The Smell Of Books - Loki x Reader

Prologue

There's something about the smell of books that always attracted my best friend, Eva and I. Growing up, we had few friends besides one another, but we found friendship easily through sharing our favourite books, dreaming of one day opening a store together.

Neither of us truly believed it was possible, but when my parents died and I inherited their money, I was in a bad place mentally and wanted nothing more than to seek comfort in the company of my best friend. We went apartment shopping together and found the most beautiful place for a store, with an apartment on top via a wooden staircase.

It was the store we always dreamed of owning as kids and the two of us were far too excited by the prospect of realising our childhood dream that neither of us could be talked out of buying it, setting up our very own book store - Words Left Unsaid.

We weren't swamped, of course we weren't, but we had regulars and there was always the group of English Literature students who came each year to buy their texts for the following years.

About a year after we bought our store, a cafe opened next door, owned by an elderly man called Ron. We demolished the gate between the gardens of our two stores and set up a 'reading garden' for our customers, which turned out to be one of our best ideas ever.

And so Eva and I lived happily in our little bubble of books, taking it in turns to go book hunting every week, and coming up with an insistence that we had dinner together, a proper cooked dinner, at least every Sunday, rather than eating alone due to our differing schedules.

It was a Friday afternoon when I first heard of him. I went into Ron's to buy a cup of coffee, planning to go and read my book somewhere quiet. Peter was on duty - he was a sweet kid, had actually applied to get a job with Eva and I, but we had just taken on another member of staff at that point - Michelle, who turned out to be friends with Peter - and so we couldn't take him on as well but had recommended he tried Ron's. Peter was lovely, though, and, despite us telling him we couldn't hire him, he still offered to work out our website for us, and deal with the technical side of things.

Walking into Ron's that Friday, though, it was busy and Peter grinned happily seeing me.

"Coffee, Y/N?" He asks, already preparing it, I smile at the kid, shaking my head.

"Dude, you can't just let me skip the queue every time," I laugh but Peter shrugs.

"Boss' orders," he says, causing Ron to turn around from his table in the corner and give me a pleasant smile, holding up the book.

"I'm hooked!" He announces, which makes me laugh again.

"I told you you'd like it!"

"I'll remember to trust you more often, Y/N," Ron assures me, turning around and burying his head back in his book.

"I actually have a friend who would like to visit your store," Peter says, idly making conversation as he prepared my drink.

"Well... it's a book store, Pete, they don't need my permission to come in," I laugh, taking my coffee from his hands.

"Well... he doesn't know that he wants to visit it yet," Peter offers and I take a seat at the counter in order to show that I was interested in keeping the conversation going as he took more orders from customers. "He's new around, and doesn't have many friends," Peter tells me and I shrug.

"I mean, I relate and all but what's that got to do with me?"

"Well, I know he likes books," he offers, turning his back to me to work the machines.

"So do many people, Pete. So do I, for that matter. Hence why I own a book store," I say rolling my eyes at Peter turns around just long enough to flash me an evil glare.

"Okay, listen for one second," Peter says, the queue for coffee dying down slightly and the teenager leans on the counter in front of me.

"I'm hearing you, bud," I assure, taking another drink from my mug.

"I know you said no to me," I sigh, knowing where this is going and ready to shoot him down. "But - it doesn't need to be long hours or very often or anything, it's just... he never leaves home and it would be nice for him to get a job!" Peter explains and I sigh, finding it hard to turn down his puppy-dog eyes.

"I'lll talk to Eva about it, but I'm not making any promises, kid," I say and Peter looks so proud of himself that I can't help but smile. "Now, I'm going to go drink my coffee in peace,"

I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.