Chapter 7 Amara
AMARA
The library was quiet in that specific way it only got at closing time. There were no rustling pages or whispered conversations. It was just the soft hum of the heating system and the occasional creak of old floorboards settling.
I was running my final check of the aisles, making sure no one had left books scattered on tables or tucked into the wrong shelves, when Mrs. Luna called out from the front desk.
"I'm heading out, dear. Don't stay too late."
"I won't," I promised, though we both knew I probably would. There was something comforting about the library after hours. I loved the solitude and the safety of being surrounded by stories that weren't my own.
The Valentine gala was just over a week away and my skin seemed to be crawling with anxiety. My mother had called twice today to remind me. Once to confirm I still had the dress and then she'd called again to tell me she'd made an appointment for my hair.
I'd barely been able to focus on work because I just wanted this event over with. I should have put my foot down and told her no, that I wasn't going.
Every time the door chimed, my heart jumped, hoping it was Kael stopping by on his lunch break. But he never came by here. And like, why would he? He had a bakery to run and a life that didn't revolve around a librarian who bought pastries every morning.
Stop it, I told myself. You're being ridiculous.
I locked the front door and flipped the sign to CLOSED, then headed back to my desk to grab my bag.
My thoughts turned to the burgundy dress hanging in my closet at home, still in its protective covering.
I hadn't tried it on since the boutique and part of me was afraid it wouldn't fit the same way.
That I'd imagined how good I'd looked in it and how it had felt so right against my skin.
I worried that I'd imagined the way Kael had looked at me at the farmers market and told me I'd be beautiful.
I was pulling on my peacoat when I heard the knock on the library doors. Faint but definite. Three sharp taps against the glass.
I poked my head out of my office doorway and my breath lodged itself in my throat, causing me to cough in surprise.
Kael.
He was standing outside in dark jeans and a heavy charcoal jacket, his hands shoved into his pockets.
The February night had turned the tip of his nose pink and his short brown hair was slightly windswept from the cold.
Even through the glass I could see the tension in his shoulders.
The way his jaw was tight, something seemed to be wrong.
I hurried to the door and unlocked it, pulling it open. A rush of cold night air came in with him, carrying the faint scent of woodsmoke and something sweet underneath.
"Kael? What are you doing here?"
"Hey." His voice was rough, like he'd been arguing with himself the whole walk over. "I know you're closed. I just... can we talk?"
My stomach dropped. Those words never meant anything good. Can we talk was what Colin had said before he'd told me we were done. Can we talk was what my mother said before launching into another lecture about my life choices.
"Sure," I managed. "Come in."
He stepped inside and I locked the door behind him. The library felt different with him in it. Smaller somehow. More intimate. His scent, warm sugar and smoky vanilla, immediately filled the quiet space and wrapped around me like a second coat.
We stood there for a moment, neither of us quite knowing what to say.
"Do you want to sit?" I gestured toward the reading area where comfortable chairs were arranged around a low table.
"Actually," he said. "Would you mind if we walked? There's a park nearby. I just... I think better when I'm moving."
I nodded and grabbed my bag. A few minutes later we were walking along the path through Riverside Park that I sometimes took on my lunch breaks.
The February night had settled cold and still around us.
The bare branches of the trees lined the path overhead, and in the glow of the park lamps, I could just make out the tiny buds beginning to form on the ends of the branches.
The first stubborn hints of spring refusing to wait any longer.
Our boots crunched softly over the frozen ground, and our breath came out in small white clouds that dissolved into the dark.
Kael walked beside me, close enough that our arms brushed with every few steps. He was so warm and even through both our coats I could feel the heat radiating off him, and my omega instincts kept nudging me to close the remaining distance and tuck myself into his side.
I ignored them.
Mostly.
He seemed to be working up to something as if he were starting sentences in his head and abandoning them before they reached his mouth. His hands came out of his pockets and then went back in. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
Finally, I couldn't take the silence anymore.
"Kael, you're scaring me a little. What's going on?"
He stopped walking and turned to face me. The warm glow of a nearby park lamp caught in his hazel eyes, making the gold flecks burn like embers.
God, he was unfairly beautiful.
"I need to tell you something," he said. "But I'm not sure how to say it."
My heart was hammering now. This was it. He was going to tell me he'd been too forward. That calling me everything had been a mistake. That he'd realized I was just a customer and he'd been leading me on without meaning to.
"Okay," I whispered.
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself. "I haven't... I haven't been in a relationship in a long time. Years, actually."
That was not what I'd expected him to say.
"Oh," I said softly.
"The last person I tried to be with..." He paused, his jaw working like he was choosing every word carefully.
"It didn't end well. She wanted something I couldn't give her.
Or maybe she wanted something I wasn't. I'm still not entirely sure.
But it made me really careful about who I let in after that. "
I understood that feeling down to my bones. Colin had built those same walls in me. Cemented them in place with every careless word he'd ever said.
"I get it," I said softly. "My last relationship didn't end well either."
Something shifted in his expression and understanding flooded in, and then something that looked like relief came next.
"Yeah?"
I nodded, pulling my coat tighter against the chill. "He was my first everything. First boyfriend. First..." I trailed off, not quite able to finish that particular sentence. "And then he left me for my cousin. Told me I wasn't really his type. That I was sweet but not what he was looking for."
Kael's jaw tightened visibly and the muscle in his cheek jumped. "He's an idiot."
"Maybe," I said. "But it still hurt. Still makes me feel like I'm not enough sometimes."
We started walking again, slower this time. Our shoulders pressed together and neither of us moved away. The warmth of him seeped through my coat and I wanted to lean into it desperately.
"That's part of why I wanted to talk to you," Kael said quietly. "Because you are enough, Amara. You're more than enough. And I needed you to know that before..."
He stopped himself again.
"Before what?" I asked, looking up at him.
He was quiet for a long moment. We'd reached the bench overlooking the river and without a word we both moved toward it and sat.
The water was dark and still below us, a thin rim of ice still clinging to the banks where the cold had held on longest. The February sky above was a deep, clear navy, scattered with stars that only showed up this bright in winter.
It was the kind of quiet that felt sacred.
"Before the gala," he finally said. "I know you're nervous about it. I know it's going to be hard seeing your cousin and your ex and everyone who's made you feel small. I just needed you to know that none of what they think about you is true."
I looked up at him, waiting.
"You're not nothing," he said, his voice dropping low. Rough in a way that skipped straight past my ears and landed somewhere in my chest. "You're everything. And anyone who can't see that is blind."
"Kael," I breathed.
"I mean it." He turned on the bench to face me fully and the look in his eyes made the whole cold night feel suddenly, impossibly warm. "No matter what happens at that gala. No matter what you see or hear or who says what. I need you to remember that you matter. That you are so worth being seen."
There was something else there. Hovering right behind his eyes. Something heavy and unspoken that he was holding back with what looked like tremendous effort.
Before I could ask, he shifted closer.
Not much but just enough that the warmth of him wrapped fully around me, and I could smell him properly now, that deep warm sugar and smoky vanilla that made something low in my stomach pull tight.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and just for a second…
Just long enough for me to notice, for my breath to catch, for every coherent thought I had to dissolve completely.
He was going to kiss me.
I was absolutely, completely certain he was going to kiss me.
I tilted my chin up without even deciding to. A purely instinctive, embarrassing, traitorous little movement that I would think about later at three in the morning with my pillow over my face.
Kael's breath came out slow and unsteady.
His hand lifted and my heart stopped entirely.
And then his lips pressed, warm and gentle and devastating, against my forehead.
Not my mouth.
My forehead.
Girl…
He held them there for a breath or two. His hand came up to cup the side of my face so carefully, like I was something he was terrified of breaking. His thumb brushed my cheekbone once, a barely-there stroke that somehow short-circuited every single nerve ending I possessed.
When he pulled back, he didn't go far.
His forehead dropped to rest against mine, his eyes closed, his breath warm against my cold skin.
"I'm glad we talked," he said quietly.
I could not have formed a single word if my life depended on it. I was pretty sure I had stopped existing as a functioning person.
After a long moment he straightened, clearing his throat softly. He stood and offered me his hand to help me up from the bench, and I took it, and tried not to notice how perfectly my hand fit inside his.
We walked back to the library parking lot in silence. It was a different kind of silence than before, some how it was softer. When we reached my car, he stood there while I found my keys, his hands back in his pockets, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite name.
"Will I see you tomorrow?" he asked. "At the bakery?"
"Of course," I said, and my voice only came out slightly breathless.
He smiled and it was small and warm and a little sad around the edges.
"Good," he said.
He stood there a beat longer, like he was working up to something else. Then he stepped back, giving me space to get into my car.
"Good night, Amara."
"Good night," I managed.
I drove home in a daze. My forehead was still warm where his lips had been. My cheek seemed to tingle where his thumb had brushed against it. I turned the heat up all the way even though I wasn’t cold at all.
Later on, I curled up in my apartment with a book I couldn't read a single word of, I replayed it on a loop. The way his eyes had dropped to my mouth.
The way I had tilted my chin up like an absolute fool…
You thought he was gonna kiss you, I shook my head.
The way he had chosen my forehead instead and somehow that had been more intimate than anything I'd ever experienced in my entire life.
No matter what happens at the gala.
No matter what you see or hear.
What did that even mean?
I pressed my fingers lightly against my forehead and stared at the ceiling. One week until the Valentine gala. One week until whatever Kael wasn't telling me came to light. One week until I had to face being around Lila and Colin and my mother's expectations.
My stomach gave a little lurched but I sucked in a breath and quickly pushed it away.
Right now, in this moment, all I want to really think about was warm sugar and smoky vanilla and the soft press of lips against my skin.
Karl had no idea, but he had ruined me for any other man and he hadn’t even kissed me yet.