary flag pin attached to their Spongebob t-shirt came walking into the office. They took a step back when they noticed someone else was in there, but quickly collected themselves and grinned at him. “Oh hey, you must be Zach. Des told me that you would be starting today. I’m Jaime, nice to meet you,” they said, holding out a hand to shake.

Zach shook their hand. “Likewise. Where’s Des?”

“Getting items to restock the impulse buy area,” Jaime said as they opened up one of the wooden cabinets. “And I get the pleasure of cleaning up the bathroom.”

Zach winced. Even though he wanted the full-time shift again, he did not miss bathroom cleanup duty. “Good luck.”

Jaime said a quick thanks before heading back out, saying a quick hi to Des as he came into the room, his hands occupied with a large cardboard box. 

“Hey, Z. Ready to get to work?” Des asked as he put the box on his desk.

“Of course.”

Des chuckled before picking up a name tag off the desk and handing it over. Zach grinned when he noticed it was the same one that he’d had from the beginning, the glasses sticker barely holding on at the tail end of his name. “You still have this?”

“Call me sentimental.” Des smiled as he sat down at his desk.

Zach knew for a fact that Des was more than sentimental. Des was a true proprietor of the idea that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. He still had the old computer set up from when he was in high school. He only replaced his old tennis shoes after the soles came off three times. He still had a flip phone, for Pete’s sake, which made Zach wonder sometimes if he was a super spy just trying to stay off the grid.

But he could crack that mystery another day. Zach quickly clipped his nametag on and asked, “What’s first?”

“I need you to put these,” Des said, tapping the box he brought in, “next to the register, and then man it for a while.”

“Yes, sir,” he said as he took it and went back out to the main area. 

The muscle memory of rearranging the counter came back to him in an instant. He put the free bookmarks with the shop’s logo in a mug, while the others went on the turning display on the counter. After placing candles on the shelves attached in front, he put some stickers on their display. He moved some of his favorites to the back so he could save them for himself to buy later like he used to do when he first started working there.

Zach moved around to the front of the counter to look at his work when the bell rang. While the store did have designated hours, Des didn’t mind letting people come in early or stay late to shop. Zach took a deep breath, ready with his customer service voice and smile, but it immediately turned into a frown when Zach saw who it was coming in.

“Well, would you look here?” The man smirked, making Zach’s stomach curdle.

Baxter Tonlin was, for a lack of words, a douche in high school. There was always this misconception that people mature after high school, and start to act like adults once they hit twenty-one, but given the stupid smirk on his face while he ran his hands through his fiery red hair, Zach would guess that Baxter hadn’t changed one bit since he saw him last. He couldn’t believe they had been friends at one point in their lives.

Zach took a breath. “Whatcha doing here, Baxter?” he asked through a tight smile, his heart rate picking up as he moved the now empty box onto the floor.

“Looking for a book. Duh,” he said, looking at Zach the same way a shark looks at prey. “Man, I didn’t think I’d see you back here any time soon. What gives?”

Zach half shrugged. “I’m just here for the summer.”

“Really.” Baxter got closer and put his pasty arm around Zach. Zach had to bite his tongue to resist the urge to push him away. “I’m in town visiting the folks too, and my dad made me come here to get something for my cousin.”

Zach gritted his teeth as he said, “Need help finding anything in particular?”

“My dad says she’s into mermaids. Should be up your alley, right? You know all about water, don’t ya?”

Zach could feel his lungs tightening in his chest as he broke himself out of Baxter’s grasp. His eyes searched frantically before seeing a book with illustrated mermaids on the cover. He quickly walked over to grab it and held it out to the redhead. “This one should work.”

Baxter took it and turned it over in his hand. He shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Need help finding something?” Jaime said as they came over and placed the cleaning supplies in the empty box.

“Nah,” Baxter said, giving them the once-over before looking back at Zach with his toothy grin. “Zach can help me, can’t you?”

“Actually, I need him to add these books to the Pride table, but I can help you,” Jaime said as they picked up a stack of books and plopped them into Zach’s arms, pointing him away from the front. “Here, it’s over there.”

Zach nodded before walking away with the books, taking deep breaths to bring down his heart rate. He’d expected to see Baxter around town at some point, but not this soon. He was one of the many reasons why Zach had wanted to hightail it out of town after graduation, and if he was going to be around for a while, Zach didn’t need another reason to leave.

He smiled a little when he reached the area Des had set aside to share some Pride month recommendations. The table even featured a doodle of Wyatt holding up a Pride flag. Zach felt himself relax as he took a moment to rearrange everything to include the new books, before taking a picture with his phone. He texted it to Beau and Mateo in their group chat, and to Joon, giving him a bit more time to breathe before walking back over to the counter and, luckily, Baxter was gone.

Zach walked over to Jaime, who was booting up the cash register, and said, “Thanks for that.”

Jaime smiled at him and shrugged as they closed the till. “No problem. Guy seemed like a real douche.”

Zach nodded, picking up the box from before. “He is.”

“Well, feel free to let me deal with him if he comes back,” Jaime said, smirking with a twinkle in their eye. “I love getting under an asshole's skin.”

Zach guffawed as he adjusted his hold on the box. “Noted.”

Before he knew it, the afternoon had come with a little rush of people during the lunch hour. Jaime helped most of them, leaving Zach time to wander through the shelves, looking through the titles to make sure that everything was in alphabetical order by author. He was asked the occasional question about where to find a certain book, but he mostly spent his time reacquainting himself with what was on the shelves. He saw many of the books that were popular on Bookstagram in the stacks and was sad to notice that a few of his favorites weren’t on the shelves. He would have to ask Des about that.

He made it halfway through his inspection in one aisle, when he noticed one book that was in the wrong section completely. Who leaves a fantasy book in the non-fiction section? He went to pick it up when another hand brushed over his to grab the same book. He turned and felt his heart flutter when he saw Belle staring right back at him.

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hi,” she replied.

Zach glanced at her hand on top of his before looking back at her. “Are you interested in this book?”

“That’s kind of why I was reaching for it.”

“Right.” Zach quickly slid his hand from underneath hers and let her take it off the shelf. She immediately turned it to see the back cover. 

Zach stood there for a moment, shifting back and forth on his toes, waiting to see if she put it back or not. The seconds she took to read the description felt like hours, so he broke the silence. “Um, you’re Belle, right?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes, and immediately took a step back. “How did you—”

“Um, you came into Toe Beans the other day. I saw Sunny take your order. Her younger brother, Joon, is my best friend. I think you also know Kit?” He questioned.

She slowly nodded. “Yeah. I know them. And you are?”

“Zach,” he said, lifting his name tag.

She nodded again before putting the book back on the shelf, but Zach snatched it off again. Before she could say anything, he interjected, “It was in the wrong spot.”

“Ah,” she said with a nod, standing there for a second just looking at him.

He bit his lip before quickly turning away, and walking over to the fantasy section. It was only when he got to the book’s proper spot that he noticed Belle had come over to the same area. She walked over to one display of fantasy romance books and started gazing at them. 

It would have been easy to walk away and continue his organizing, but he couldn’t help but take note of how she was struggling to hold in her hands. “You need a little help?”

She turned to him, and let out a small laugh as she readjusted her hold on the books. “A little.”

He spotted one of their little shopping baskets and picked it up. “You planning on reading all of those soon?” He asked as he handed her the basket.

She giggled as she accepted the basket and put her books in it. “A few. Some of them I already read on my tablet, but I wanted a physical copy. I plan on at least reading two of these this week.”

Zach felt his eyebrows go up and nodded. “I wish I could read anything right now. I haven’t had a slump this bad since I finished reading through the Grishaverse.”

“You should try a graphic novel. They usually help me get back in the act when I haven’t read for a while.”

He shook his head as his father’s words coursed through his head. Those don’t count as reading. It’s all pictures. “No thanks. They’re not really my thing.”

“Then what is your thing?”

Zach’s mind went blank. He couldn’t think of a single book he’d ever liked or even his most-read genre. All he could think of was, “Just something that’s not pictures.”

Belle scoffed, “What’s wrong with pictures? They only enhance the storytelling process.”

“What they do is give people a chance to skip over the words that the author spent so long trying to string together.”

“What if the words are a mere distraction from the hard work of the visual artists?” She shrugged.

Zach’s eyes widened. “You cannot…you have got to be messing with me right now.”

She just smiled at him, her brown eyes twinkling with mischief. “Now, whyever would I do that?”

“Because it seems like you love messing up my day.”

“When have I ever messed up your day? We just met.”

“Do you not remember when your dog attacked me?”

She scoffed a laugh. “He did not attack you. He just wanted to say hi.”

“Tell that to my sweater vest.”

“Honestly, he did you a favor so you wouldn’t boil to death in that ugly thing.”

He narrowed his eyes at her as he felt his face heating up. His sweater vests were not ugly. “Well, let me do you a favor and suggest that you never take that janky wagon of yours in public again.”

“Okay, first, leave my wagon out of this. Second, you might want to take a minute to relax a bit. I think it would do wonders to calm down that vein popping out of your forehead.” She shot him a toothy grin. “Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

Zach seriously doubted that. He looked the woman up and down, and said with all the conviction he had, “I hope all your bookmarks fall out.”

Her eyes widened. He leaned forward and added, “And I hope you never forget that you will never finish all the books you want to read.”

Perhaps that was a bit too far, but Zach couldn’t help but smile when a glare overtook her face.

“I hope you realize how unpleasant you are,” she quipped.

“Likewise,” he argued. With any luck, they would be like passing ships in the night, and not have to see each other for the rest of Zach’s time in Lillet.

“Hey, Zach, I need you to—” Des said, coming through the aisles before seeing the scene before him. “Oh, I see you’ve met Belle. She’s one of our newest best customers. She’s in here almost every weekend.”

Zach looked between her and Des before letting his eyes land back on his boss. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’ll probably be seeing a lot more of her.”

Zach looked back at Belle and he could tell that she was just as thrilled about this news as he was. 

“Great.”

When Zach came back home, he was more than ready to take a nosedive into bed. After his conversation with Belle, a group of daycare kids came in and practically blew up the children’s section, continuing his unlucky streak of the day. He and Jaime spent the afternoon reorganizing shelves, removing books with torn pages, and looking online for a replacement caboose for the toy train on the activity table. Luckily, Jaime was a very competent coworker and knew what they were supposed to do, which meant that Zach’s work days wouldn’t be horrible.

After taking off his shoes and dumping his bag, he looked up and saw Owen and Amaya sitting on the couch, getting up to who knows what on their phones, while Corey was lying on the floor with coloring books sprawled around him. The two teens looked up at him, and Owen immediately looked nervous, reinvigorating Zach with power.

“Do you spend any time at your own house?” Zach said, looking down at him.

Amaya glared at him. “Why don’t you go to one of your friend’s houses? If you still have any, that is.”

Zach narrowed his gaze at her. “I’ll pass. I have a standing appointment with my bed. She really missed me.”

Before he could leave the entryway though, he heard his father call him from the kitchen. 

“Ugh,” he groaned as Amaya smirked at him.

“Tough luck.” She glanced over at Corey before turning back. “B-I-T-C-H.”

Corey looked up from his coloring book. “What’s a B-I-T-C-H?” he asked, making all three of the older ones look down at the first grader in terror.

“Coming, Dad,” he said, taking his retreat in stride.

The kitchen was filled with the smell of Italian food simmering. Jedidiah stood next to the stove stirring a pot of sauce, while Mimi worked on cutting up salad vegetables. Zach plucked a piece of bell pepper off the cutting board before asking what was up.

Jed turned down the heat on the burner before turning to his son. “We have a position at the library that you can fill.”

“I don’t need it. I’m doing fine on my own,” Zach said immediately.

Jed raised a brow at him, “You’ve been looking for a job for how many weeks now?”

Zach bit his lip. “A couple.”

“So why are you turning down a job offer right now?”

“Well, it’s not really a job offer, because I didn’t do anything to earn it. You’re just trying to slot me into place somewhere.”

“You have the necessary skills.”

“How do you know that? I haven’t taken any classes in library sciences, so how could I possibly be good at that job? The last thing I want to do is take a position from someone who actually knows what to do.”

“You can learn it.”

While Zach knew that that was probably true, he did not want to take a job where he was most likely going to spend his entire day dealing with his father telling him what to do. “Dad, I don’t need you to get a job for me. I can find something on my own.”

Just as Jed went to say something else, Mimi looked up from her chopping. “Jedidiah, let him be.” Jedidiah went to talk again but Mimi held up a hand. “Zach just wants to work hard and get a position on his own. I remember when you was young, I let you walk around to neighbors to see if they needed their grass cut during the summer. He trying to be grown, just like you were.”

“Well, he’s not grown yet,” Jed said before looking at his eldest. “I’m serious Zachary, if you don’t find something by the end of Monday, I expect you to take this offer.”

“Why Monday?” he asked softly, his heart clenching in his chest as he talked.

“The sooner you have something stable, the sooner I can sleep at night. You don’t need to be sitting around this house slacking off all summer when I can put you to work.”

“Well, why don’t you have me babysit Corey then?”

“Corey’s going to summer camp at his school.”

“What about Amaya?”

“She’s already volunteering as a children’s room monitor at the library. You should follow her example.”

Zach’s eye twitched at those words and he bit his lip harder. “But, what about what I wan—”

“End of discussion.”

Zach felt a bit of blood come out from where he bit down. He ignored it. “Yes, sir,” he nodded before glancing at Mimi’s sympathetic gaze. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.” He turned to leave but immediately turned back. “By the way, Amaya’s teaching Corey how to spell cuss words, just thought you should know.”

Zach took a little bit of joy from his father calling for Amaya to come into the kitchen as he went up the stairs, but the feeling quickly faded once he realized what was at stake. 

The idea of working for his father shouldn’t have been so terrifying, but it was. It felt as if the walls were closing in around him as he all but ran over to his desk and opened up his laptop, going straight to his emails.

A bunch of spam emails were littered through what he was looking for, making him scroll that much more frantically, but nothing in the subject lines eased his worry.

Your application has been sent.

Your application has been sent.

Your application has been viewed.

Your application has been sent.

Not a single interview request, message, or rejection in the bunch.

Zach’s fingernails dug into his skull as he leaned back in his chair.

What the hell was he gonna do?

Snippet from “Project Void” by Zach Roberts (2nd Draft)

Floating in deep space with no destination was terrifying. There was no safety to be found with nothing solid beneath the ship and shooting towards the ground was only a recipe for disaster.

“Why won’t you just tell the captain the truth?” Nova said to Ty. “He’ll listen to you.”

Ty closed his eyes and sighed. “The captain only cares about two things: taking down the Armada and getting home. And he doesn’t care how we do it, either.”

“But if we don’t try to save those data towers, then everything we went on this mission for will be gone! We didn't work this hard just to have nothing to show for it. That information—”

“Is the perfect bait to take down the Armada.” Ty opened his eyes and stared out the porthole before them. “We can target them at their weakest. It’s a solid plan.”

“Is it worth it though? Sacrificing all our work to come home without completing our mission.”

“We’ll be home.” Ty glanced over at Nova and tried hard to ignore the tears welling in her eyes. “And for him, that’s enough.”

“But what about us? What about what we want?”

“I don’t think that matters to him anymore,” Ty said, looking back out into the deep space that surrounded them, the darkness encapsulating everything in sight.

Months ago, he hadn’t known what lied out there. He hadn’t explored it for himself. He hadn’t met the crew that shared his curiosities. They wanted to know what lied beyond the darkness, but there were those, like the Captain, who only wanted to stay in the light.

The thing was that by constantly staring into the light, eventually he lost sight of what more could be out there.