Chapter 14
BOOKER
I couldn’t believe how my day had gone. From Miles dragging me fishing, to him almost getting drowned by a trout, to inviting me to stay for dinner, to eating like he’d never seen food before and beaming at me between every bite, to… this.
Cuddling up to me like we’d been married for fifteen years while we watched our third movie of the day.
Happy. He was so obviously happy. Happier than I’d seen him. I wasn’t sure I had the brain power to process that I’d had a hand in it.
I also couldn’t stop thinking about where the conversation we’d been having earlier had stopped. Miles obviously had questions he still didn’t have answers to, but the moment was over. What would it take to get him back to the point of being comfortable enough to ask again?
“I live to serve,” I joked, shifting the tiniest bit to make him more comfortable.
“You do, though, don’t you?” Miles asked, tilting his head back to look at me upside-down. Not my most flattering angle, but I wouldn’t have moved him for anything. “You’re always helping people out.”
I shrugged gently so I wouldn’t disturb him. “Where I can.”
“More than that,” Miles said. “Does anyone ever do anything for you?”
“Seth’s throwing me a birthday party,” I said. “You’re keeping me warm,” I added, smiling down at him.
I had to resist the urge to drop a kiss on his head. Dammit, I wanted it. Just that. Just this. Just the tiniest bit more.
I couldn’t risk scaring him off, but that didn’t stop me wanting it.
“Do you ever ask for anything for yourself, though?” Miles asked, still looking up at me.
I smiled wryly, settling back against the couch. “Why would I? I have everything I need.”
“Now who doesn’t ask for help?” Miles murmured, moving with me.
“Do you see me under siege by preschoolers?” I smiled at the memory. He’d be good with kids one day. If he just let himself.
I wanted to see that. I wanted him to stick around and come into his full self. I could see it hiding under the surface, waiting to break out. I’d seen glimpses of it, when he’d been at his most relaxed, and I was so honored that had happened around me that I could barely contain myself.
I realized then that I’d been toying with the edge of Miles’s actual, honest-to-god pajama shirt, which he wore over an ancient gym t-shirt that was a size too small for him and kept creeping up to expose a half-inch strip of stomach that I’d been trying not to look at.
Especially the part where there was the finest trail of strawberry-blond hair disappearing down past his waistband.
“Sorry,” I said, taking my hand away belatedly. “I fidget. It’s why I knit,” I added.
“It’s fine,” Miles said. He hadn’t budged an inch, or tensed up at all, so it probably was fine. “I don’t mind being touched. People always say I’m cuddly. Too cuddly, in some cases.”
“No such thing,” I said. “Or at least, I don’t mind. Like I said, you’re keeping me warm.”
Miles hummed. “Speaking of knitting, though,” he said. “I was thinking. I’m meant to be, y’know, making sure the library is a community space. And you said your craft store closed down. What if, umm. What if there was a… what are they called? A stitch ’n’ bitch?”
I burst into laughter, gripping Miles’s hip to stop him from falling off me.
“Is that not what they’re called?” he asked.
“No, it is, I just… didn’t expect to hear you say that.”
“I can’t say bitch?” Miles asked, tilting his head back again.
“Clearly, you can,” I said. “I just didn’t expect it.”
“I can also say fuck,” Miles said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“They teach you in librarian school,” Miles explained sagely. “Swearing is an important skill. We’re just not meant to do it in front of the patrons.”
I snorted. “I think you’ve done a great job so far, not cussing any toddlers out.”
“So do I.” Miles smirked, settling down again. “I was thinking Mondays? Unless those are actually alone time for you.”
“This is for me?” I asked.
“It’s for the community,” Miles said firmly. “And for the sake of the library. If we don’t use it, we lose it.”
But it was for me. He’d remembered what I’d said about knitting, about the craft circle I’d once had, and about knitting alone in the bar on Mondays.
“But obviously, as the founding member, the meeting time needs to suit you,” he continued with finality that brooked no argument.
“Founding member, huh?” I tried to hide the smile tugging at my lips, but it was a losing battle.
“I’ve already done the paperwork,” Miles admitted. “Which I had to make up myself from scratch so it’s actually just a spreadsheet of library opening hours with blocks of time colored in. But it works. Anyway. Would two hours make sense? Three?”
“Two sounds like enough,” I said. “What time?”
“I was thinking ten,” Miles said. “And that I’d start taking my lunch break at noon, and maybe you’d let me buy you coffee after. So you can fill me in on all the latest gossip.”
“Gossip?” I asked, the picture of innocence.
“It’s better than cash around here,” Miles said.
“And as Otter Bay’s only librarian, I have to know what’s going on.
I can’t… libraries are an important part of the community.
I still don’t feel cut out for this, but…
I’m trying. I need help,” he said, looking up at me again, eyes soft and pleading, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips. “I’m asking.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and forced myself not to change my hold on him, in case it freaked him out.
I wanted to say anything, you can ask for anything, I’ll do it.
But again, with the freaking out.
“Ten on Mondays sounds perfect,” I said. “Want me to get Seth to make flyers?”
Miles glanced away, looking at the TV. “I was thinking I might try my hand. Always wanted to. If that’s okay?”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “But keep in mind that he loves to have his fingers in absolutely everything. You can always get a favor out of him by asking.”
“Is that how you got this couch out of him? And the bookshelves?”
I laughed. “You figured out that was me, huh?”
“You’re the only person I complained to,” Miles said. “I didn’t even mean to complain to you, you just…”
“Dante says I have a violet aura,” I said. “Because I’m very sympathetic.”
“I met him,” Miles said. “He was checking out the entire metaphysical section.”
“He’ll come back with suggestions and maybe a crystal.” I grinned at the thought. “He’ll be at the stitch ’n’ bitch, too. He’s okay once you get used to him.”
“Well, I dunno what color your aura is, but you do give off safe vibes. You’re the perfect person to run a gay bar. Faith feels like such a haven. So he’s probably right.”
“I think he’s right about a lot more things than people give him credit for,” I admitted. “I’m not sure he’s right about them for the reasons he thinks, but I’m not sure that matters. He’s a great judge of character.”
Once I was done defending Dante, I realized what Miles had actually said. “Faith feels like a haven to you?”
“Well… yeah,” Miles said, snuggling closer to me. “I guess it feels like an extension of you. And the first thing you ever did was rescue me, so. I dunno, I’m being weird again.”
“I like the weird. I’m…”
You say things like that and it makes me want to be the person you come to for everything.
Instead of saying that, I stared at the TV like I was watching it. Lucky I’d seen Jurassic Park a dozen times.
“Weird, too,” I said eventually.
Miles relaxed against me again, and the next time I came out of my own thoughts, he was asleep.