Chapter 8
Admittedly, sneaking back in was a lot easier and less stress-inducing than sneaking the book out with Dr. O’Macklin at my side.
There were dozens of people in the library studying. Several students waved to Adam as we walked past them toward the rare books room.
When we arrived at the door, I pressed my thumb to the silver screen and waited for the light to turn green with a beep and a click of the lock.
“Unlocked,” the robot voice said.
I entered the room, shutting the door behind me and waited a few seconds for Adam to buzz himself in next.
He shut the door behind him as I scrambled to dump out the materials on the table from the bag he brought in. I’d been too nervous to put the glue and paint and india in the same bag as the book I’d accidentally stolen. That was all we needed. Some sort of broken bottle catastrophe where black ink spilled all over the book.
“What can I do to help?” Adam asked.
“Did you take any restoration classes with your English degrees?”
As he shook his head, my gaze drifted to where his lips pressed into a firm, white line. I grew hot at the sight of them. Hot at the memory of those lips on mine and his hands threaded into my hair.
Dammit. I needed to focus.
“Even still,” Adam said, “I can prep the books for you. Dust the pages you’ll be working on or whatever.”
I nodded and hopped up, grabbing the small handful of books that had fallen from the shelf earlier today and needed repairs.
An extra set of hands would be helpful. My goal was to finish all six of these repairs tonight so that tomorrow no one would know they were damaged. And that included drying time of the glue and ink.
We had a long night ahead of us.
“I’ll demo the prep work on Robinson Caruso. Then while I repair the corner of this one, you can start prepping the next book. And so on and so forth.” I said, reaching over to grab the archival brush and can of compressed air from the table.
I slowed down my work as I prepped the book, explaining each step to Adam along the way. He watched me, an intense look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite decipher. Was that his concentration face? Or was it something more?
When I finished the prep work, he smiled, the low, cool overhead lights making his dark hair look almost bluish. “You’re incredible,” he whispered.
I startled, almost dropping the can of compressed air. “For blowing some air on an old book?” I joked. “You’re an easy man to impress. Just wait until you see what I can do with some ice cubes and hot wax.” I gave him an exaggerated wink.
But he didn’t crack a smile. He merely held my gaze. “I’m serious, Harper.”
“I am, too. I’m really good with hot wax.”
Finally, he cracked a smile. Making a sound that wasn’t unlike air leaking out of a punctured tire, he shook his head. “If you say so.”
Heat stained my cheeks. I wasn’t used to compliments. Even in school when I was top of my class, Professor Locke didn’t give them very often. Or ever. You don’t deserve praise for a job well-done. It’s your job. It’s supposed to be, at the least, well done.
I glanced up from my work to find Adam’s gaze still on me. Not on my hands. Not on the book. But on me. Steadfast and mostly serious, though there is a glint of something playful and boyish.
“Thank you,” I murmured finally. Professor Locke be damned.
The playful lift of his lips twitches higher. “You’re welcome. I can see why you graduated top of your class.”
I blinked, even more surprised than I was with the compliment. “You know that?”
He shrugged. “Dartmouth doesn’t hire without checking references.” He paused, reaching over to tug one side of my ponytail. “Even when I personally vouched for you. They want the best of the best.”
“So wait,” I said as I handed him the brush and the compressed air. “You’re telling me that you didn’t actually get me this job?”
Adam shook his head no. “I mean, you reached out to us. You had a great resume and an even better offer. And when they heard that you also had a peacock edition of Pride and Prejudice, they were more than intrigued. Add to that, Dr. O’Macklin is friends with a few professors in your program at Oxford and you had multiple references from people who mattered way more than me.”
I took the small rubber mallet in my hands and tapped against the dent, trying to smooth out the largely bent sections.
Adam took the first book off the stack and turned it over in his hands, finding the damaged spine. “All I did was put your resume at the top of the pile… which frankly, I would have done for anyone offering us that Peacock edition sale as well as restoration of the fire damaged books.”
I tapped the mallet to the dent, focusing on each wrinkle rather than the weight of his words.
I took the risk Professor Locke had always pushed me to take… and it paid off.
Without nepotism. Or at least, with far less nepotism than I initially realized.
Although, even if Adam couldn’t admit it, I had no doubt that our history influenced him somewhat.
But he was right. Our connection alone wouldn’t have gotten me the job, only the interview.
The dent smoothed out easier than I expected it to. I grabbed my scraper tool and moved onto the wrinkles.
As much as I wanted to keep talking, I also had to keep working. There was way too much to get done in the next several hours. And while I was usually good at multitasking, so long as it didn’t involve drinking any sort of alcohol, I couldn’t risk it. Not while I was this tired and frazzled from a crazy day.
I had to focus.
And Adam, seeming to sense that, fell into his own focused silence as he prepped the next books for my restoration.
“Hey, Adam,” I whispered after several moments of silence. “Why couldn’t Luke Skywalker find love?”
He didn’t look up from the book, but I could see the smile on his face. “I don’t know… why?”
“Because he was looking in Alderaan places.”
By two in the morning, I was bleary eyed, but nearly done as I held the embossing gun to the ink. The heat would help it set and dry faster.
And God help me, I needed the glue and ink to harden and dry faster than it was.
I needed to be home in bed. Snuggling with Jules.
Maybe with Adam beside me…
…Kissing me again.
The embossing gun started to slip from my hand, but I caught it, hissing as my finger brushed the scalding hot barrel.
“Shit!” I snapped, turning it off and setting it down on the heat safe pad beside me.
I shoved my burned finger into my mouth, but my own body heat made it sting even more.
“What!?” Adam jerked up from where he’d fallen asleep on the table beside me.
I didn’t see any need for both of us to stay awake and despite my urging, he refused to go home. Even though he had to teach class tomorrow and I could sleep in… at least a little more than he could.
“Nothing,” I murmured, pulling my finger from my mouth. The red welt was already raised and angry. But it didn’t need anything more than a little vaseline and aloe tonight when I went to sleep.
“It didn’t sound like nothing,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
I held my finger up for him to see. “Just a little burn, that’s all.”
“That looks bad,” he said. “Do you need a doctor?”
I fought a smile and rolled my eyes at him. “If I went to the doctor every time I burned myself with the embossing gun, I’d never have time to get any other work done.”
I held up my palm where a white scar ran from my pinky to my thumb. “I got this one when I picked up a heat wand, not realizing my lab partner had already turned it on.”
I pushed my sleeve higher and showed a circular scar that could have been a cigar burn. “Got this one when I leaned on a press.”
I spread my fingers so he could see the scar on the webbing of my hand. “Got this scar?—”
“Good God, Harper! How many times have you burned yourself?”
I grinned. “This one was actually from the X-Acto knife, not a burn. But, since you asked, I’ve burned myself nine times. Though only four left scars.”
His eyes narrowed. “You only showed me three…”
“The other isn’t on an area of my body I can exactly show you easily. Or publicly.”
Not without getting arrested.
I turned back to the book, tapping it with the back of my knuckle. It was dry. Or at least, dry enough to go back on the shelf.
“Oh my God, Harper. Are you telling me that you burned your vagina!?”
“What!?” I shrieked and whipped around to face him. “No! Oh my God, no! My butt, Adam. I burned my ass because I was wearing a short skirt and thong undies and I didn’t realize that when I bent over, a bit of buttcheek was peeking out. The stupid heat wand was hanging a little over the edge of the table and bam! Burned butt.”
His face flushed and he scrubbed his hand down over his eyes. “Oh. Oh, yeah. That makes way more sense.”
“You seriously thought I burned my vagina with my restoration tools?! What the hell, Adam!?”
He threw his hands in the air. “I’m sorry, okay! I was still half-asleep and, I mean, I don’t know… that thing looks kind of phallic!”
I grabbed the wand, making sure it was turned off—it was— and held it up to take a look.
Okay, he had a point. It did sort of look like a fancy ass dildo. But still. “You legitimately believed I would stick something that heated to 600 degrees up my cooch?”
He gave a frustrated grunt. “I mean… not when it’s on or anything.”
“If I wouldn’t do it when it was on, how would I have burned myself?”
He dropped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now.”
“A conversation that you started.”
His shoulders trembled with a suppressed laugh. “And one that I would very much like to end right now, too.”
“Too bad,” I said, swinging the heat wand from the cord like it was a rope and I was a skilled hogtie… er… person. “Because now every time I look at one of these, I’m going to think of a dildo! And I use this thing every damn day!”
It was my turn to start laughing.
It was two in the morning.
I was exhausted. And punchy. And even though I’d spent the last seven hours working, technically, I hadn’t even started the actual job I’d been hired to do here at Dartmouth.
It made me want to cry. And since I couldn’t let myself cry… I decided to laugh instead.
I tossed the heat wand down and sighed. “Well, the good news is, I think we’re done for tonight. We should get out of here and get some sleep.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Plus, we haven’t eaten dinner.”
Honestly, I’d barely eaten all day. I’d been such a nervous wreck.
I groaned. “It’s Cuppa Noodles for me tonight,” I said. I hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet since arriving in the States.
Literally the only thing in that apartment was the cat food I asked Addy to bring to dinner for Jules, and a couple of old ramen cups that had probably been in those cupboards for literal years.
“Um, you say that like it’s a bad thing,” Adam said. “Cuppa Noodles, especially the Sweet Chili Lime flavor, are the freaking best.”
My face pulled into a grimace. “If you say so.”
“Oh, I do. Just steer clear of the pumpkin spice. It tastes like a pumpkin and cinnamon stick had a baby that vomited in your mouth.”
“Ohhhhh,” my empty stomach turned, eliciting a growl. “Please stop,” I laughed.
I knew that those ramen cups were staples for most American university students, but in England, I basically survived on Hobnobs, Crawford’s Custard Cremes, and Super Noodles—which, for the record—are so much better than the US Ramen packets or Cuppa Noodles.
“Seriously, though. There’s a trick to making Cuppa Noodles delicious.”
“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it…”
“You think so?”
There was another long pause, until he took my hand and turned it over to the welt where I’d just burned my finger. Bending, he pressed a gentle kiss to it.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
My eyes slid to the drying books, suddenly worried that I hadn’t done a good enough job on them. Would a discerning eye be able to see that hairline crease that was almost invisible? If they came in and opened the book, would they smell the glue?
“It’s going to be fine,” Adam said. “Literally, I cannot imagine anyone as psychotic as you and me, coming in here to inspect the books at two in the morning.”
His reassuring words and sweet smile did help calm my nerves. A little.
“Okay,” I conceded only after I confirmed that the books were okay to close up. Then I slid them back into their place on the bookshelf. For the first time in over twelve hours, I sighed, tension releasing from my shoulders.
“Jules really does probably need me. New house, new country, after a long ass plane ride in a little carrier. Poor thing.”
I packed up my bag, taking what I’d need with me to potentially work on Pride and Prejudice back at the apartment in the morning and left the rest of it in a neatly organized pile.
“I meant to ask you before we got, uh, distracted back at your apartment. The name Jules… did that come from where I think it came from?”
A blush warmed my cheeks and I ducked my gaze into my messenger bag to hide it as Adam shut the door behind us, double checking that it was locked.
“Well, he is one of my top five favorite authors,” I admitted as we made our way toward the front door. Each footstep echoed in the otherwise empty, cavernous library.
Adam bumped his elbow against mine. “Cause of me, right? When I loaned you 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”
I rolled my eyes despite the fact that he was right. Adam was the catalyst, the reason that my love of Jules Verne began. “That may have been what started my love affair, yes.”
Adam’s snort, though not anywhere near loud, boomed through the otherwise silent library. “I would hope so,” he said. “It’s arguably the absolute best book he ever wrote.”
It was my turn to snort. “It was a great read, admittedly,” I said. “But the best book? Um, no. Not even close.”
Adam’s steps halted. “You’re not serious. Tell me you aren’t serious, Harper.”
I stopped walking, merely steps away from the front door of the library and lifted my eyebrows at him. “Okay. I’m not serious.”
Mouth gaping, Adam shook his head. “But you are serious.”
I shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a great book. But without question, his best book was The Lighthouse at the End of the World.”
Adam opened his mouth to object, then abruptly snapped it shut. “I haven’t read that one. I’ve read most of his works, but that’s one of the few that slipped by me.”
“Hmmm. Then it’s hard to say any of his books are arguably the best if you haven’t read them all, isn’t it? Because I have read them all.”
A triumphant flare surged through me as Adam pressed his mouth into a firm line. He loathed being wrong. Especially about books. And especially with me.
There was a time, actually most of our time together in our younger days, when he was never wrong. I loved to read, but I simply didn’t have the wealth of knowledge at my fingertips that he did. The benefit to him having a father who owned a bookstore, I supposed.
But now, for the first time, I bested him.
And damn it felt good.
We reached the front door and as Adam pulled a set of keys from his pocket, I paused, taking a moment to soak in its beauty here. Libraries in the middle of the night were my absolute favorite place in the world. They were peaceful and quiet… or rather, quieter than they usually were.
Moonlight sliced in through a large arched window casting a blue glow into the shadows and I inhaled, taking the moment to really appreciate the beauty of this epic New England library.
“You ready?”
My stomach growled, alerting me that no matter how beautiful this place was in the middle of the night, I desperately needed to eat.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
He held the door open for me. “And don’t think I’m not going to grill you to find out who your other top five all-time favorite authors are.”
“I’d expect nothing less, Adam.”