The Storm Between the Lines
The rain started as a whisper against the window of Whitfield & Sons Booksellers, so soft that Li Mei almost missed it beneath the hum of the ancient radiator and the creak of floorboards that had settled into their complaints decades before she'd been born. She sat cross-legged on the reading stool behind the register, her uniform cardigan sagging at the elbows, a paperback so worn its spine had gone soft as cloth cradled in her palms.
*The CEO's Reluctant Bride.* Chapter Twelve. She'd read this chapter perhaps forty times, maybe more—enough that she could recite Zhao Wei's cutting first line to Mei Lin before her eyes even reached it, enough that the scent of the pages, dust and old glue and something like vanilla, had become as familiar to her as her own name.
"You're doing it again," said a voice from the doorway, and Li Mei glanced up to find Xia Lin shaking rainwater from her umbrella, dark hair plastered to one cheek. "Reading that book like it's going to answer back this time."
"Maybe it will." Li Mei turned down the corner of the page—a habit that made the bookshop's owner wince whenever he caught her doing it to store stock—and set the novel on her knee. "You're…