Chapter 4
Chapter Four
SAM
My orderly life had just been exposed to a catastrophic system vulnerability, and the bug in question was currently using me as a human landing pad.
I blinked rapidly, my brain attempting to reboot while simultaneously trying to catalog exactly how everything had gone so spectacularly wrong in the blink of an eye.
All I could register were the immediate sensory inputs: Rose’s body draped across mine, the soft sleeve of her gray sweater pressed against my cheek, the faint scent of vanilla, and the way her breath came in short, startled puffs against my skin.
Unfortunately, Rose’s dismount strategy from my body appeared to involve channeling the graceful athleticism of a drunk penguin.
She pushed up using my shoulders as leverage, wobbled in both directions, slipped, elbowed me in the ribs, over-corrected, then somehow ended up in an even more precarious position than before.
“This printer cable has trust issues,” Rose said, contorting again to free herself, but failing. “It’s clearly not ready to let go of our relationship.”
“No worries,” I wheezed, while my internal systems ran emergency diagnostics for structural damage and organ displacement.
“Well, this is certainly more excitement than the reference section usually sees,” Eleanor finally spoke, her professional concern barely masking what was clearly the highlight of her week. “I don’t see any blood, so that’s a good sign.”
She stood there like a connoisseur of confusion, drinking in every detail of our cable-wrapped disaster with the appreciation of someone who’d just discovered premium entertainment that didn’t require a subscription fee. I was surprised she hadn’t pulled up a chair with a box of Peanut M&M’s.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Eleanor asked.
“We’re fine,” I announced with the convincing tone of someone who was definitely not fine. “Never been better.”
“Completely fine,” Rose confirmed, completely missing my sarcasm. “We just had a minor disagreement with the fundamental forces of nature after getting tangled up in the cables.”
Any chance you could fundamentally get off me?
Leo Rodriguez, Eleanor’s perpetually curious admin, appeared in my workspace like a wildlife photographer who’d just spotted a rare species mating ritual.
“Oh. My. Goodness. This is fascinating.” Leo’s eyes went wide as he processed our tangled tableau, then whipped out his phone.
Click. Click. Click.
“So, what exactly am I looking at here?” Leo asked. “Is this team building or role-playing?”
“Neither,” Eleanor said. “It’s just a mishap.”
Leo frowned. “Admittedly, I was hoping for more.”
“You and me both,” Eleanor said. “By the way, this is Rose, our new volunteer. Rose, meet Leo. He’s my amazing admin, and the glue that holds this place together in my absence.”
Leo gestured to us. “Looks like you two don’t need any glue—you’re doing fine on your own.” Instead of helping extract Rose from her current predicament, Leo extended his hand for a formal introduction. “Pleasure to meet you, Rose.”
“Likewise,” Rose managed, impressively achieving a handshake while maintaining her precarious perch on my ribcage.
Leo tilted his head with the curiosity of a golden retriever. “So ... is there a specific reason you’re not getting up?”
Finally! Someone asking the important questions!
Rose gestured weakly behind her. “I’m essentially being held hostage by office equipment. Can you give me a hand and set my foot free?”
“Technical difficulties are my specialty,” Leo said with a grin, then crouched down and began performing electronic surgery on the cable situation. “There we go. You’ve been liberated from your polyethylene captors.”
“Thank you!” Rose said.
Leo helped her to her feet, and she immediately began what I could only describe as the “Embarrassment Shuffle”—frantically trying to scoot cables under my desk with foot movements that bore a striking resemblance to a cat attempting to bury evidence in a litter box.
“That was crazy!” Rose bellowed with what appeared to be nervous energy, her voice reaching frequencies that could probably summon dolphins. “It was completely the cable’s fault.”
Right. Let’s blame it on the cable.
Staring at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, I remained in my horizontal state of contemplation, wondering if anyone planned to acknowledge my continued floor-based existence or at least help me up.
Nope. Nobody.
They’d obviously left me there for dead.
I rolled to the right to extract myself from the chair, then got myself to my feet while producing enough groaning sound effects to soundtrack a zombie movie.
“I can’t believe how much of my hair got on you. I’m shedding like an Alaskan Malamute. Hold still …” Rose began methodically plucking strands of hair from my sweater. “I should charge for this service. Not everyone offers premium de-furring, you know.”
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed her sense of humor.
And there was something oddly mesmerizing about the way she approached even this ridiculous task with meticulous precision, like she was debugging code instead of picking hair off a person.
I noticed the way she bit her lower lip when she concentrated—a slight gesture that was far more distracting than it had any right to be.
Her eyes were the color of rich coffee, warm and surprisingly expressive. There was also something very charming about the way her dark eyelashes cast tiny shadows on her cheeks in the fluorescent light.
Wait, what was I doing? When exactly had I started cataloging the details of her face? Was I actually admiring her?
Rose glanced up and caught me studying her intently.
I quickly shifted my attention to a fascinating spot on the wall. “I don’t think that crack was there before.”
“You missed a hair,” Leo said to Rose, pointing to my neck.
“Oh—you’re right,” she said, pulling down the collar of my sweater to extract another hair, her fingers dragging along the skin of my neck.
I gulped. “Are you almost done?”
She froze, her face achieving a shade of red that would make beets jealous. “Sorry, this is probably not appropriate workplace behavior. I apologize for invading your personal space. I was just trying to help.”
“I don’t see a problem here,” Leo said. “A little monkey grooming never hurt anyone.”
“All right, the entertainment’s over,” Eleanor announced with the authority of someone breaking up an interesting science experiment. “Back to actual productivity, people.”
“Right,” Leo agreed, though he looked disappointed that the show was ending. “I have a lot to do.”
I had mountains of work to do as well, not to mention families counting on me during the holidays.
I needed to find Rose a different project—something in the children’s section, or better yet, the genealogy archives in the basement.
Somewhere far, far away would be the best. I needed to be laser-focused. There was no room for distractions.
I uprighted my chair and rolled it back into position, then watched Rose follow Eleanor and Leo, like she was escaping a crime scene. I called out to her before my brain could properly vet the decision.
“Rose?” I said. “Where are you going?”
I was desperate to understand how she’d automated our database like it was a kindergarten puzzle, especially when she’d claimed to know nothing about library systems. Either she was some kind of technical savant, or I’d been dramatically overthinking everything for the past few years.
Admittedly, it wasn’t just her technical skills that had me curious—it was the way she’d looked at me when we were tangled up on the floor, and again, when she was removing the hairs from my sweater. It was like she was seeing something in me I didn’t even know was there.
Rose stopped and turned, her expression one of confusion. “I just assumed you’d want some recovery time to process the trauma. Maybe file an incident report or call the police on me.”
“Two minutes was sufficient for me to get over it. Please take a seat.” I gestured to the empty chair beside my desk. “We didn’t finish our conversation about the database. I also need to think of something else for you to do.”
Rose hesitated, then walked back with the careful steps of someone approaching a potentially dangerous animal. “Can we agree not to discuss the chair incident?”
“Absolutely,” I said, though the image of her sprawled across my chest was apparently now permanently saved onto my internal hard drive.
“Good,” she said.
Rose sat down and studied everything in my workspace except me—my monitor, my keyboard, the fascinating texture of my desk surface, and my particularly riveting purple pen.
I watched this elaborate avoidance dance with growing amusement. Here was someone who could make our database system perform miracles, now acting like maintaining eye contact might cause spontaneous combustion.
“Do I make you nervous?” I couldn’t help asking.
Rose considered the question with the seriousness of someone solving a complex equation. “Not you specifically.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her.
Maybe I was losing my mind, or I’d hit my head when we’d gone crashing to the floor in my chair, but I could have sworn something was crackling between us—some kind of magnetic pull that definitely wasn’t coming from the metal book scanners.
“It’s more of a species-wide issue,” Rose added. “People make me want to hide in small, dark places.”
“The entire human race makes you nervous?” I asked.
“Not necessarily, but it’s more efficient if I just lump everyone together,” she said defensively. “It saves time on individual assessments. I’m just not a people person.”
I paused, trying to process this information.
“Yet, you became a volunteer in a library,” I said. “A public place. Where there is a one-hundred percent guarantee of having people all around you.”
“Books relax me, so it’s almost like they cancel out the anxiety,” she said with a wistful smile.
“Well, maybe not completely, but books don’t require small talk.
They don’t care if you say the wrong thing or trip over your own feet.
I can be myself without worrying about whether I’m being too weird or not being interesting enough.
” Her fingers traced invisible patterns on her jeans.
“No doubt you’ll think it’s a little weird, but some of my closest relationships are with fictional characters. ”
“Weird?” I shook my head. “Please. I’m sure I have more fictional friends than you do. And don’t even get me started on the conversations I have with my computer.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked.
“No way,” I said. “I once spent five minutes explaining to my computer why its logic was flawed. Out loud. With gestures.” I grinned. “I’m pretty sure I won that argument.”
Rose’s eyes widened with delighted disbelief. “I thought I was the only one! I’ve had full conversations with my laptop about its attitude problems.”
We shared a laugh and then a look of dawning comprehension—the relief of two people realizing they weren’t the only ones living in their particular corner of weirdness.
“Wait a minute,…” I studied her face, a new realization hitting me like a delayed system update. “You’re talking to me right now like it’s no big deal at all. Without any of the visible signs of panic you had earlier.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one surprised by that.” Rose tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her expression thoughtful. “I really don’t know what to make of it, to be honest. Maybe you’re less terrifying than most people.”
“That is possibly the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I joked.
A crazy idea crystallized in my head as Rose smiled.
She thrived in our conversation because we communicated on the same logical frequency.
What if I could replicate that feeling for her with carefully chosen people and situations?
It wasn’t like I hadn’t done this before—I’d spent years connecting shy volunteers with the right projects, pairing introverted book club members with compatible discussion partners, even introducing my reclusive neighbor to the community garden group where his botanical knowledge made him an instant hit.
Rose was brilliant and infinitely more interesting than she gave herself credit for. Giving her a little nudge in the right direction and helping her see that wasn’t manipulation. It was just strategic friendship facilitation.
What could be wrong with that?
“What’s with that mischievous look on your face?” Rose observed, her sharp eyes studying me. “It’s like you’re plotting something.”
“You’re absolutely right—I’m thinking ahead to my next project,” I said, which was completely honest.
Because Project Rose Rehabilitation had just moved to the top of my priority list. And I could not wait to get started.