Chapter 5
Devin
I punch in the code at the library's senior entrance, same as every morning. Margaret waves from behind the desk, same as every morning. I head to my spot in the reference section, same as every —
There's a book on my chair.
Not just any book. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, with a note sticking out of it.
My heart stops.
I recognize the handwriting from the coffee receipt Silas signed on Friday. Neat, slightly slanted left, the kind of handwriting that comes from someone who thinks before they write.
Since you gave me dragons, I thought I'd give you unreliable narrators and beautiful prose. But fair warning — the third book still isn't out. We're all suffering together. -S
I look up and there he is, in his usual corner in the fiction section, already reading. He glances up, catches me staring, and gives me a small wave.
He came here at 6:30 in the morning to leave me a book.
Nobody has ever given me a book before. I've borrowed thousands, checked out hundreds, held them carefully and returned them on time because they belonged to somewhere else.
But this one, well, it's a library book too, technically.
He didn't buy it. He checked it out and left it on my chair with a note, and that's not the same as giving, except it is because he thought of me when he wasn't here.
He went to the shelf and pulled this book and wrote the note at home, probably, or maybe at the bar where he lives with the rest of the pride, and he carried it here in the dark at six-something in the morning and set it on my chair.
That's giving. That counts.
I hold up the note, mouth "thank you," and he smiles. That real smile, warm and unguarded.
Then we both go back to reading, but everything feels different. Charged. Like the air between our sections is humming with possibility.
I open The Name of the Wind, trying to focus.
The prose is immediately beautiful, lush and rhythmic, the writing that makes you slow down and read sentences twice just to feel them.
Kvothe is already annoying me, which I suspect is the point.
But I keep stealing glances at Silas. He's reading The Dragon Reborn, book three of Wheel of Time.
He reads the way I do, completely absorbed, turning pages with his left hand, body still except for his eyes.
Every now and then he does this thing where he tilts his head slightly, like something on the page surprised him.
At seven, he gets up for coffee from the library's ancient vending machine. The machine makes a grinding sound like it's dying every time someone uses it, but the coffee is hot and costs seventy-five cents and that's all you can really ask of a machine that old.
He brings back two cups. Sets one on the table nearest to my section. A clear invitation.
I move to that table, and he settles at the next one over. Close enough to feel connected, far enough to keep reading. Perfect.
"Good book?" he asks quietly.
"Beautiful prose," I whisper back. "Kvothe's already annoying me though."
"He gets worse."
"Perfect."
We read in companionable silence until 8:30, when a group of seniors arrives for their Monday morning book club, talking loudly about their grandchildren and someone named Barbara's hip replacement. The spell breaks, but gently.
Silas catches my eye and makes a face, fond, not annoyed, and I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing. He goes back to his corner in fiction. I stay in reference. The distance between us feels smaller than it did an hour ago.
I read for three more hours. The Name of the Wind swallows time whole.
I look up and it's 11:30 and I've blown through a hundred and forty pages and my neck aches from hunching over the table.
Kvothe has been insufferable and brilliant in equal measure, and the writing is so good it makes me angry.
Nobody should be allowed to write prose this beautiful and then not finish the trilogy.
At 11:30, I close my book reluctantly. "I should get ready for work."
"The café has fresh croissants on Monday mornings," Silas says from his corner, not looking up from his page. "Robin stress-bakes on Sundays."
"I know. He texted me pictures of his stress-baking at midnight."
Now he looks up. "He texts you?"
"Usually with captions like 'why won't the lamination work' and 'the croissants are mocking me.'"
Silas laughs, quiet and warm. "Sounds like Robin."
I want to suggest we eat breakfast together. Want to ask if he'll still be here when I'm working. Want to do a lot of things that require bravery I don't have.
"See you at noon?" he asks, solving the problem for me.
"Yeah. I'll save you a good croissant."
"Looking forward to it."
At noon, I walk through the connecting door to the café to find Robin surrounded by croissant carnage.
"Don't ask," he says. "Just know that I've conquered laminated dough and I am a god."
"They look perfect."
"They ARE perfect. Try one."
It's possibly the best croissant I've ever had. Buttery, flaky, with just the right amount of chew. I close my eyes on the first bite.
"Okay, you're definitely a god."
"I know, right? Oh, Silas is still in his reading spot. He said he's coming over in a bit for lunch."
My stomach does a little flip.
The lunch rush hits before I can overthink it.
Monday means library workers wanting quick lunches, parents grabbing coffee after dropping kids at school, the usual chaos.
I fall into the rhythm. Steam, pour, smile, repeat.
The espresso machine and I have an understanding now.
I know which portafilter sticks, which steam wand angle gives the best microfoam, how long to let a shot pull before it goes bitter.
Robin works the pastry case and the register while I handle drinks, and we move around each other without bumping, without talking, a week into sharing this space and already fluent in it.
Silas comes in around 12:45, settling into the corner booth with his book and a quiet "hey" that makes my heart skip.
"Croissant?" I ask, already reaching for the best one, the one with the most visible layers, golden and shatteringly crisp on the outside.
"Please. And coffee when you get a chance."
I make his coffee. Large, black, the same as every time. I know the mug he likes now, the blue one with the chip on the handle that fits comfortably in big hands. I set it down with the croissant and he nods his thanks, and I go back to the counter.
That's it. That's the whole interaction, and it's enough. More than enough. He's here, reading in his booth, and I'm here, making drinks, and every time I look over he's there. Present. Not going anywhere.
The afternoon is quiet. A few regulars, a woman with a toddler who orders a decaf latte and looks like she hasn't slept since 2019. I make her drink perfect and add a tiny heart in the foam because Robin taught me how last week and she looks like she needs it. She almost cries.
At 2:30, Robin nudges me. "Break time. Go."
I glance at Silas's booth. He's reading, but there's a second coffee on the table. One he didn't order. He got up at some point and bought a coffee from the vending machine in the library and brought it back for me.
I pull off my apron and walk over. The coffee is lukewarm and terrible, vending machine coffee always is, but he remembered from this morning. He remembered that I drank the vending machine coffee and he went and got one for me.
"Thanks," I say, sliding into the booth across from him.
"Figured you'd want caffeine, even though you work here." He marks his page with, yes, still my note from Thursday. Still the smiley face bookmark. "How's Kvothe?"
"Insufferable. I love him."
"That's the correct response."
We talk about the book for a few minutes, not the deep dive of Friday, just easy observations.
He asks what I think of Denna, and I say I don't trust her yet, and he makes a sound that's not agreement or disagreement, just acknowledgment that I'm on the right track.
We talk about unreliable narrators in general, whether Kvothe is lying about everything or just the parts that make him look good. Whether it matters.
"I think all narrators are unreliable," I say. "Everyone tells their own story the way they need it to be true."
He looks at me for a beat. "That's either very wise or very cynical."
"Can't it be both?"
"Yeah," he says, almost smiling. "It can be both."
My break is twenty minutes. We spend twelve of them talking and eight of them reading in silence, and the silent part is better than most conversations I've ever had.
When I get up to go back to work, I pause. I've been thinking about this since this morning, since I found the book on my chair. He gave me a recommendation. It's only fair.
"Hold on," I say.
I go behind the counter, grab a pastry bag and the pen by the register. Box up two of the morning buns, the good ones, the ones Robin set aside for pride members that nobody's claimed yet. Tear off a piece of receipt paper.
If you haven't read it yet — The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. Historical fantasy, gorgeous prose, and it'll destroy you. Fair warning. — D
I add a smiley face. Because it's our thing now, apparently.
I put the note in the bag with the morning buns and set it on his table when I bring his check.
"What's this?" he asks.
"Leftovers. They'll just go stale."
He opens the bag. Sees the note. Reads it. I watch his face. Surprise first, then warmth, then that almost-smile that I'm starting to think is just how he smiles. Not big. Not performative. Just real.
"Guy Gavriel Kay," he says. "Haven't read him."
"You'll love him. The prose is, I mean, it's different from Rothfuss, more restrained, but when it hits, it hits."
"The Lions of Al-Rassan."
"It'll destroy you," I repeat. "But in a good way."
"Is there a good way to be destroyed?"
"By a book? Always."
He folds the note carefully. Not crumpling it, not shoving it in his pocket. Folding it and placing it inside his book next to my first note. Two notes now. Two smiley faces. A collection.
"See you tomorrow?" he says.
"I don't work Tuesdays."
"I know. But you'll be at the library."
He knows my schedule. He knows I come to the library on my days off because I have nowhere else to go, and he's not saying it like it's sad. He's saying it like it's a place he'll be too.
"Yeah," I say. "I'll be here."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
He leaves at 3:30. Earlier than usual. Maybe he has somewhere to be, or maybe the morning buns gave him an excuse to leave on a high note. I don't know. I just know that when the door closes behind him, the café feels quieter. Emptier.
* * *
That night, Tyler is sprawled on his bed, scrolling through his phone, still in his warehouse uniform because he's too tired to change.
"You're humming," he says.
"I'm not humming."
"You were definitely humming. Something without a tune, which is somehow worse." He rolls over, studies me. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Dev, I've lived with you for eight months. You don't hum. You don't smile at your phone. You don't come home from work looking like — what is that? Is that happiness? On your face?"
"Shut up."
"It IS. Oh my god, who is it?"
"Nobody. It's nothing."
"Is it the book guy? The one you mentioned like twice and then clamped up about? The quiet one?"
I didn't think I'd mentioned Silas at all. Apparently "not talking about it" still involves talking about it.
"He left me a book this morning," I say, because Tyler won't stop until I give him something. "At the library. With a note."
Tyler sits up. "He left you a book. With a note."
"A recommendation. It's a thing we do."
"A thing you do. You and the hot quiet book guy have a thing."
"It's not — we just recommend books to each other."
"With handwritten notes."
"It's the library. You can't exactly text a book recommendation."
"You absolutely can, but okay." Tyler grins. "So what's his deal? What does he do? How old is he?"
"I don't know. Older. He's part of the — he works with Robin's boyfriend's group. The motorcycle guys."
"The shifters? Dude."
"It's not a thing, Tyler."
"A hot shifter biker is leaving you love notes in the library and you're telling me it's not a thing."
"Book recommendations."
"Love notes."
"I'm going to sleep."
"He left you a BOOK, Devin. That is a man with intentions."
I pull the blanket over my head. Tyler is still talking, something about how I need to make a move before someone else does, but his voice fades into background noise. Under the blanket, in the dark, I pull out Silas's note and read it again by the glow of my dying phone.
Since you gave me dragons, I thought I'd give you unreliable narrators and beautiful prose.
He thought I'd give you. Like it was a gift, what I did. Like a scribbled note on receipt paper with a stupid smiley face was something worth reciprocating with a 6:30 AM library visit and his own careful handwriting and a book he chose specifically for me.
I fold the note and put it inside The Name of the Wind, marking where I stopped.
Two notes now. His and mine. A collection.
Tomorrow's Tuesday. My day off. He said he'd be at the library.
I close my eyes and let myself, just for a minute, just in the dark where nobody can see, hope.