1. Emma
“ Y ou’re staring at the hot single dad again,” Wendy, another librarian who worked in the fiction section of the library, whispered as she came to stand next to me.
Shooting her a glaring look, I replied, “I was not staring at him. I was watching how much the kids are enjoying story hour.”
Wendy put her hands on her hips. “Hmm, has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible liar?”
I bumped her arm, turned away, and sat back down at my computer. “I have an order to put in, so is there something you’d like?”
Wendy sat on the edge of my desk and waited for me to look up at her.
Sighing, I asked, “What?”
“Are you going to tell me what happened between you and the hot dad last week that made you not like one another?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly, it does. And don’t you find it funny that he still brings her here to story hour even though he clearly doesn’t like you.”
My mouth dropped open. “Those are harsh words.”
With a one-shoulder shrug, she leaned closer to me. “He practically glares at you when he comes here. And when you do story time, he puts headphones in!”
I rolled my eyes. The first time I had seen Harrison do that I wanted to stand up and demand he take them out. But I quickly realized he was attempting to get me to do just that. He was worse than a five-year-old with his attempts at getting attention from me.
Sighing, I turned in my chair and faced her. Our voices were lowered so no one could hear us. “I caught him with a woman in the back corner during the pajama story hour.”
She gasped. “What?”
“It isn’t what you think. Unfortunately, I thought they were messing around. I might have lashed out at him and accused him of fornicating while his daughter was at story time.”
Wendy leaned in closer. “And that wasn’t the case?”
Frowning, I shook my head. “Apparently, she has been stalking him. But, when I saw him take her to the back, I knew a man like that wouldn’t hesitate to mess around, so I followed them. I also called security and told Jack I needed him to remove someone from the library.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” I said rolling my eyes. “And I might have forgotten to tell Jack it was a false alarm. The next time Harrison came in with Noel for story time, they told him he was banned from the library.”
Wendy’s hand came up to her mouth to keep a laugh back. “No wonder he doesn’t like you.”
I couldn’t help the giggle that slipped free. When I looked over at the group, Harrison was shooting me a dirty look. Wendy followed my gaze and turned back to me.
“It’s like he knows we’re talking about him.”
I exhaled. “I have work to do and I’m pretty sure you do as well.”
Standing, she straightened out her skirt. Wendy had an amazing body. It was clearly all genetics because I never saw or heard of her working out. She ate anything she wanted and was a size zero. Okay, maybe she wasn’t a zero, maybe a six or something like that.
I, on the other hand, worked out every day.
Ran as often as I could, watched what I ate, and tried not to eat the dreaded bread and potatoes, and still struggled to stay a size twelve.
My last boyfriend, Jax the jerk, told me my body was too curvy for his liking after dating for six months.
The guy before that always took it upon himself to order me salads, and the one before that downloaded a weight loss app onto my phone.
I wasn’t overweight by any means. I had a curvy figure, but I had to be careful what I ate, or I could gain ten pounds like that.
Most men wanted a Wendy. Well, most of the men I dated anyway.
Wendy turned to leave, then faced me again. “I forgot to ask…how did the meeting go today with Pricilla?”
I smiled. “It went great. She put me in charge of planning the annual Christmas fundraiser dinner.”
“The one we do with the Boston Fire Department?”
Nodding, I said, “Yep! This year it’s going to be someone from Engine 37.”
Sighing, Wendy put her hand to her heart. “The firefighter they had last year was so hot. It’s not fair Anna was the one helping with the planning.”
“I don’t care who the firefighter is, I just hope they don’t stick me with all the work like they did with Anna.”
Wendy laughed. “Anna needed to step down years ago. I think she was bored planning the event each year.”
I nodded. “I’m going to guess that’s why Pricilla asked me to head it up.”
“Do you know who you’ll be working with?”
I gave a one-shoulder shrug. “No. It will most likely be some young hot shot, full of himself guy who is only helping with the planning because he did something wrong and is being punished for it. It usually is. I have a feeling I’ll be doing all the legwork, which is fine by me.
I plan on making this the best annual fundraiser the library has ever had. ”
“Good,” Wendy said with a wink. “Because I need a new computer.”
I giggled as she slipped away. Before I got back to work, I glanced over at the volunteer parent who was leading story time.
My eyes caught Harrison with Noel on his lap.
She was gazing up at her father like he hung the moon and stars.
As if he could feel my eyes on him, he looked right at me.
A slow half smile appeared on his handsome face, and he winked.
Snarling my lip at him, I turned away and got back to work.