Chapter One #3
Macon was reading a review journal and circling titles to add to our collection, but his pages weren’t turning very quickly. His pen kept tapping against the desk. And his occasional glances at me felt as weighty as the impending snowfall.
Time itself was restless. The minutes stretched and crawled. Red, blue, green, and gold light illuminated the bookshelves on the western side of the building as the sun began to set. Ridgetop was famous for its stained glass, but the windows at our library were particularly notable.
Arthur Frey Brisson was the man responsible for bringing the trade to town, an artist so skilled that his only U.S.
rival was Louis Comfort Tiffany, although many believed Brisson was more deserving of fame.
He was also the devoted husband of Mary Brisson, founder of Ridgetop’s first public library in 1879.
Situated beside a small but pretty body of water called Thistle Lake, her library—our library—was small, too, but it had a cozy lakefront porch where folks could sit in rocking chairs and read for as long as they liked. And it had the windows.
On the bottom, Arthur had installed clear panes that let in enough sunlight to read, but the top panes were a glorious and hectic design of stained-glass books and spines, and beside the porch door, a large stained-glass Mary cradled a book like it was a child.
A halo of golden pages ringed her head. It was a remarkable portrait, a blasphemous scandal, and now a minor tourist attraction.
These colorful shards of light had all faded when Sue and Alyssa said their dispirited goodbyes at the regular time. Neither the snow nor the email had arrived.
Macon closed the journal and tucked his pen behind his ear, where it normally sat.
I once asked him, “Isn’t that uncomfortable with your glasses?
” and he had said, “No.” But twenty minutes later, he’d added in a defensive tone, “I have big ears.” They were only a little bigger than average, though. I liked them, and I liked the pen, too.
He rolled his chair away from the desk to peer into the stacks. Satisfied, he rolled back. Closer to me than he’d been before. “He’s plugged in,” he said, referring to Elijah’s earbuds.
Earlier, I’d been ready to tell Macon everything. Now I was not ready.
“I’m sorry.” His tone was sympathetic, though his face was inscrutable. “Breakups are hard.”
“Oh.” The misunderstanding helped me find my voice. “We didn’t actually break up. We’re taking a break.”
I noticed his underlying eagerness only as it fell away, but it spurred me forward.
“My sister did get engaged, which got us wondering, you know? About why we haven’t gotten married. And we realized it’s probably because neither of us has ever dated anybody else, so we’re taking the month off to go out with other people.”
His expression fell even further. “And what happens at the end of the month?”
“He’ll move back in, and we’ll figure out our future. Marriage and all that.”
“Marriage,” he said. Completely without enthusiasm.
“Yeah.”
“And he already moved out?”
“We moved his stuff into an Airbnb on New Year’s Day.”
Macon shook his head slowly. “That’s a hell of a resolution.”
It was. But it also wasn’t. We had reached our decision with careful, pragmatic thought.
It was the most adult decision that we had ever made.
January would be a month of promiscuity without repercussions, but it wasn’t about dating or kissing or even sex.
Not really. It was about getting the unknown out of our systems so we could finally move forward together.
We had agreed that it would be sensible to refrain from contact until February.
That was when we would decide to either separate or get married, although we were certain it would be the latter.
For the first time ever, we had even discussed our wedding.
It would be in autumn, our favorite time of year, with only our closest family members.
Or maybe that was even too much. Neither of us particularly liked weddings, so perhaps we’d just get hitched at the courthouse.
However, despite my generally optimistic disposition, I understood that this plan made my vision seem wholly rose-tinted. I understood how it would sound to other people.
“I’m sorry,” Macon said, “but this sounds like a terrible plan.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
I shrugged and smiled. “Sure.”
“And that doesn’t worry you?”
“Nope.”
He removed the pen, then his glasses, and rubbed the space between his eyes.
“It’s okay.” My smile grew reassuring. “It only needs to make sense to me, and it does. I know what I’m doing.”
Unfortunately, this was the exact moment that I realized I did not know what I was doing.
That somehow, despite all the scenarios that had run through my head since saying goodbye to Cory, I had neglected to imagine this crucial transition between telling Macon I wanted to date and telling Macon I wanted to date him .
The omission now seemed glaring. It also occurred to me only now—at the worst possible moment—that this might be considered using him.
I supposed I figured… it would just happen.
That he would be up for it. Because he knew, we both knew, that our friendship had always held the capacity for more.
The air hummed thicker between us. It startled us with intermittent and unpredictable sparks.
This wasn’t the one-way charge of seeing somebody attractive; the charge was striking in both directions.
It happened whenever we reached for the same object at the same time, accidentally bumped or brushed against each other, ran into each other outside of work.
Any time we appeared in a place the other didn’t expect us to be, our world shimmered.
There was one late shift about a year ago when the building was empty, and we were slaphappy, and for whatever reason, I wondered aloud if I could still do a cartwheel.
Macon said, “Go on,” and when I performed one successfully in front of our desk, he cheered.
Seized by a mania to keep impressing him—I don’t know why I believed cartwheels would impress him—I launched myself toward the stacks and attempted to perform several in a row.
I made it to one and a half before crashing into the audiobook display.
“Oh my God,” I heard him say, and an instant later he was above me.
In shock, I blinked up at him from the floor. Then I released a whoop of crazed laughter.
His fear fell away, and he gripped me with both hands.
But as he helped me to my feet, I landed too close to him, way too close, close enough for his chest to heave against mine.
The energy between us pulsed—and then surged.
Instead of laughing and taking a quick step backward, we drank each other in.
His pupils dilated. The moment lasted only seconds before our hands and bodies flew apart, but those seconds lasted an eternity.
As notable as incidents like this were, however, they hadn’t mattered at the time.
This energy wasn’t anything we would ever speak about or act upon.
Until a year and a half ago, he’d been with his girlfriend, Danielle, and I’d always been with Cory, and neither of us was the cheating type.
And we were both the type who could have just a friend.
And yet. Even still.
When Cory and I had made our unusual arrangement, my first thought hadn’t been picking up some stranger in a bar. My first thought had been Macon Nowakowski.
Without another word, he put his glasses back on, and then the pen, and then wearily pushed away to his side of the desk.
The library felt colder. I’d spent all day yesterday preparing for today—shaving, painting my nails, selecting the right outfit, packing a lunch that wouldn’t offensively impact my breath.
I’d even placed a toothbrush and travel-size toothpaste into my bag for freshening up afterward, though I hadn’t needed it since I’d been too nervous to eat my smashed chickpea sandwich.
And then I’d brushed my teeth anyway. My simple plan suddenly seemed a lot more complicated.
As my cheerful poppy nails picked at my favorite vintage trousers, the ones that made my legs, my best feature, look especially long, my pocket lit up. I tugged out my phone, knowing exactly who had sent the text.
How did it go??
Kat was a librarian, too, in a coastal town in Western Australia, in a time zone currently thirteen hours ahead of mine.
She had probably just woken up. Even though we’d never met in person, she was one of my closest friends and the only other person who knew about the Cory situation.
And she was the only person, period, who knew of my intentions toward Macon.
I have no idea , I replied.
He glanced at me. Unlike the rest of the world, Macon wasn’t addicted to his phone, mainly because he didn’t trust it. Black electrical tape covered the cameras on his device, and normally when he caught me texting, he made a droll comment. Tonight he said nothing.
I stuffed my phone back into my pocket, paranoid that somehow he’d be able to read the screen.
Ninety minutes remained until closing. Mr. Brember, a permanent fixture of our computer section, was the only patron left in the building. Outside, it was fully dark.
There was still no sign of snow.