Winners Don't Have Bad Days (Watty 2020 Winner, Romance)

7. #LoveIs... Autofill the Rest, November 2017

Mike loved the book, from the cheesy drawing of an opened head with gears pouring out of it on the cover, to the lingering library smell. It even had a paper sleeve on its jacket, the kind they used to put the due date card in before electronic check-outs took over.

Daya frowned at his treasure. "It has a Vancouver library stamp on it. Michael Giacomo Wilson, did you steal this book?"

"Rescued," he explained, drawing his finger down the length of the book's spine, as if it were a kitten. "It was heading for an incinerator, poor thing, but I paid the ransom and kept it."

She picked the book up with a smile that made him happy he had said his piece. He'd much rather watch the corners of her lips curl up, and delicate fingers leaf the pages than talk.

A woman leafing through a book—he could watch it for minutes on end. Hours even... particularly this woman leafing his book. With her holding it, he would have loved to pet his treasure even more: the spine, the slim fingers, the tiny wrists. Disengage that hand from the cover, upturn the wrist, kiss it...

She closed the book to read its title. "Hmm... Winners Don't Have Bad Days." Then she flipped through the pages again, sending his heart soaring... okay, maybe not soaring. Maybe his heart was making circles with the gulls over the storm pond beyond the window. And, yes, they were the inner city trash-gulls, not the free-roaming sea-gulls, but the scene before him was more uplifting than anything that had happened to him in a while.

He had missed her since forever, his heart lied, since before they had met... Two months ago, his brain reminded his heart, not even two months ago.

"It sounds like a rough hewn and patronizing take on mindfulness," she said, startling him from the debate between his senses and his sensitivities. The dark-brown eyes squinted at the flyleaf. "Given the vintage, it's unsurprising..."

When she rolled them at him, he noticed that the whites of her eyes had an indigo tint at the edges. Or maybe it was a shade from her curly eyelashes. "Look here. Forget what the society has taught you. Love is not an untamed horse, eager to throw off her rider. Don't you just love the imagery?"

"What?" Good thing he had a broken foot encased in concrete—fine, fine, stuck in a plastic cast. Otherwise he'd have jumped up and grabbed the book from her. "I stayed to the parts about living in the present and finding fulfillment in your work by searching for ways to enjoy even the most mundane occupation."

She started laughing, a throaty sound full of gurgles and gigantic bright flowers like hibiscus Carol babied in the sunniest corner of the library. It produced one red flower every few months, but Daya's laughter was much rarer.

"Mike, I am sure you got something out of it at some point, but... I've done a bit of psychology for my degree, to help people with mental blocks. This is trashy as far as the self-help books go. I'm not even sure why they tacked on the self-hypnosis exercises, to make it even sillier or something."

With a thrilling sensation of digging a bottomless pit for himself, he took the book from her, placed his finger where hers had been, bookmarking the page she was quoting.

She'd challenged him, and she was laughing.

Hmm... The text wasn't promising, but darn it, he had to keep the ball rolling, had to keep the spark in her eyes, even if she laughed at his expense. Also, she's wrong.

"Falling in love is an empowering event in an adult's life. You meet someone great, love them, your whole life goes right," he started tentatively, watching her reactions. "If it stays out of your reach for too long, the heart loses its elasticity, and it gets harder and harder to fall in love."