Chapter 1 #2
He made himself a sandwich and grabbed a beer from the fridge before sitting in front of the television in the living room.
He tried to find something interesting. Most of his friends in college had thought him a little off when it came to his TV habits.
They all looked forward to the next season of whatever streaming shows they were watching, so they talked excitedly about the next season of Bridgerton or when Poker Face would finally get a release date.
Derek watched documentaries and series on the History Channel.
So for tonight, he found one on the tangled web that made up the conflict in Afghanistan before settling on his new sofa.
He woke with a start, maybe halfway into the show, wondering where he was for a second.
Derek’s dream had been so real, the documentary converging with the man from the library who everyone had been afraid of taking center stage.
The documentary had explained about roadside bombs, and in his dream, the huge man had stood between him and an explosion.
Of course the whole thing had been his mind wrapping the documentary around the happenings of his day and coming up with something weird.
Still, why was this man showing up in his dreams, and for the love of god, why was he shirtless with skin glistening with sweat in a damned war zone?
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he began to laugh, because damn it all, his brain had decided to take a trip to la-la-land in a huge way.
He had barely caught a glimpse of the guy who struck fear into everyone at the library just by walking in, and now he was starring in Derek’s dreams. Maybe loneliness was really getting to him and he needed to call his friends in New York and go up to the city for some fun.
He figured he’d start with Danny and sent him a text.
“We’d love you to come, but Claude and I are going to be out of town,” his friend replied to his text. Three dots appeared at the bottom, so Derek waited for the rest of the message to come through. “Deann and Shirley are in Vermont for a women’s retreat, and Blair is with his family in Florida.”
“Thanks. I’ll have to come up some other weekend,” he sent and tossed his phone on the cushions.
So much for a trip to the city. He could go, but it seemed everyone was out of town.
How much fun was it going to be if no one was there?
He had been hoping for a cure for some of his loneliness, not just a change of venue.
Derek sent that he hoped Danny and Claude had a great time and left it at that.
They didn’t need to know that he was climbing the walls.
Maybe what he needed was to get a dog. He’d thought of that a few times.
He could go out to the animal rescue he passed whenever he went west of town and see what they had.
It would be nice to come home to someone happy to see him.
He wasn’t sure that was fair, with the hours he worked.
He could come home at lunch to look in on a dog, though.
It was only five blocks from the library.
Derek sighed and turned his attention to the documentary, watching the last portion of it before turning off the television and heading to bed.
“THAT GUY is here again,” one of the volunteers said.
“And it isn’t even Wednesday.” The huge man came in through the back, and it was like the mood in the building shifted in an instant.
Everyone scurried off to get busy and out of sight.
Granted, the guy was big, with close-cut hair and lips in a straight line, like he was angry.
He lumbered past the desk, dropping his books in the return and heading to the fiction section like he had the other night.
“Why is he here again?” Connie asked quietly as she stopped in the doorway with a cart of books to be reshelved. She backed up and turned around, sitting at one of the desks.
“Maybe he… you know… wants to borrow some books? He returned the ones he took the last time.” Derek entered the returns in the bin into the system and handed them to Connie to add to her cart.
“This is getting a little ridiculous. A guy comes in and the entire library grinds to a halt. Everyone hides and stays away out of sight.”
“I’m not going out there. I heard that he is crazy or something.
I don’t know why, but my brother says he came into the Gingerbread and was acting weird and stuff,” Connie told him.
“There were rumors that he got in a fight and the other guy died or something.” She shivered and paled.
The Carlisle rumor mill in action, long on story and drama, but short in the detail department.
Derek sat at the desk and got back to work.
It was Friday and he had the weekend off, which meant he needed to get these circulation reports finished for the board.
He had started an outreach program with the schools, and he needed to prove it was having an effect.
Derek was thankful that it was, and that younger people checking out materials was up over 19 percent.
If the library was to survive and remain relevant, they needed to reach the next generation, help them understand that research was more than Googling.
He continued working, keeping half his attention on the self-checkout terminals just to see if anyone needed help as he worked on the reports that had to be finished. Everything was running smoothly, and he finished his report a half hour before he was scheduled to leave.
“Is he gone?” Connie asked.
“Have you been hiding in there the entire time? What do you think he’s going to do? This is a library. Just get the books reshelved before you go home.”
Connie huffed and got the cart. “Fine. But if he kills me, I’m going to come back and haunt you.
” She rolled her eyes so he knew she was kidding and then left with the cart, heading to the opposite side of the library to start.
Derek saved his report and looked up from his computer screen.
“Can I help you?” he asked, finding himself looking into the face of the man everyone in the library was afraid of.
Derek waited for an answer, but the man just started at him, silent. He handed over his card and the books, holding one back and opening it. He pointed to the list of titles in the bibliography.
Derek understood.
“You want that title?” He checked the computer. “We don’t have it, but Camp Hill does. I can request it and it should be here on Monday.” Derek checked out the rest of the books. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
The man turned and left without a word. Okay. Maybe he was one step closer to some sort of answer.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing at all. He wanted a book we don’t have, so I ordered it in for him. Why?” He suddenly remembered that he had never heard the man say anything… or make any sort of sound. Maybe he was shy or had a really bad stutter. Either way, he had made what he wanted plain enough.
“Oh.” Connie went back to reshelving her books as the man left the library through the back door.
Derek couldn’t help watching him go. Not so much because of his size or the fact that he intimidated Derek.
More like he fascinated him. There was something about the man that made Derek curious about him.
Not that he would ever do anything to actually get answers to his questions.
The man was a patron, and as such, deserved the same treatment and freedom from prying as anyone else.
The outside door closed, and Derek returned to his work so he could leave the library on time.