Billionaire vs Curvy Poet

The crash echoes like thunder through the quiet bookstore.

Books tumble in an avalanche of color and paper, and I—Maya Collins, self-proclaimed queen of calm and ca”eine—am buried halfway beneath a mountain of fallen classics.

My hair catches on the corner of Pride and Prejudice as I wrestle a hardcover loose from my sweater sleeve. The sign on the front door still reads “Closed,” but my pulse is already racing like opening day chaos has arrived early.

Of course it has. Because the universe clearly enjoys its comedy.

“Perfect,” I mutter, surveying the toppled bookcase. The shelves lean like a drunk tower, half the romance section sprawled across the aisle.
“Just perfect.”

I kneel to collect the mess, my “ngers brushing across spines I’ve shelved a hundred times—stories that have saved me in small, unre‐ markable ways.