The Seventeenth First Date

The bells on the door jangled as Beth stepped into her favorite used book store, One More Chapter. She waved at the clerk behind the counter, a girl named Evelyn, and bent down to pet Thoreau, the bookstore cat who had hopped down off a shelf to greet her. Thoreau stretched his legs and lifted his chin for a scratch.

Beth looked around. After confirming the date and time of her date with Book Lover, she hadn’t heard back from him. She messaged him again, encouraging him to upload a picture so she would recognize him, or to at least let her know what his name was. Normally, she would never have even agreed to meet someone without knowing his name, but she figured she was safe in a bookstore in the middle of the day, and if things went well, they could cont...

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