“Does your not girlfriend know about any of this?” she pressed.
“No. And we’re not seeing each other anymore.” She’d gotten a little too demanding. Wanting to make plans, wanting to meet my parents. I couldn’t give her any of that. And I didn’t want to either after I’d overheard her telling one of her friends that the busty Sloane Walton was definitely a slut.
“Oh?” she said innocently.
“You don’t look broken up about it,” I observed.
She shrugged. “She just wasn’t very nice. You could do better. But if you did do better and you were with someone nice, I guess we wouldn’t get to hang out like this. And I kind of like our secret little friendship or…whatever.”
Friendship didn’t describe what I felt for her. I was friends with Knox and Nash Morgan. But I sure as hell wouldn’t curl up with them in a pillow nest to listen to music. Hell, I wouldn’t do that with Addie either. Maybe Cindy Crawford.
“I like us too,” I told her.
I caught a glimpse of the bright smile she couldn’t quite hide as she ducked her head and reached for the CD player.
I slid my arm around her shoulder and guided her head to rest on my chest. Between the pillows, Shania Twain’s “From This Moment On,” and the soft, warm heat of Sloane pressed up against me, I felt almost happy. I could nearly pretend that this was my life. Here in this house. With the good, sweet girl in my arms.
The song was over too quickly, changing to a country anthem. Something about black eyes and blue tears. She was never going back. It must have been the exhaustion that painted the story in my head. Walking away. Moving on. Growing up.
For a second, I wanted it so badly that I didn’t realize how tight I was clinging to Sloane until my fingers started to ache.
Wincing, I relaxed my grip on her. She tilted her head to look up at me. “It’s okay. You can hang on to me. I won’t break.”
I pushed her face back down and resumed my hold on her, keeping it gentle this time.
The track changed again. The third song was the ballad “I Won’t Leave You Lonely,” and despite my best efforts, the words got in my head and tattooed themselves on my soul. I’d never be able to hear this song and not think about Sloane and how safe she made me feel. I wanted to hear it again, but I wasn’t about to ask her to replay it. Maybe I’d buy the album myself…and hide it in my car.
When the final chords of the song played in my ear, Sloane slid a slim arm over my stomach and clung to me. I’d fulfilled my promise of three songs. But there was nothing for me at home. And there was everything for me here.
She didn’t say anything when the next song began. Neither did I.
12
Livin’ La Vida Library
Sloane
T
he library was my happy place, not my horny place.
Despite the action my vibrator had seen last night, I still unlocked the door feeling edgy and unsatisfied. And I blamed him.
I relocked the door and flicked on the first-floor lights. My shoulders instantly relaxed as the quiet and natural order soothed me.
I loved being the first person here in the mornings. Loved soaking up these precious moments of silence while gearing up for another day. Despite the stereotypes, the library was rarely quiet. There were two quiet rooms tucked away at the back of the first floor for studying or reading or the weekly meditation class. But there was life in these walls.
When I’d first become head librarian, we’d been crammed into a musty municipal building with peeling linoleum floors, flickering fluorescent lights, and creaky metal shelves. The entire catalog was about a decade out of date, and the staff and patrons had to share two eight-year-old laptops.
Now, the citizens of Knockemout entered a bright, airy space with cozy seating nooks, lightning fast Wi-Fi, two entire floors of books and media, and all the technology a reader could want.
Books on every subject sat neatly on the white oak shelves lined up like a precision marching band. The long, low circulation desk was clutter-free and ready for business. We’d gone with a wheelchair-friendly low-pile carpet in a soft green that made me think of grassy pastures. Tuesday morning sunlight slanted in through the generous windows, bathing several varieties of houseplants in its beams.
Dumping my tote on the circulation desk, I cued up a fun playlist of instrumental versions of pop songs over the sound system and booted up the two desktop computers.
I checked the events calendar posted on the wall against the internal calendar to make sure the listings were up-to-date and made mental notes to send a confirmation email to the animal rescue for our Caturday event and order extra cookies for Drag Queen Story Hour since we’d run out early last month.
Two organizations had the upstairs conference rooms booked for meetings today, which meant I needed to make sure the tables were configured correctly and the whiteboards were free of teenage graffiti.
The fish girl was coming to rebalance the water in the children’s section fish tank. I fired off a quick text to Jamal, the youth services librarian, to ask him if he’d run the UV wand over the floor cushions since the elementary school had reported an outbreak of pink eye yesterday.
Coffee came next.
I stowed my bag under the desk and headed for the coffee counter. We’d sprung for one of those fancy instant espresso machines and a dishwasher to deal with the mugs. Not only did patrons enjoy the step up from regular drip coffee, it was just another experience that encouraged them to stay a little longer. To take a breath and enjoy themselves with a book or socialize with staff and patrons.
Machine levels checked and coffee condiments restocked, I unloaded the previous day’s mugs from the dishwasher and organized them on their hooks.
I wondered if Lucian felt like this when he strode into his offices every morning. Was it pride like I felt?
Not that I was thinking about him again, because I definitely wasn’t.
Except now I definitely was. Had he even thought about me after I’d left his office yesterday?
“Oh my God. Stop!” I said to myself out loud.
“Stop what?”
“Mother of dragons! Where did you come from?” I demanded, immediately dropping the hands I’d raised in a protective stance.
Naomi, pretty in a long-sleeve ribbed dress and tights, stood clutching a gallon-sized to-go coffee.
“That depends on how far back you want to go. I woke up to my naked husband—”
I held up a hand. “New rule in our friendship. No bragging about your stellar sex life when your friend is in the middle of a dry spell.”
“That’s fair,” Naomi agreed. Despite the fact that she already had a cup of coffee in hand, she headed straight for the espresso maker. A swing of chestnut hair fell over her face in a perfect wave.
“Your hair looks good,” I noted.
“Thanks. Waylay did it. Jeremiah got her an astronomically expensive curling iron for Christmas, and she’s already mastered it. So what are we stopping?”
“Hmm?” I feigned innocence.
“You were standing there lost in some sort of reverie and then ordered yourself to stop.”
I hadn’t mentioned yesterday’s “unfortunate incident” with Lucian to Naomi and Lina. Mainly because I didn’t want to deal with their demands for a play-by-play or their misguided hopes that this was the beginning of the end of our feud. I also didn’t want to admit to anyone that Lucian Rollins had made my lady parts feel things they had no business feeling where he was concerned.