Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
HARMONY
Harmony slid a finger over the white paper she’d liberated from the library’s copier, pressing along a perfect crease. A few more folds, and there. When she launched it with a practiced flick of her wrist, the paper plane soared gently across the library to land among the several others she’d already thrown, littering the counter around Preston and his computer.
He pretended to ignore it. Even from the table where she’d encamped each day this week, Harmony could see his jaw tense, hear the clacking of his keyboard intensify. He’d forbidden her from the circulation counter unless she was checking out books—and she didn’t bother with library cards. Records and paper trails and permanent addresses were for other people; any book she borrowed found its way home eventually, she assumed. So each missile was also a missive written before folding:
Let’s talk after work .
Meet me for drinks .
Coffee before work tomorrow?
She’d figured out his problem. Or one, at least. He was dead serious about sticking to work at work. She needed to get him someplace outside the library. Then her pitch could stand a chance.
The man was so damn serious in general. Very guarded. Except that one moment when he’d removed his glasses, and suddenly looked startlingly vulnerable, even as the unfiltered force of his icy blue stare hit her dead on. Not that he was wrong to be wary—she was a con woman, after all, and he was part of her scheme. But he was also in her way.
Harmony didn’t spend time worrying about her marks, though as she scribbled Margaritas at the Moonlight Bar tonight, my treat and began folding another plane, a twinge of—it couldn’t be guilt , because Harmony didn’t believe in looking backward. But an uncomfortable feeling pinched in her gut at the thought of conning the librarian, who was willing to risk his job for the kids he worked with. And caring for an orphaned sister. Hmm.
Harmony dragged a coral nail along another crease. Silly. She wasn’t going to steal from Preston. (She left out of this lecture she was giving herself how she wasn’t actually going to cough up all that money she’d been dangling in front of him either.) When she was done with this job, it would be as if she had never been here at all. She threw the plane.
It glided through the air and landed exactly on top of Preston’s perfectly parted hair.
He slowly closed his eyes. Sighed. Removed the paper plane from his head and dropped it on the counter. Ignored the unrepentant, hopeful smile Harmony flashed him.
Though she watched for several minutes, he refused to even peek at the note. Harmony couldn’t help her smile flagging. But let him try—no one could ignore Harmony for long. She was clearly wearing him down. She’d damn well better be, after all her efforts. He couldn’t banish her from the entire library, so she was there, mostly pretending to work on emails and spreadsheets for the festival. But while he worked among the library’s tall wooden bookshelves, he might run into her perusing titles with a tilted head. Then she could pretend he’d sought her out: “Did you want to talk more about the festival?” Or as he changed out a bulletin board display at the front of the children’s section, she would happen to be coming back from the library’s printer, and wave a spreadsheet and recite the benefits to the community the event would bring. He’d looked vaguely horrified when, on her way to the washroom, she’d stopped by the start of preschool storytime. She’d paused behind the rows of distracted parents and nannies and an indistinguishable and loud tumble of children on a rug tucked into a nook under winding stairs, and beamed at him as he set his shoulders and began reading Don’t Hug Doug!
She was still right there at her usual work table today and overheard when an older woman stuck her head out of an office behind the front desk and checked that Preston would be back after his break—the last few days he’d been in early and gone after three, but apparently some days he stayed through the afternoon. So while he went off to the school, Harmony visited Alice at Buzzed.
“A kid,” she said when she reached the front of the line.
Alice grimaced. “I know. I said sorry.”
“An entire human child.” She handed over a twenty. Cash kept you invisible.
“Your regular latte?”
“And whatever our father of the year usually orders?”
Alice nodded, her eyes flicking toward the back corner of the room for the third time.
Harmony swept her gaze over the leather couches and tables where people camped out with laptops or sat chatting. A mob of teenagers fresh out of class entered through the glass door, immediately doubling the ambient volume of the coffeehouse. “Is Mr. Sargent in attendance today? I need to witness the face that launched a thousand distractions.”
“Red shirt, at your ten.”
Harmony casually leaned past the glass jars of biscotti to catch sight of a solidly built young man in a short-sleeved button-down and jeans nursing a coffee, listening attentively to an elderly lady at the next table bent forward and chattering. Except when his eyes strayed from his neighbor over to the counter, under dark lashes.
“Oh, yeah, I get it now.” Evan Sargent looked like a teddy bear. Alice might fall in love more than anyone else, and she wasn’t exactly picky , but she had some set standards. No assholes need apply. “He seems sweet.”
Alice’s lips twisted in a satisfied grin as she finished making the drinks. “He gets a second coffee every day now, during the afternoon lull.”
Harmony raised her brows. “Decaf or regular?”
“Decaf.” Alice passed the drinks over the counter with a wary look.
“He really must be smitten.” She winked at a smiling Alice before turning around straight into Jordan DaCosta, the teen protester from the town hall meeting.
Drinks held wide, Harmony shifted to block the girl from moving forward. “Oh, hey! Jordan, right?”
Beneath her dark bangs the girl’s gaze shifted away. Not quite an eye roll. “Hey.”
Yeah, Harmony would be suspicious of herself too. This kid was sharp. Over her shoulder, Harmony told Alice, “Her drink’s on me.”
Jordan’s gaze snapped to Harmony. “I don’t need your money. I’m not poor.”
“But I was once,” Harmony said, setting down Preston’s cup and passing another bill to Alice. Not that she had ever become actually rich rich, not yet, the way she blew through her hauls, just good at playing the part. “And now it makes me happy to do nice little things for the deserving.”
Jordan’s lip curled. “And that’s me?” She huffed out a long breath, setting her hair dancing. “Can you tell Mayor Weaver that? He called my mom and said I have to do fifty volunteer hours for hacking the city’s speakers, if I don’t want charges brought. And he won’t approve them for the club I’m in.”
“That doesn’t sound very brotherly and beautiful of him.”
“He’s just trying to make sure I don’t have time to protest anymore. I’ve got school and clubs, plus I gotta babysit. He’s a total fascist.”
This kid was endearing herself more and more to Harmony. Jordan might not be poor, but she wasn’t part of the clique of students or parents with all the sway in Brookville. Again, she reminded Harmony of her younger self a bit, even if she was already trying to help the world rather than just herself. And Harmony wasn’t about to let Travis stomp all over anyone else’s life, not if she could help it. “Maybe you could come intern for the festival.” As in, maybe Harmony could sign off on all those hours and let Jordan off the hook, just like how anyone with Travis’s status always got away with their youthful hijinks.
“Me?”
Harmony nodded. “I’m a big fan of your work with those speakers at town hall. We could use someone like you on staff.”
Uncertainty flashed in the girl’s eyes. “I don’t have any real experience with, like, sound systems or whatever.”
“Mmm.” Harmony took a sip of her latte. Just the right temp—Alice knew she never waited for coffee to cool off. “But you’ve got passion. We need local interns to organize the community booths—places for people to go and keep busy between acts. There’ll be merch stalls and radio stations, that kind of thing, but also community groups, health education, student groups, local colleges, volunteer organizations.” She cocked a brow. “Activist organizations. Whatever you can get.”
Jordan shifted in her Vans. “That sounds kind of cool.”
“A lot of it can be done online, and you’d just log your hours yourself.” She inclined her head. “It would leave plenty of time for whatever else you have going on. Just gets to be a bunch of grunt work during the event itself, to be honest.” Or as honest as Harmony ever got. There wouldn’t be any festival for students to hustle at, but the more the community bought into the idea and invested in plans, the harder it would be for Travis to say no when she pulled the headliner trick on him. And in the meantime, Harmony could help set Jordan up for success in whatever she would tackle next. Teach her how to play the game to get what she wanted. Harmony had always been able to talk her way out of trouble, but after her dad died and she’d been left to make her own way, she’d really had to figure out how to sneak into the world where people like Travis Weaver and other rich kids coasted along, instead of getting kicked back down to where they’d started with every bump. It was the only way to make sure they’d never walk all over you.
The ASB president from the town hall meeting was behind a group of girls chatting so intensely about something that had happened in math class they hadn’t noticed Harmony and Jordan holding up the line. She was the one kid who hadn’t shut Jordan out completely the other night, smiling at her when all the others were laughing. There was potential there. “Her usual too,” Harmony told Alice.
Jordan was digging a thumbnail into the side seam of her jeans. “All that stuff you said at the meeting. I could hear you. You’re, like, really loud.”
Harmony smiled. “I am.”
Jordan met her eyes, and there was that fire Harmony had recognized. “It’s all bullshit. Civic whatever. Most of this town is bullshit. Most of the world.”
“Yeah.” Harmony took another measured sip and set down her cup. “It’s all one big con. So bullshit them right back. You have to learn how to direct your power, though. What the bullshitters call leadership skills.” She grabbed the drinks Alice set on the counter and passed them to Jordan. “Get yourself some of those and you’ll be unstoppable. Now, go give Miss Future Congresswoman there her drink and see what you can pick up.”
Jordan turned, drinks in hand, to follow Harmony’s gaze to the tall blonde girl checking things off with a gel pen in a planner she’d dug out of her Kate Spade purse. “Um.” She went rigid, eyes falling to the tile floor, blush climbing up her face.
“Can’t be shy if you want to be the change and all that.” Harmony gave her a gentle nudge between the shoulder blades. “First lesson: use your network of acquaintances to get ahead. That’s the kind of girl who will know how to get organized.” And if the class president accepted Jordan, then the rest of the kids would follow. “Ask her to collaborate on interning, I bet the two of you could work some magic together. Come on, I want to see what level of chaos you unleash on the world next.”
Jordan made her way over to her classmate. “Hi. Um. Mochaccino?” She thrust one of the cups out at the other girl.
A smile lit the girl’s face, then she immediately busied herself putting away and rearranging things in her bag. “You know my mom said I can’t hang out with you anymore,” she said softly, glancing around at the girls ahead in line, the adults seated with their coffees.
“Yeah, but she also said you can’t go to GSA, but you’re heading there, aren’t you?” All the attitude that had drained away flooded back in the confident set of Jordan’s shoulders.
Miss ASB bit her lip but couldn’t hide the flush over her cheeks, her returning smile as she took the offered drink. “Yeah.”
Jordan angled her head toward the door. “Want to walk over together?” And with that, the two girls and their flirty grins slipped outside, chased by a flash of afternoon sunlight.
Huh. That hadn’t played out quite how Harmony expected. Something fell into place. “The Weavers’ kid?” She glanced back at Alice for confirmation. Nina, the daughter with the bright future following in Travis’s footsteps—not into tech, as Harmony had assumed, but politics. And the Genders and Sexualities Alliance?
Alice leaned forward on crossed arms, clearly satisfied to have this info ready. She spoke with the arch voice she always used when quoting a reference or meme she knew from being extremely online. “Harold, they’re lesbians.”
Well, if the Weavers got mad she’d pushed their kid back into the arms of her forbidden crush, Harmony would deal with that later. She left Alice mooning at Evan and gave the younger lovebirds space on their walk to the library, so when she arrived there they and the rest of the GSA were already disappearing through the stacks toward a conference room in the back, ushered by a small middle-aged woman in a fabulous dyed silk jacket. Preston was back at the front desk, finishing helping someone with a giant tote bag of books, so Harmony broke his rule about visiting the counter to deliver his drink.
He stared at the cup in her hand like it was some alien artifact. “I don’t drink coffee.”
“Good thing it’s tea.” He opened his mouth. “Black tea, one sugar, milk.” His mouth clamped shut.
“How did you—” His eyebrows practically high-fived each other as his forehead furrowed.
“It’s amazing what some people will do for you when you ask nicely.”
“Right.” His already low voice dropped like a stone to a sardonic rumble. “Because your superpower is ignoring boundaries and beguiling everyone you meet.”
“Oh,” she said with a pleased wiggle of her shoulders. “Do I beguile you?”
“That’s not—” He frowned and still didn’t take the cup. His superpower was being less fun than a week’s worth of detention.
She set the cup beside his computer. “Your tea’s getting cold.”
He was already typing. “It’s not my tea.” He stared hard at the screen where she was pretty sure he was only pretending to work to get rid of her. His lips pursed as if in concentration or holding more words back. Which was at least an improvement from the flat line Preston often pinched them into; they were full and looked soft and perfect for— wait , hit the brakes.
Since when was she attracted to this walking, talking OED in corduroy and glasses?
Harmony returned to her table in a hurry and dropped into her seat, slightly affronted by the idea of being into a guy who was part of a con, a guy so unlike her normal flings. Wanting to wash away the thought, she took a quick sip of her latte, forgetting how full the cup still was, and promptly choked on it. She struggled not to cough and earn another shushing from Preston, whose penetrating gaze on her was probably because she was making noise, but which stirred an entirely different sort of turmoil through her chest.
She tried to brush his concern off—and unleashed something that came out half scoffing, half drowning in sugary coffee. A scoff cough.
Preston’s eyes flared and she dropped her face back toward the speckled blue laminate of her table. This was taking forever and she was getting bored, that was all, and Alice was right, it always got Harmony into trouble. Like realizing how this table was the exact brilliant shade of Preston’s eyes. She let out an annoyed wheeze. She was becoming just as bad as her friend; Harmony always kept all that separate from her jobs. The one time she hadn’t, with Zach, it’d been a disaster. Harmony wasn’t about to make that mistake again, no matter how many noble speeches Preston gave about books helping kids just like she’d once been; this was all his fault, for being so damn stubborn and dragging this phase of her plan out and forcing her to stare at his ridiculously glossy hair and killer cheekbones all day every day. She took a slower sip of her latte and focused on going through the documentation she and Alice had been pulling together for Travis once she got Preston locked into the plan.
A moment later, a little girl wearing a purple backpack and carrying a stack of books emerged from the children’s section and stared at Harmony, then the chair next to her, then Harmony again.
Thank god for a distraction. Harmony gestured at the empty seat. “Do you want to sit here?”
The girl nodded.
“Cool.” She shifted her things to one side of the table so the girl could dump her books. The girl pulled a binder and worksheets from her backpack, and was soon engrossed in homework. Harmony caught Preston still peering at her, that mouth still tense. Probably annoyed she was taking up space from real library users. Harmony pointedly busied herself with her own pretend homework (loudly typing Preston Jones is a buttoned-up stalk of unbending bamboo a few times), and Preston had to stop trying to stare her out of the building to help a man checking out a book and a stack of DVDs. After a rush of people checking out, he was still working on the computer, and she caught him absentmindedly reach out a hand, lift the cup of tea to his lips, and take a sip. He noticed what he was doing and frowned, setting down the cup.
But a moment later he picked up the tea and sipped again.
Yeah, he was definitely wearing down, and none too soon. Time to strike—once he was away from the forbidden desk. Harmony tapped her pen against her folio, impatient. The little girl, pretty hair hiding her face like a dark curtain, was drawing something now. A picture of a crab among stars, lines of poetry written across its wide shell.
“That’s neat,” Harmony said. She pulled a dollar from her purse, her fingers working as she talked. “You like astrology?”
The girl lifted her horrified gaze and shook her head. She pointed to her books, which now Harmony saw were all about space, the blue nonfiction sticker bright on each glossy spine.
“Oh, a scientist then.” She tucked the paper triangles she’d made into each other.
A sharp nod.
“And the strong, silent type. Impressive.” Don’t talk to strangers, Harmony figured. She held out what she’d folded for the girl. The bill was just the right shape for making a paper star.
The girl took it with a grin, and immediately pulled it apart, then handed it back to Harmony. So she showed the girl how she’d made it, step by step. The girl made a lopsided star of her own just as Preston emerged from behind the counter pushing a cartload of books.
“Gotta go,” she told the girl, standing and smoothing down her sweater and circle skirt. “See you later, stargazer.” Harmony wrinkled her nose and waggled her head. “I can do better. Got it—” She snapped a finger and shot finger guns at the girl. “After a while, astrophile.”
The girl let out a laugh, a sweet small giggle that seemed to blossom above their table.
Preston halted and shot them a startled look.
“Uh-oh,” Harmony told the girl. “Mr. Grumpy Librarian is gonna shush us. It’s his favorite thing, and I am definitely not. I’d better go before I get you kicked out.”
The girl shook her head, a doubtful smile on her face, and Harmony knew she was right; Preston wasn’t going to eject any kids from his library. His surprise was already melting into a tentative, pleased expression she hadn’t seen from him before, and he was on his way again to a set of glass shelves in an open space between the front entrance and the children’s section.
Harmony swept after him, but someone else waylaid him, a Black woman with a short brown bob coming into the library, a small batch of books clutched in one arm. “You were right about this series! The romance was so good. ”
Preston nodded. “I love the pairing in book two especially, if you’re still getting to that one.”
“Ha, I read both this week. I need more recommendations.”
“You’re in luck.” Preston pulled a bright blue book from his cart. “The next one just came in.”
The woman’s eyes lit up. “ Yes , weekend plans set.” With her new find, she made for the return drop near the checkout counter, and Preston began setting books from the cart out on the shelves, propped on little metal display holders or neatly stacked in color-coordinated groupings.
When he saw Harmony approach, his pleasant expression shuttered. “I have work to do,” he said, almost to himself.
Another pinch in her gut. Why was he so cold only with her? It was getting old, keeping up her enthusiasm in the face of his frosty reception, his stiff shoulders and stern mouth. “So do I,” she said to the back of his corduroy jacket while he arranged books. “Don’t make me put off the mayor again—I want to be able to kick things off officially next week.” He opened his mouth as he grabbed more books, and she steered around whatever objection he was about to unleash. “Let’s talk about it outside work. Drinks. You and me. Tonight.”
“As tempting as it is—” The tips of his ears went a bit pink, and he turned back to the display he was creating. “The idea of sticking it to the Weavers in some way, I mean. It would be reckless. Unfair to people who are relying on the library’s programming.” Hands full of books, he pointed with his chin toward the back of the library. “Those kids in there right now, for starters.”
It had been unfair for her father to lose everything he’d built too. She had to take down the Weavers for him. But Preston was annoyingly good , with his after-school clubs and showing elderly people how to download e-books and helping young ones print résumés and reading to storytimes full of adorable urchins he’d probably hired from central casting to make her feel bad about conning him. It wasn’t like she could get upset with him for standing up for the kids in his community, like she pretended to in every town she grifted, but—no, yeah, she was definitely upset. She ignored the heat rising up her neck. “The Weavers aren’t going to get you fired for leasing land to the festival the entire town wants to host.” Preston turned back, reaching for another book. “Come on, light a votive candle to your patron saint Dewey Decimal and take a chance.”
Preston froze. Blinked. Gave her his iciest stare yet. “Please tell me you don’t actually think his last name was Decimal .”
She huffed. “Whatever!” Not only annoyingly good, just plain annoying. She was the one who never let her mask of cool slip, but now it was melting as her frustration burned hotter. And this unflappable jackass went on with his work, chilly as an ice cream factory in January. She normally didn’t play too hard with the feelings of the innocents she conned, but right now she’d like to show Preston just how good she was. She’d like to see that mouth, pressed now in a thin, sharp line, kiss-swollen and panting. The careful control in his eyes flooded instead with want. That wickedly parted hair mussed, tie loosened, all those buttons at his neck and wrists undone. Him undone.
She sucked in a breath. Dammit, she was supposed to be working her spell on him, but somehow she was the only one who seemed hot and bothered. Preston was muttering something about Melvil Dewey being a sexist, racist creep undeserving of canonization, and she found herself interrupting, saying, “So you need to get the town on your side. Cheryl Weaver’s only one person. Get out there and win people over.”
“I don’t.” Preston stared at her blankly. “Do that.”
“Oh, come on, you’re halfway to being my new best friend. You got me to spend my whole week someplace I can’t even make noise—do you know how powerful that is?”
“You said our wi-fi was better than your hotel’s.”
“Preston, I was joking.”
“Oh.” He gave her a deeply uncomfortable look. “The thing is—I’m autistic. Winning people over—” He drummed one hand against his thigh. “It’s a statistically proven fact that autistics are judged unlikable by neurotypicals.” Her mouth fell open, and he rushed on as if she was going to interrupt again. “But it doesn’t matter, because I’m good at my job, and it’s important to me. Did you know the therapies used to force autistic kids to act in ways seen as normal have the same origins as the conversion therapy that tries to force kids not to be queer? Some people want to erase us all. The clubs and books for every kid, showing every kid—disabled too—they say we exist. That it’s okay that we do. As we are.” He directed his entire intense gaze at her, piercing and earnest even through his glasses. “That’s life changing. Life saving for some kids.”
What the actual fuck? Was this what Cheryl had meant, when her friend from the school board had chastised her for talking about Preston? Harmony’s entire face flushed, not with annoyance or attraction or whatever the hell she’d been feeling, but with full-out anger. That tacky bully deserved Travis. Harmony couldn’t wait until she left them with only each other. No millions anymore. They’d be fucking miserable. But that wasn’t going to be enough. She needed to take this censorship thing in hand. Show them they couldn’t swing around the power they’d bought however they liked.
“I’m fine not being”—Preston waved a hand at her vaguely—“charming.” His finger began spinning a silver ring he wore on his thumb. “Except now Cheryl Weaver’s made this her mission, and I don’t know what to do.”
She’d been right about one thing. Her week wearing him down was paying off. He was opening up a little. Which gave her the in she needed. “Luckily for you, I can charm anyone. Well, jury’s still out on you.” He’d called her charming, but then why was he being such a prick to her? She scrunched her nose and gave a little shrug. “Outlier.”
He glanced over at the table she’d made her own, probably imagining her hounding him all next week too. But then he said, “I saw. Lacey doesn’t take to most people like that.”
She looked again at the girl, seated closest to where Preston often worked, folding some of Harmony’s copy paper into more stars. “That’s your sister?” He was watching her fondly, and when he returned his gaze to Harmony, the fondness lingered. It sent warmth threading through her. She shook her head at Preston, before the grid of glass shelves. “Should have known. She’s cute. Like her brother.” With that last part she laced her voice with playful flirtation, and she didn’t know if she was conning him anymore or just herself.
But the library was important to him, so it would be how they both got what they wanted. That was why she was helping. One more nail in the coffin of the high life the Weavers had stolen from her father. “I can turn the town’s public opinion in your favor,” she told him. “If I’m staying in Brookville for the festival. If I have a site.”
“Ms. Hale—”
“Harmony.”
“Headache.” He was matter-of-fact about calling her that, going on with what he’d been saying: “I’m not sure even you can dissuade people from the Weavers’ wishes.” Was she still fooling herself, hearing some regret there? “And there’s too much at stake.”
Harmony often bent trust her way with mere smoke and mirrors. But she was beginning to suspect Preston was so hard to flimflam because he simply didn’t have any trust to manipulate. So she’d have to prove herself.
“I’ll show you. Tonight. Moonlight Bar.” She reached out and smoothed down the velvety lapel of his jacket, because physical contact garnered compliance, not because she wanted to touch him. “We’ll crash girls’ night. Half-price margaritas every Friday.”
His stupid soft-looking lips quirked. “I thought you said your treat.”
“Hmm.” This guy didn’t let a single detail slide. But he had read her note, eventually. Maybe he only needed a little more reason to agree. Or maybe she’d found the one person in California she couldn’t con. “I’ll buy you two.”
He raised a dubious eyebrow. “I’m not a big drinker.”
Of course not, because that would require he ever actually loosened up. Not that she was, either. “Oh, good, then I’ll buy us one, and we can sip it together with those cute little bendy straws.” She mimed pinching a straw and pursed her lips.
His gaze dropped to her playacting, and he swallowed. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Success. She’d never doubted herself for a minute.
“Yes.”