“Hey, you’re back! Welcome in again!” Sable said, waving at me. “Is your partner coming back?”

I chuckled. “No, I just broke up with him. Thanks, by the way. The way he treated you was the push I needed to make him an ex.”

Sable laughed and shelved a book. “Glad to know that I was of service! Are you looking for anything else?”

“I’ll just wander for a bit, and let you know.”

Sable nodded and turned back to the shelves.

I looked at Sable’s back for a moment. They had a relatively small frame, but you could tell that it was pretty muscular, despite that. Their black vest had little white hairs on it. A pet?

Shaking my head, I turned away to go look at books.

The shelves were put up in a random order, but all of them were labelled so you knew where the different kinds of books were. And there were all kinds of books. Non-fiction of all kinds, fantasy, science fiction, romance, you name it.

I found myself stopping to pour over the romance books. Half the titles I pulled out to look at had a half-naked man on the front cover. Honestly, my bookshelf was already full of books like those, I didn’t need more.

Going a little farther down the aisle, I found a section titled “Queer Romance.” I skimmed the titles until I found one titled “Blooming Love.”

I pulled it out and flipped it to read the summary.

“You’ve got a good eye.”

Looking up, I met Sable’s eyes and saw their quirky smile. “You’ve read it?”

“Oh yeah. One of my favorite authors.”

“Then I’ll take it, if it comes so highly recommended,” I said, tucking the book under my arm. “I don’t think I said earlier, but my name is Clover.”

“Clover. Beautiful name. Lucky,” Sable said, their quirky smile turning into something more...seductive.

“Very lucky,” came the words, smoothly, out of my mouth. In my head, my reserved self was shaking its head. I was never this smooth.

“How lucky are you feeling today?”

Without missing a beat, my mouth opened and I said. “Lucky enough to ask you to dinner tonight.”

I snapped my mouth shut and slapped a hand over my mouth. Why did I say that? I’m never that forward.

“Sounds like a plan.”

I looked, wide-eyed, at Sable. “I didn’t mean...I usually don’t...I’m so sorry, I usually don’t come on that strong.”

“That’s okay. If you don’t want to go for dinner, just say the word,” Sable said, their face turning soft. “I’m not going to trap you into anything. I get getting caught up in a moment.”

“I’d actually like to go for coffee, if you’re free,” I said with a smile. “Since I just broke up with the jerk, I don’t want to get into anything too quick.”

“Sure, I could go for an iced coffee. That’s the gayest drink, right?”

I laughed. “It is, as far as I know.”