Chapter 9
MILES
“Fishing, really? With the little hat and everything?” Evie asked as I flopped down on the actually-pretty-good bed in the cabin.
The cabin as a whole was much nicer than it had been since most of the kinks had been worked out.
The hot water functioned and the shower pressure was surprisingly great, the sink was in perfect working order and the rest of the kitchen would have been amazing if I knew how to make anything more complex than a grilled cheese.
I’d gotten the fire more or less figured out and curling up with my socked feet sticking out in front of it of an evening with one of the stack of children’s books I’d checked out so I’d be able to make sensible recommendations felt like a luxury.
So while I still wasn’t sold on the middle of nowhere, I could see that there were perks to be had here as I watched a handful of leaves flutter to the ground in the last of the fading light filtering through the trees through the now-functional window.
“I don’t think the little hat is mandatory,” I said. “And yeah, why not? You always want me to come swimming or whatever. Fishing is basically that.”
“I don’t think you’re meant to end up in the river when you fish,” Evie said. “So you know this is a date, right? You know Booker was asking you on a date. And you agreed.”
“It’s not a date,” I said, glancing over at a tap on the window to see the squirrel was back. “Go away.”
“Rude,” Evie responded.
“Not you, the squirrel.”
“Still rude,” she said. “So, things are looking up? This is maybe not the total disaster you thought it was?”
“I have bookshelves now,” I admitted. “But Booker had to rescue me from a roving band of preschoolers today.”
“He rescued you?” Evie asked. I could hear the way her eyebrow had just arched in the sound of her voice. “And the fishing thing isn’t a date?”
“I’m not…”
Gay.
Interested.
I reached out to stroke the lacy leaves of the fern Booker had given me, which seemed happy on my nightstand, and let the sentence trail off.
“Ryder dropped in to give me another couple of chapters of his book,” I said instead. “We figured out how the library printing system works together. He invited me to dinner, too.”
“See! You’re making friends.”
I sighed, letting my fingers fall away from the fern.
“I still don’t feel like I belong here. I’m not… good with people.”
“You’re better than you think,” Evie said, voice warm. “People love you so much. I wish… I wish you saw yourself like I see you. Like everyone else does.”
“Overdressed?”
Evie snorted. “You have a strong sense of style. It’s allowed. I live in athleisure wear because I’m both a personal trainer and also a slob.”
“Dad’s proud of you,” I said.
“Dad’s given up on trying to fix me,” she retorted.
“You don’t need fixing.”
“Neither do you.”
I swallowed. Not just at the words, but the way Evie’s voice changed when she said it.
“You don’t need fixing,” Evie echoed my own words back at me. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
I didn’t entirely believe that, but I didn’t want to argue, either.
“Except the orange juice on my cereal?” I asked.
“Okay, except that,” Evie allowed. “That’s definitely something wrong with you.”
“Booker likes orange juice on his cereal,” I defended. “So I’m not, y’know. Uniquely weird, there.”
“You won’t eat marshmallows raw, either, whatever that means,” Evie said.
“It means you can’t just take them out of the bag and eat them. You’ve gotta do something with them, toast them or melt them into hot chocolate or something. Otherwise they’re gross.”
“You’re gross,” Evie said.
I laughed, letting my eyes fall closed as the exhaustion of the day took hold of me.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m just mad I can’t fit twenty-three of them into my mouth at once.”
“You saying I’ve got a big mouth?” Evie asked, raised eyebrow loud and clear again.
“If the marshmallows fit.” I grinned up at the ceiling.
“You know, whatever you say about all this… you sound happier. Just, for the record. Happier than you have in a long time. You sure there aren’t any cute girls?”
“The florist is actually ridiculously pretty,” I said. “So is her girlfriend.”
Evie snorted. “I’m coming to visit,” she said. “Sounds like my kind of town.”
“They’d love you,” I said. Everyone loved Evie. She moved through the world so easily. I doubted she’d ever said anything she regretted in her life or ever felt awkward in company.
Meanwhile, I was still wondering what the hell Booker saw in me that he was even entertaining the idea of wanting me to stick around in Otter Bay. Even if it was just for the sake of keeping the library open.
I’d watched him reading to the kids with real pleasure, doing the voices and keeping the pictures turned out to them like some kind of professional.
More professional than me. I couldn’t have done that in a million years.
I didn’t have the coordination for it. I probably would’ve toppled off the tiny seat he’d somehow managed to perch on and crushed a toddler.
“They love you, by the sound of it,” Evie said.
“Yeah, well.” I sighed. “We’ll see, I guess.”
“We’ll see,” she agreed. “What’s on for tonight?”
“Oh, you know me, party animal,” I said. “I’m planning to change into my comfiest pajamas and settle down in front of the fire with these new chapters of Ryder’s. I might even push the boat out and make a hot chocolate.”
Evie laughed. “On a weeknight? You’re really going off the rails.”
“I know, but what can you expect? I’m a librarian,” I said, pausing a second over the strange feeling of the word in my mouth.
I was a librarian. I had the piece of paper and everything that said I was. I even had my own library, now.
So why didn’t I feel like it?
“You sound tired,” Evie said.
Maybe that was it. Maybe I was just… exhausted. It’d been a long week, hadn’t it?
“I think I am.” I sighed again. “Well, Saturday’s bound to be quiet, right?”
“Sure,” Evie said.
I wondered why she didn’t sound convinced.
Saturday was not quiet.
When I showed up to unlock the library for the day there were already half a dozen people hanging around, all looking to sign up for library cards.
From then on, for the rest of the day, there was a line at the front desk that I didn’t get through until half an hour after the place was supposed to be closed.
Booker’s flyers. If I’d doubted him at all, I didn’t anymore. I’d had to hold up the line six times while I gave the card printer five minutes to cool down.
It wasn’t just that, either. I felt like I’d met half of Otter Bay in one 10-hour shift. I’d never had contact with so many different people at once in my entire life.
While their cards had been printing, they’d all given me little pieces of their lives.
Ward had dropped by wondering if we had books on antique furniture so he could try his hand at replicas and told me that Ryder wouldn’t shut up about me.
Apparently, I asked all the right questions about his book.
Then there was a man called Wes, who wanted recipe books for beginners—and I wasn’t allowed to tell his husband, Hayden, about it. Because he wanted to learn to cook as a surprise.
An older lady with the most stunning auburn hair came in looking for crime novels, the grislier the better. A tiny dark-haired man came by, checked out every book in the metaphysical section, and told me Leos made great librarians and that was why I was doing such a great job.
I’d had to look up my star sign to determine that I was, in fact, a Leo. He hadn’t even asked for my birthday, so how he knew was a mystery to me.
I talked to people who were into floristry and books that took place on boats and wrote down dozens of requests for things they hadn’t been able to find from the minute I sat down to the minute Seth came in and told everyone the library had been closed for half an hour.
He grinned at me as people started to file out, bounding up to the desk and handing me his ID. “Do you need this to print me a card?”
“Just a name and address,” I said. “How do you not have a library card? You hired me.”
Seth shrugged. “The town hired you, I was just the middle man,” he said as I started putting his details in. “Busy day, huh?”
I looked at him, letting the full weight of my exhaustion seep into it. He grinned in response.
“Book knows how to bring a community together.” He shrugged.
“With booze?” I asked, eyebrow raised.
Seth hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t think it hurt, but I don’t think many people will actually take advantage. It’s just… Book’s the kind of man people listen to. If he says get a library card, they get a library card.”
I could believe that. I’d trusted him pretty much instantly.
“You should drop by the bar,” Seth added. “To thank him.”
He was right. Obviously. I owed Booker a thank you, a thousand thank yous. I was exhausted, but this was the first thing that’d gone right for me. I’d made a real dent in the new signup quota.
Maybe I could save this library after all. Maybe I wasn’t completely useless.
If you accept the help, a tiny voice in the back of my mind said. It sounded a lot like Booker.
“I should,” I agreed. “It’s funny, when I agreed to this job I was scared I’d never see a gay bar again. Weird to have the library back onto one.”
“Yeah, well, zoning here is more an art than a science,” Seth said. “And when I say it’s an art I mean it’s like a finger painting done by a blind anteater.”
“Specifically an anteater?” I asked.
“Specifically an anteater,” Seth agreed. “Trust me, it’s exactly the vibe. I hope you never have to care about it.”
“Me too, in that case,” I said, handing him the card the printer had spit out. I was glad the library didn’t open Sundays, so it could have a rest. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“You just did,” Seth said, holding the card up. “You’re gonna be the most popular person in the bar tonight.”