Page 16 of Falling

“So good,” he mumbled around his mouthful, making more happy noises as he ate and licking his fingers when he was done. “I’d come back here for these.”

“Not just for my company?” I teased.

“Well, I’m here for that now,” Miles said. The lighting was too low in here to be sure, but I thought I could see the hint of a blush along his perfect cheekbones.

Which was fine, because that was enough to make my face warm up, too. Long live mood lighting.

Miles accepted half the burger and made happy noises over that as well, eating like he’d been wandering the desert for a month. He licked his fingers again between bites, sticking his thumb in his mouth and sucking it clean.

One part of me wished Andre was here to see this, how appreciated his work was. The rest of me didn’t ever want anyone else to see it. At least, not while I was present and they could catch me staring.

“How’s the library been so far today?” I asked, shoving a sweet potato fry in my mouth to stop it from hanging open.

I couldn’t do this to him. He needed a friend. Besides, he was⁠—

Well, no, I wasn’t convinced he was straight. I thought maybe he thought he was, but I’d been around long enough to have a reasonably finely tuned gaydar. All the same, he still didn’t need me openly staring at him.

“I found a teddy bear in the returns chute,” he said. “I assume someone will want it back, so it’s currently keeping me company at my desk. I named it Theodore.”

“Theodore the teddy?” I asked.

Miles shrugged, taking a fry himself. “It looks like the Theodore. Then I found out the dog in the coffee shop is also called Theo so now I think I have to change it.”

“His full name is Theobromine,” I said.

Miles raised an eyebrow.

“It’s the compound that makes chocolate… chocolate,” I explained, wishing I’d phrased it so I sounded less like I had no idea what I was talking about. “Because he’s a chocolate Labrador.”

Miles smiled at that. “Okay, that’s cute.”

“I think Theodore is a good name for a bear, for what it’s worth.”

“I thought about naming it Booker,” Miles said. “But then I thought you’d think that was weird if you found out. So now obviously I’m telling you this, so you’ll definitely think I’m weird.”

“You are weird,” I said, hiding a smile behind a sip of my coffee, which was exactly as I took it—with what Iggy called exactly two drops of milk. “But it’s not a bad thing. All the best people are at least a little weird.”

“I dunno, you seem pretty normal.” Miles shrugged.

I laughed. “I’ve knitted a hundred tiny sweaters for penguins and I like orange juice on my cereal,” I said.

“Really?” Miles asked, eyes wide.

“Really,” I said. “There used to be a knitting circle in the craft store the next town over, but it closed down. Now I knit all by myself when the bar’s closed on Mondays. See? Weird.”

“No, I mean… the penguin sweaters sound cute, but I’ve never met anyone else who has orange juice on their cereal,” he said, nibbling on the end of a fry as I cut the chicken into slices.

“There’s probably a subreddit for it,” I said. “Never looked. Maybe you could look it up for me, since you’re the research librarian.”

“I will,” Miles said, perfectly serious. “How do you like your eggs?”

“Can’t eat an egg unless it’s scrambled,” I confessed.

“Same,” Miles said, pausing to sip his coffee. “Wow.”

“Maybe we’re soulmates,” I joked, then instantly wished I hadn’t. This was what I got for thinking about it the other day.

Miles laughed. It could’ve been cruel, a sound that said that was impossible, but it wasn’t. It was… wistful. Sad, almost.