so, do we like each other or not? // JENLISA

Chapter 1

Lisa picked up the book and gently thumbed the hard edge of the cover. It wasn’t one of their best, she had to admit, but there was something about the way the words Zippy Craig were splashed across the glossy paper that would still draw children to it when they rushed past the store window. Maybe that would be enough to make their parents ignore the heavy price tag on the back.

She turned it over in her hands and sighed. She’d worked hard on this one, even though Cherin has repeatedly tried to stop her from getting involved in it. It didn’t matter how many meetings Lisa had been dragged into so that she could take notes for the dumbass author – as far as her boss was concerned, she should stay as far away from the books as possible. Even now that it was finished and sitting brightly in the front window of Barnes & Noble, its cover adorned with drawings done by the illustrator that she had found after drunkenly meeting him at a bar in Chelsea, all she had received from Cherin was an order to go and make sure that the stores were putting it in front of the new book that had been published by their competitor and not behind it, as they’d promised. Oh, and don’t forget to pick up a coffee on your way back.

Lisa pressed her lips together and placed the book back on its pile, then took a photo on her phone to prove to Cherin that everything was to her liking. Stepping to one side, she let herself drift around to the other side of the new releases table, her eyes flicking over the covers. The store was quiet that afternoon, and there were only three other women in the nearby vicinity. Or there were, until the electric doors on the floor below them swished open and a pair of heavy footsteps began to stomp up the stairs towards her.

She should have heard him coming, but she was distracted by their competitor’s book right at that moment. Cherin had spent the last month spitting over it, but Lisa had to admit that it looked pretty good.

“Hi, love,” a voice said from behind her. She turned and smiled.

“Hey, Mingyu,” she said. Normally he would lean in and kiss her cheek, but today he didn’t. She assumed he was in a rush, because he looked slightly pink in the face. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he said, looking down at the book in her hands. “Is this yours?”

“No, I was just stealing ideas,” she said, putting it down. When she glanced back up Mingyu wasn’t looking at her – his gaze was elsewhere and it seemed weirdly hazy. She frowned, knowing better than to ask if he’d been drinking but wondering it all the same. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, pulling at his collar. Finally, he looked at her. “And hey – happy birthday.”

It was the flattest Lisa had ever felt. She forced a smile. “Thanks. Feels pretty special.”

Mingyu didn’t acknowledge the comment as he reached into his jacket pocket. It was the middle of June and 98 degrees outside, but he was the type of person to wear a leather jacket come rain or shine. The long necklaces that he insisted on wearing clinked together as he moved.

He produced a crumpled birthday card, which Lisa blinked down at. He’d asked to meet her there, in one of Lisa's favourite stores in New York, and she’d naively assumed it was because he wanted to take her out for a late lunch or give her a birthday present or even just to buy her a book because he’d forgotten to get something sooner. But instead she found herself looking down at the wrinkled pink envelope that was clutched in the hand of her boyfriend of almost a year with a creeping sense of disappointment crawling up her limbs. She pressed her lips together.