34. Paige
Paige
The final circle on Josie’s summer-reading map has been empty all summer and approximately six minutes too long.
She slides the bright yellow card across the circulation desk with both hands and places a chapter book on top of it.
“I finished.”
Aiden stands behind her carrying two empty supply boxes, a folding sign, and the expression of a man who has been listening to this countdown since breakfast.
“All of it?” I ask.
Josie gasps. “I never skip the ending.”
“Your father does.”
“I read the important parts,” Aiden says.
“You read until you’re sure you know the ending, then get offended when the book proves you wrong.”
Josie looks over her shoulder. “That’s skipping.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
Aiden’s eyes narrow at both of us. “Can we confirm the twenty books before this becomes a coordinated attack?”
I open Josie’s book and ask her what happened after they found the missing horse. Her answer includes a cave, a thunderstorm, and a detailed critique of the adults’ decision-making.
I stamp the final circle.
“You did it.”
Josie cheers loudly enough to interrupt the closing celebration behind us. Several children abandon the craft table to see what happened, and she holds up her completed map.
“I read twenty books!”
Applause moves through the children’s section. Josie glows beneath the applause, proud and pink-cheeked. I hand her the glittery dragon sticker she chose on the first day of the challenge.
Aiden sets everything beside the workroom door where I told him to leave it. Over the past hour, he has carried tables, restocked water, found three missing pairs of scissors, and kept the snack station from becoming a frosting-related crime scene.
Each time, he’s asked before changing anything. The instinct to solve a problem is still there, I can see it in his face, but now he waits. He checks if it’s his problem to solve at all.
“Where do you want the extra prize bags?”
“Behind the desk, please.”
He nods and carries them there.
One of the mothers beside the checkout station watches him go. “He’s very helpful.”
“He’s had extensive training.”
Aiden glances back. “I can hear you.”
“Then your hearing is improving too.”
His gaze touches my mouth before dropping to the blue paper star stuck near the hem of my dress. The heat in his eyes has nothing to do with libraries or personal growth.
Commitment hasn’t made him less interested; it’s sharpened his focus. There’s a new confidence in his gaze, a possessiveness that isn’t about ownership, but about a promise he intends to spend years keeping. A promise of benefits I’m just beginning to understand.
Josie takes my hand and pulls me toward a girl from her class.
“This is Paige,” she says.
The girl nods. “I know. She does story time.”
“She’s also my dad’s girlfriend.”
A breath catches in my throat. The simple pride in Josie’s voice is a physical thing, warm and sudden.
Her friend’s gaze bounces between Aiden and me, calculating. “Does that mean you live at her house?”
“No,” Josie says. “She has a cabin and a private library, and she comes every Friday.”
An impressively accurate summary.
The girl accepts it and asks whether the dragon sticker glows in the dark. Josie releases me to begin an investigation.
Aiden stops beside me. “You okay?”
“I am.”
He studies my face anyway. “She announced that loudly.”
“She’s six. Every announcement is loud.”
His hand settles at my waist. “Girlfriend?”
I look toward Josie, who is holding her sticker beneath a table to test the glow.
“I chose it.”
Aiden bends and kisses me, brief enough for the library and warm enough to send a shiver all the way to my feet.
A little boy nearby says, “Ew.”
“Appropriate public response,” I tell him.
Aiden smiles against my temple before returning to the last stack of chairs.
Over the next half hour, the celebration thins out. Families leave with certificates, prizes, and more sugar than anyone should consume before dinner. When the final patron walks out, I lock the front door and turn toward the happy mess.
Josie is arranging her completed reading map inside a protective folder. Aiden waits beside her instead of beginning cleanup without me.
I survey the tables and leftover cupcakes, but my gaze settles on the two people I want more time with.
Then I make a plan.
“Text your parents,” I tell Aiden. “Axel and Sadie too. Adrienne, Scotty, and the kids.”
His eyebrows lift. “Everyone?”
“That is a very limited definition of everyone for your family.”
“What am I telling them?”
“That I’m hosting a small celebration at my library tonight.” I point at the cupcakes. “Seven o’clock. No additional relatives and no arriving early.”
Aiden’s slow smile unwinds something tight in my chest.
“You’re inviting my family into your Friday.”
“I am.”
“On purpose?”
I walk into his arms. “Try not to make me regret it.”
He kisses my forehead and reaches for his phone.
“No promises, girlfriend.”
At seven-oh-four, the blue paper star is still stuck to my dress, Hudson is standing on the private-library porch with two grocery bags, and Deven is explaining why arriving early would have violated the invitation.
“It’s four minutes after seven,” Hudson says.
“Because I made you drive around the ranch once.”
“There was no reason to circle the barn.”
“There was every reason. Paige said no one early.”
I open the door wider. “You may enter.”
Hudson lifts the bags. “I brought ice cream.”
“You may enter first.”
Axel and Sadie arrive with Poppy. Adrienne and Scotty follow carrying Silas, who points at the cupcakes and says, “Cake,” with the conviction of a man announcing his evening plans.
Aiden leans close. “You invited them.”
“I remember.”
“Still happy about it?”
I look at the people waiting on my porch, their hands full and voices quiet, waiting for me to invite them in. They haven’t claimed a single chair.
“Yes.”
I direct the food to the porch table and put Hudson in charge of ice cream. The reading chair is off-limits, I tell Axel, since Josie has claimed it for the presentation of her completed map.
“You’ve become very authoritative,” Aiden says.
“It’s my library.”
His mouth brushes my temple. “Exactly.”
Josie waits until everyone has a cupcake before holding up her map.
“I read twenty books,” she says. “Paige checked because librarians have to make sure you don’t lie.”
“An inspiring summary of my profession.”
Poppy examines the stamps. “I read more than twenty.”
“This is my celebration,” Josie tells her.
“I’m only saying.”
“Then you can have your own celebration.”
Sadie presses her lips together. Axel watches them, a slow grin spreading across his face.
I raise my glass of lemonade. “To Josie, for finishing twenty books and having strong opinions about every single one.”
“They made bad choices.”
“Frequently.”
Everyone lifts a glass. Josie accepts the attention with a grin, then returns to the reading chair with Poppy to compare dragon stickers.
The family moves between the library and porch, and the gathering stays the intimate size I'd intended. Deven asks about the final summer-reading numbers. Hudson tells me the shelves could hold another thousand books if I arrange them properly.
“I do arrange books properly.”
“Then you might fit twelve hundred.”
Aiden takes the ice-cream scoop away from his father. “Stop reorganizing her library.”
“I’m estimating capacity.”
“You’re done.”
Hudson accepts the correction and steals half of Aiden’s cupcake.
I laugh with Adrienne, rescue a napkin from Silas, and explain to Sadie why the romance shelf will require its own ladder eventually. Every conversation flows toward me. I'm the center of this space, not an addition to theirs, and the difference is a quiet, steadying hum beneath the chatter.
By eight fifteen, the overlapping voices begin scraping at the edges of my concentration.
Aiden notices. He always notices now. His gaze meets mine from across the porch, but he stays beside the cooler and lets me decide what happens next.
“I’m taking twenty quiet minutes,” I announce. “The porch remains open. The library does not.”
“Can I come?” Josie asks.
“Not this time.”
She considers that. “Is the door going to be locked?”
“Yes.”
“Then we have to wait,” she tells Poppy. “That’s the rule.”
I scan their faces for any sign of offense but find none. Deven simply gathers the empty plates and leads everyone outside. Aiden holds the door until the last person crosses the threshold, then pauses beside me.
“Take your twenty,” he says.
I close the door and turn the lock.
The room quiets immediately. I settle onto the window seat, remove the paper star from my dress, and open the book beside me. Laughter rises through the screened window. I read three pages, then close my eyes and let the silence return me to myself.
No one knocks.
When I open the door twenty minutes later, Hudson is arguing that melted ice cream still qualifies as ice cream. Adrienne disagrees on scientific grounds. Josie runs over and takes my hand, her grip warm and unquestioning as she leads me toward the porch.
Aiden slides a fresh glass of lemonade toward me and continues listening to Scotty’s story. His hand finds the back of my chair, warm and familiar, without making my return an event.
The last car leaves shortly after nine. Aiden’s phone vibrates for the fourth time while we’re carrying dishes inside.
He glances at the screen and stops walking.
“What happened?”
“Ethan.” He sets the plates on the desk and opens a message. His expression hardens as he watches whatever is playing on the screen.
I move beside him. The video is short and shaky, filmed outside one of the barns at the Texas ranch.
Ethan has a man backed against a truck while two ranch hands attempt to pull him away.
I can’t hear what started it. I hear Ethan tell the man he has ten seconds to get off Slade property before the recording cuts out.
“How many people have seen that?”
Aiden looks at the number beneath the video. “Too many.”
His phone rings again. This time, the screen says Wyatt.
Aiden answers. “Tell me no one was hurt.”