“Oh, I’ve just been suffering from insomnia lately.”
“Have you tried tea?” I nodded.
“Yeah, I just need to get things in order. They’ll calm down soon.” God, I hoped so. If we could just make a breakthrough with this one scene we were working on, then the rest of the story would fall into place.
“Okay, well let me know if you need a few days off. It’s been a while since you took a vacation, and we all need some time every now and then.” She patted my shoulder and I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile.
“Thanks, Madeline. I’ll be fine.” I’d gone through this before, but I’d been better at hiding it, I guess. Maybe I would have to start doing those energy shots, even though they were so bad for you.
She gave me a severe look before she went back out front.
Resting my head on the desk, I resisted the urge to scream.
“Having a rough day?” A sexy British voice said. I inhaled for a moment before I raised my head. Nope, not a hallucination. He was there. Wearing a suit with a silky black tie, his hair slicked back and a smile on his face. It was the smile of a man who knew a lot more than he’d let on about. A smile of secrets and naughty things whispered in your ear.
I roused myself and hoped I didn’t have any makeup smeared on my face. What a great day for him to see me again. When I was tired and looked like crap.
“Um, yes. I mean, no. I mean, I wasn’t sleeping or anything.” Great. That was exactly what I wanted to say. My brain was in so much pain right now.
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” he said, leaning close and giving me a conspiratorial wink. God save me from British men in suits who wink at me.
I laughed a little breathlessly and stumbled as I got to my feet.
“Are you here by yourself?” I asked and then mentally chastised myself for asking such a ridiculous question.
“No, Drake is in the lavatory with Ada.” Oh my God, he even made the bathroom sound sexy.
“Oh,” I said, unsure of the proper response. What did I do now? How should I proceed? My thoughts were foggy and wouldn’t settle on one course of action.
“I apologize, am I disturbing you?” If he’d come twenty minutes from now, yes, the place would have been crowded with younglings and their parents trying to corral them for story time. But he always seemed to come when the library was having a lull. I wondered if he planned it that way, or if it was fate.
“No, not at all. And I wasn’t sleeping. I’ve just been busy lately.” Why was I giving him an explanation? Shut up, Blair!
“Busy doing what?” I needed something to do other that stare at him, so I walked around the check-out desk and started fiddling with the cart of books I had to re-shelve.
“Oh, things,” I said, squinting and looking at the titles of the books.
“Ah, I see.” Great, now he was going to think I was totally boring. “You must be busy with your boyfriend.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said automatically. Why, oh why, did I keep saying the first thing that came to my head?
My cheeks flamed and I kept staring at the books, but I felt him shift behind me.
“Interesting,” he said quietly to himself. And then something crashed into the back of my legs and I nearly bit my tongue in half.
I looked down into a pair of huge blue eyes.
“Hi, Blair,” Drake said, his little arms clutched around my legs.
“Hi, Drake. How are you today?” His answer was cut off by his father leaning down and saying something in his ear. Drake made a face and then let go of me and clasped his hands behind his back.
“I am well,” he said slowly, as if he’d practiced. His adorableness was overwhelming.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
Ada appeared at Declan’s shoulder and gave me her trademark scowl. What had I ever done to this woman? I really didn’t get it. But if she wanted to be a bitch to me, I was going to act like it didn’t bother me. Because it didn’t.
“I have been remiss on introducing myself and I wanted to remedy that. I’m Declan Bennet,” Declan said, holding out his hand.
“Nice to finally make your acquaintance, Declan,” I said, loving the way his name tasted in my mouth. I shook his hand and was relieved when he gave me a good grip, but not too hard. He wasn’t trying to prove anything, or treat me as an inferior female. I approved of that handshake.
“Shake my hand!” Drake said, jumping up and down so we’d pay attention to him. I crouched down and gave him a good handshake.
“Daddy taught me how to handshake,” he said seriously.
“I bet he did. Your daddy has a perfect handshake,” I said, not looking at Declan when I said it.
When I rose to my feet, Declan was speaking softly to Ada. She’d dropped her bitch face like a bad habit and leaned into him, resting her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers fluttered on the material of his jacket. Yup, she had it bad for her boss. Wonder if they were doing it.
His face was impassive, but that didn’t mean anything. He wouldn’t be the first guy to sleep with his hot nanny. Wouldn’t be the last, either.
“Drake, come,” Ada said, holding her hand out for Drake. He gave his dad a look of defiance but Declan gave him a stern look back and Drake complied, dragging his feet the whole way. Ada marched him over to the reading corner and made him sit on a beanbag. What was that about?
“Sorry about that,” Declan said. What was he apologizing for?
“Oh, it’s fine,” I said automatically. I went back to the books, but a hand reached around me and plucked one of the books off the cart.
“Drake’s adorable,” I said to fill the silence. Declan seemed much more comfortable with it than I.
“Thank you. I can’t say I’m entirely responsible for it, but thank you.” He flipped the pages of the book at random.
“It must be hard, raising him on your own.” His eyes flew up from the book and stared at me. Shit. I wasn’t supposed to know that. Why did I read that dossier?
“I mean, I’ve never heard him talk about his mother and I’ve never seen her with him, so I just made that conclusion. I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.” I started pushing the cart so I could escape before anymore words came out of my mouth.
“No, I do raise him on my own. That wasn’t a bad conclusion to draw. It’s difficult, but I manage. Ada watches him and in another few years, he’ll be in school and he’ll be someone else’s problem during the day.” He grinned as he said the last part. “I love him, but he can be a bit of work.”
“I can see that you love him. That’s obvious.” This felt like an intimate conversation, so I kept my eyes on the books. Declan moved closer to me, setting the book he’d been holding back on the cart.
“Well, we should probably be going. Drake is overdue for his nap and if he stays up all night again, I might strangle the lad.” Damn, he was so delightfully British.
“Okay, well, I should get back to work. It’s story time in a little while, so I have to mentally prepare myself for an epic battle of who gets to turn the page. There may be casualties.” Why? Why was I saying stupid things?
Declan cracked a smile and leaned against the bookshelf.
“But you love your job.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, I do. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.” Well, besides writing smut, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
He’d said he needed to go, but he hadn’t made any move to do so. The space between the shelves seemed to decrease, as if the shelves were pressing in on us. I fingered the spines of the books, waiting for him to say something.
Drake to the rescue again. He crashed into Declan’s legs, chattering about something or other. Like most little kids, Drake still had the tendency to slur his words together when he was excited, like a little drunk person. At least Declan could make sense of them.
“And that is my cue to make an exit. I hope to see you again, Blair,” Declan said as
Drake dragged at his father’s arm.
“I’ll be here. With the books,” I said, pointing at the shelves.
“Bye-bye, Blair!” Drake yelled and then Declan gave me a smile as he let his son drag him away.
I leaned against the shelves for support and closed my eyes.
That man did things to me.
“Blair. His signals couldn’t be more clear. He wants you. He wants to take his penis and put it inside you and go in and out and in and out—” I clapped my hand over her mouth to make her stop. Not that I was against that particular fantasy, but I’d rather have it alone in the privacy of my bedroom than sitting across from Raine at our shared (and currently disgusting) desk.
Raine bit down on my finger and I yelped and withdrew my hand.
“This is the perfect opportunity and you’re throwing it away. This is why you’re single. Opportunity is knocking at your fucking door and you’re hiding under the bed.” I wiped my hand on my pants and sat back down in my desk chair.
“He didn’t ask me out.”
“Well, maybe he’s shy. Or maybe you were giving off bad signals. You do that sometimes. I blame it on the tattoos. You feel like you have to be a badass bitch to pull them off or something. The attitude to match the ink.” I had no idea what the crap she was talking about.
“Raine. I am going to strangle you in your sleep if you don’t shut up. God, you have a one-track mind.” This could be a good thing when we needed to focus on something, but a bad thing when whatever the topic she got fixated on irritated the daylights out of me.
“Yeah, I’m the stubborn one. Whatever, Walt. I’m right, you’re wrong and you just don’t want to admit it. You’re also sabotaging your own happiness. This guy could be the one. He could be the Darcy to your Elizabeth, the Harry to your Ginny, the Peeta to your Katniss, the Four to your Tris, the—” I had to shut her down again.
“You’re wasting time. We need to get back to work or else the publishers are going to sue us and then we’ll be out on the street and I don’t want to have to sell my body to make money, okay?” I said, going back to my computer screen, which was blank. Still. Blank.
“So stubborn,” Raine muttered under her breath. I kicked her under the desk.
We both fell asleep on our keyboards that night and woke that morning to the blare of my cell phone.
“Fuck!” Raine yelled, peeling her face off her keyboard, leaving its imprint on her cheek. It would have been funny, but I was too busy groping around for my shrilling phone.
“Fuck,” I said, when I saw the number and also what time it was.
“Hello?” It was Madeline, asking where the hell I was because the library had opened fifteen minutes ago and there was no one to man the children’s room.
“Yup, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said, and I could picture her face, her eyes narrowed to laser sharpness. I was going to get a tongue-lashing, that was for sure.
I stumbled around the apartment, trying to brush my hair and change my clothes at the same time. Raine was doing her own hurry dance, brushing her teeth and trying to put on mascara simultaneously. Highly dangerous.
Ten minutes later, I was somewhat awake and nursing a travel mug of extra black coffee as I peeled out of the parking lot next to our apartment and into the street, gunning the engine.
Sure, it wasn’t an emergency, and would be a waste if I ended up killing myself on the way to work, but I felt horrible for oversleeping. It hadn’t done me any good to stay up most of the night because we’d barely gotten anything done. I’d spent most of the time Googling things “for research purposes”. Spoiler alert: When you’re a writer, ANYTHING can be called “research.”
Madeline was waiting for me at the desk in the children’s room, her arms crossed and her expression blank. I started to launch into my apologies, but she held her hand up.
“I don’t want to hear it. I just want to know what’s going on with you. You’re going to sit here and you’re going to tell me about it, right now. I’m not going to fire you, because you’re damn good at your job, but this has got to stop. You’re not just an employee, you’re like one of my family members, and I’m very concerned, Blair. Very concerned.”
I knew how it looked. She probably thought I was on drugs, or moonlighting as a hooker or something. Now I had to decide: keep lying or tell her the truth and run the risk of losing my job on top of everything else.
I chewed on my lip and looked around. The library had been open for less than an hour and there weren’t any patrons in the children’s room yet, but they would be soon. Most of them were pretty predictable in their library-visiting habits.
“Okay, okay. But you have to promise me that you can’t fire me.”
Madeline’s eyes narrowed further.
“I can’t promise you that, Blair. Especially if it’s something illegal.”
“It’s not!” I rushed to say. “It’s not illegal at all.”
Madeline waved her hand for me to elaborate.
“I don’t really want it public knowledge, for a lot of reasons, but, um, my roommate and I are Scarlet Rose.”
Madeline sat for a moment, absorbing.
“The romance writer?”
“Yes. It’s me and my best friend writing under a pen name. We just didn’t want people to know.” Madeline stared at me for a long time and I had no idea what she was thinking. My stressful morning had just gotten a lot more stressful.
Madeline sighed and sat down on the edge of the check-out desk, swinging her legs back and forth.
She looked up at the ceiling and then she started laughing. Madeline’s laugh was rare, but it was a full, rich sound.
“That explains so much,” she said, hopping off the desk and patting me on the shoulder. “And I’m a little upset I didn’t see it. Those books are so you.”
“You’ve read them?” My voice came out as a squeak. This was not how I’d planned it. I’d expected shock followed by her shaking her head and making a tsk-ing sound before telling me that I was fired for being a disgraceful smut peddler.
“Of course, they’re really hot right now. I try to read the bestsellers as much as I can.” She smiled and laughed softly. “I always wonder about pen names. About who the real people are behind them and why they choose to write under another name. Huh.” She seemed lost in thought.
“So you’re okay with it?” I finally asked.
“Oh, yes, of course. Why would I be against it? In fact, would you be willing to do a talk about being a writer? Goodness, you’d be the most famous author we’ve had here aside from that guy who wrote the book about the cat that lived in the subway tunnel.”
Whoa, we needed to back this runaway train back into the station.
“Uh, no, I’m sorry. Raine and I want to keep our anonymity. For now at least, but if that changes, I’ll let you know.” She gave me a big smile.
“Thank you for finally telling me, Blair. I really appreciate it. Just, in the future, try to get some more sleep? We need you here.” She patted my shoulder and marched back to the front desk. I collapsed in my chair, totally relieved and still exhausted.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some sweet tea?” my grandmother asked for the fifth time since I’d walked in the door. Gran’s house was a few minutes away from my apartment, but it seemed like another universe. The place was decorated with her impeccable style and would have been an antique dealer’s wet dream. She’d lived alone since the death of my grandfather a few years ago, and only needed minimal help from time to time.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” She gave me a searching look. Apparently, if I didn’t want sweet tea, there was something terribly wrong with me.
“Don’t put your elbows on the table, dear,” she said, her voice just as sweet as could be, but with an undertone of cold steel. Fanny Walton was eighty-four, but didn’t look a day over seventy. Her hair was pure white, but still as thick as ever, and swept up in silver clips.
“So, how is your j
ob going?” she asked, sipping daintily at her glass of tea. My grandmother could turn eating and drinking into a dance. A ballet of decorum and grace. It was a lot to live up to, so I hadn’t bothered to try.
“Work is going well. I love my job,” I said, tugging on the sleeves of the cardigan I’d donned to hide most of the tattoos on my arms. I also had a long skirt and tights on to hide the rest.
“Do you meet a lot of young men there? I don’t imagine you do.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. I might only be twenty-three, but according to her, I was nearing my expiration date and if I didn’t nail down a fellow ASAP, my eggs would die unfertilized and I’d be left all alone. A spinster. There could be nothing worse on the face of the planet.
“Uh, not really. Most of them are dads who are already married.” With the exception of Declan, but I was not going to tell her about him. I didn’t want to get her hopes up because she’d go from meet to marriage in ten seconds flat.
“And you’re still living with . . . oh, what is her name?” My grandmother’s mind was sharp as ever. She hadn’t forgotten Raine’s name. She just disapproved of me living with her.
“Raine. Yes, we’re still living together.” The lips pursed again and I stared down at my little plate of tea cookies. Having your parents disapprove of you was one thing, but your grandmother? Ten thousand times worse. I should be used to it by now, but it still hit me like an ice-cold punch to the gut.
“People talk, you know.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About two women living together.” Oh for the love of hoop skirts. This again?
“Gran, I don’t really care if people think I’m a lesbian. It’s none of their business, even if I was. And what if I had a male roommate? What would people say about that?” I snatched the last cookie from my plate and chomped down on it. The cookies were really the only things that were pleasant about this experience. The things we do for family and amazing cookies.