4. David
DAVID
What am I doing?
Last night I managed to get Tim and Donna’s house put back together, a note written telling them I owed them a pizza, a bag of tater tots, and a pot of my chili for letting me shelter at their house, even though they hadn’t known it.
Then I’d managed to get Mia back to her house and safely inside without anyone seeing us, and without saying anything else I would regret. Like, tonight was surprisingly awesome . Or I’m really sorry we can’t be friends . Or fuck it, I really want to be more than your friend no matter what.
I’d even managed to fall asleep and sleep through the night.
Sure, it had taken me an hour despite how exhausted I was.
Yes, I had replayed our conversation over in my head, three times.
Fuck, I hadn’t known anything about her childhood or how Scott and Peyton had come into her life. And I kind of wish I didn’t know now.
It makes me like her even more. Worse, it makes me kind of like Scott Hansen, a little.
Maybe even more than a little.
I can picture him watching Mia go back to her parents and being torn up about it. It definitely caused the crack in the resentment I have for the guy.
Which means I should stay far away from her.
But instead, completely in character for me, I’m doing the opposite of what I should do. I am walking up the path to the Sapphire Falls community library and planning to go inside and very much see her again.
I pull the door open and stride inside, vowing to just get this over with. I have something to give her, and I need to tell her about her car.
I stop just inside the doors. I think I’ve been in the library maybe twice in my life, and both times were because I had to come.
Once for something with school that I don’t remember at all, and once with my mother.
That I do remember. My brothers and I had ridden our four-wheelers around the farm, and we were wild and chaotic as usual.
Jack had accidentally ridden his too close to the chicken coop and had ended up tipping over, crashing through the fence and into the back of the coop.
I had taken the blame, and when I asked my mom what the big deal was—sincerely, because my mom had built the coop and I knew she could rebuild it because she could build or fix anything—she brought me down to the library and told me to research how to build a chicken coop.
Then made me do it. She’d let me borrow her tools, and she paid for the supplies, but I’d have to do it myself.
Jack did end up helping me since the whole thing was actually his fault, but yeah, that was the other time I’d been to the library.
“David? “
I turn at the sound of my name. “Charlie?” I stride toward my brother. “What are you doing here?” And what am I going to tell him I’m doing here?
“Checking out books,” Charlie says with a chuckle.
Right. Of course. That is probably what ninety percent of the people who come in here do. Unless, of course, they’re looking for a Bundt pan. Or a wok. I hide my smile.
“I guess I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
Though now that my surprise at seeing him has passed, I realize Charlie probably comes here a lot. My brother is a huge bookworm and always has been. He’s probably been inside this library hundreds of times. He often came as a kid. “So are you a regular here?” I ask.
“Pretty much. Come in probably once a week,” he says.
“So you know Mia?” I ask.
“Of course. I see her here a lot. But we also…”
Both of my eyebrows arch. “You also what?”
Charlie shakes his head. “Nothing. We exchange book recs. She knows what I like, so she’ll hold new releases for me.”
“And you also…” I trail off. There was more to that and now I need to know. “What were you going to say?”
He peers at me. “What are you doing here?”
I shake my head. “No, not until you tell me what you and Mia do together.”
Is that a stab of jealousy I feel?
Fuck. It is.
My brother knows Mia pretty well. He sees her on a regular basis, and they share something in common that’s important to both of them. Books. Something I’m not that into.
And I don’t like it.
This is definitely a problem.
Charlie looks suspicious. And amused. Those are not good things for your older brother to look.
“Why are you so interested in Mia? “he asks.
“Just tell me if you’re interested in Mia.”
My older brother is not just smart, he also knows me very well. All three of my brothers do. It’s very annoying. His gaze takes in the canvas bag I’m carrying. “I’ll tell you what I do with Mia, if you tell me what’s in the bag,” Charlie says.
“So you do something with Mia?” I hate the way my gut clenches. Though this would solve the problem of my attraction to Scott Hansen’s daughter. If my brother has something going on with her, I am definitely out.
“I do,” Charlie says. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks. “We do it about three nights a week.”
Charlie knew her first. He knows her better. He has more in common with her.
I tell myself all of these things, and my rational brain says they make sense.
The knot in my gut doesn’t care.
“How long has it been going on?” I ask.
My brothers and I don’t sit around and talk about our feelings all the time, but we do share a lot about our lives with one another. Losing our parents so young and everything we’ve been through has made us very close.
Our youngest brother, Jack, just lost his wife and has moved back to Sapphire Falls with his two young kids. It fucking sucks to watch him go through more loss, and we’ve all rallied around him.
So, it’s hard to believe that Charlie might be serious about a woman and not tell us, but possibly he’s keeping it to himself for now with everything Jack’s going through.
“Oh geez,” Charlie says, thinking about my question. “Over a year.”
I frown and step closer to him. “You’ve been seeing Mia for over a year, and you haven’t said anything to any of us?”
Charlie gets an aha look on his face. “I’m not dating Mia, David. Don’t worry. You’re free to ask her out.”
Thank fuck.
But I quickly shake my head. “I’m not going to ask her out.”
“Don’t you think you should? Considering how much you hate the idea of anyone else doing that?”
I sigh. Dammit. This will not be the last time Charlie brings this up. And I’m certain the next time—or the next three times—one or more of our brothers will be there. “I can’t date Mia. You know how I feel about Scott.”
“Then why are you here and feeling the urge to punch me thinking I’m dating her?”
That is a very good question. I blow out a breath. “I ran into her the other night. She was out at the river, trying to find animal tracks. I found some for her and brought the molds in. It will keep her from going out there alone again.”
“Ah, just helping her out. Like the good, noble conservation officer you are.”
I narrow my eyes at his sarcastic tone. “Exactly.”
“And do you think that scaring off other men from asking her out is helpful to her too?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
Charlie chuckles. “Okay.” He claps me on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
I slap my hand over his, holding him in place. “Charlie.”
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t told me what you and Mia do together three nights a week.”
Charlie grins. “Does it matter? You don’t want to ask her out.”
I do want to ask her out. I’m just not going to.
But I really wish the answer to Charlie’s question was no. I nod. “Yeah. It does.”
Charlie gives me a knowing look, then says, “We write fanfiction.”
That was not what I was expecting. I blink at him. That wasn’t even on the list of top five things I expected. “You what?”
Charlie shrugs my hand off and steps back.
“We write fanfiction for a series we both read and liked. Well, she read it first and then challenged me to read it. I did, and it was pretty good. But then she told me about the fanfiction for it. I started reading that for the entertainment but then actually got into it. I write on the mystery side, but I definitely read the sex club side.”
I’m staring at him. Is he fucking with me? It’s possible. “The what club?”
“The sex club. That’s the side Mia writes on.”
I don’t even really know what he’s talking about, but I still snort. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious. And she’s amazing.”
I scowl at him. “What’s that mean? Are you having online sex with her? Like in an online chat or something?”
I might kill my brother.
It is not okay that I feel this way about Mia Hansen. But the idea that my brother might be saying things to her like…nope, I can’t even go there.
“Jesus, no.” Charlie laughs.
Laughs.
“Why not? You don’t think she’s sexy?” I demand.
Charlie looks around, and I realize I’ve raised my voice.
I also realize that I shouldn’t be jealous about him potentially having online sex—or real sex—with Mia and then be upset that he doesn’t want to.
I’m losing my mind.
Charlie grabs my arm and pulls me into the alcove just inside the door.
“Okay, you need to relax. She’s an amazing writer .
Fanfiction is when fans of something—a book series, a movie franchise, a TV series—write additional scenes or stories for the characters or set in the established world.
It’s…like an homage. The series is Hot Cakes by Erin Nicholas. It’s a small-town rom-com series.”
“Rom com? It’s a movie?”
“A book series. Romantic comedies. Set in a fictional town in Iowa. The fanfiction takes off where the series ends. But with twists not in the books. There are a couple of mystery fanfic series set in the town. One is cozy mystery that’s a little lighter.
Most of the mysteries happen in or around the bakery in the town, and the bakery owners, Zoe and Josie, help solve them.
Then there are some really gritty ones. Murders and kidnappings. Those are the ones I write in.”
I’m not surprised. Charlie has always loved mysteries and police procedurals.
“Tell me more about the ones Mia writes.”
Charlie grins. “The series about the sex club.”
“Shut up. Yeah.”
“Fun, erotic stuff. They’re funny, but also very hot.
Mia’s little series does the best. The one millionaire from the series, the uptight grumpy one, Grant, actually started the club in her version.
He was apparently her favorite guy in the original series, so she wanted to write more about him and thought it would be funny for the buttoned-up millionaire to own a sex club.
Of course, he’s not buttoned up once he falls for the heroine in his book… ”
Charlie’s gaze goes to something behind me, and I look over.
Mia is near the front desk, about forty feet from where we’re standing. She’s squatting next to a little girl in short, stubby pigtails, looking at a book the girl is showing her.
She’s smiling, and my gut clenches.
But worse….her hair is in a bun. And she’s wearing glasses.
And a pale pink cardigan sweater.
Fuck. Me.