Page 19 of Falling

And Booker was my friend. One of only a tentative two I had here.

“We’ll get you cleaned up when you’re done eating,” he said after a pause, looking me over. “That some kind of… library report?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” I said, taking my reading glasses off and holding the stack of papers I’d been reading before he came in up. “No, umm. This is the first ten chapters of Ryder’s romance novel. Which I think I should have intuited would be gay on account of him being married to the beautiful carpenter? But for whatever reason, I was surprised. It’s good, though. And I guess I have to get back into the habit of reading contemporary fiction.”

Booker blinked at me again.

“Problem?” I asked, maybe a tiny bit defensive after a long day.

“No,” he said, breaking into a soft smile. “No, you just keep surprising me. What’s the heat level like?” he asked, peering at the printed stack of pages upside-down.

“Heat level?” I asked.

“You know, how much smut is there? Have they gotten naked yet?” Booker asked.

I told myself the tips of my ears felt like they were on fire because of the chili in the noodles.

“I hadn’t considered the possibility that they would,” I admitted. “They’re doing a lot of thinking about it, though. Like, a lot. They just had to pretend to make out for the paparazzi and they were both more into it than they thought they should have been. I’m learning a lot.”

Booker chuckled. “You don’t read a lot of romance novels, do you?”

“Not from this century,” I said. “Do you?”

He smiled the broadest smile I’d ever seen on his face, eyes twinkling. “I’ll have to show you my collection sometime.”

“Well, now I’m curious.” I raised a brow. “You didn’t seem the type.”

“You’re really not a public librarian,” Booker said, but he was still smiling. “But that’s fine. We can turn you into one.”

I groaned involuntarily.

“Would it really be that bad?” Booker asked, serious and quiet again. I hoped one day, when I grew up, I’d have a presence like that. Solid, calming. Not that he was so much older than me, but sometimes I felt like I barely knew anything about myself at all.

Booker seemed so goddamn comfortable in his skin that I wanted to crawl in there with him.

No. Wait. That was weird. Beyond the threshold of endearing-weird and straight into serial killer territory.

Luckily, I hadn’t said it out loud.

“I… I just don’t think I can do it,” I admitted, sounding pathetically defeated even to my own ears. “I’m supposed to be boosting card holder numbers and organizing events and I don’t know how to do either of those things. I don’t have the experience for this. What kind of idiot would hire me for this job?”

Booker snorted. “That idiot you’re talking about is my brother-in-law.”

Oh. Well. That explained some things.

“And don’t ever tell him I said this, but he’s a lot smarter than he looks,” Booker added, genuine affection in his voice. “He knows people. He wouldn’t have hired you if he didn’t think you could do it.”

I wanted that to be true. I felt so helpless, so out of my depth that I always half-wanted to get in the car, drive back to Portland, knock on Evie’s door, and beg to be allowed to stay on her couch while I figured out what the hell to do next.

She’d let me. She’d give me the sympathetic eyebrows and tell me it was all fine. But it wouldn’t be fine. She’d already helped dig me out of the mess I was in more than I deserved. More than I should have needed.

“But, for the record, it would be okay if you needed to ask for help,” Booker continued, as though he’d read my mind. Maybe he had. I wouldn’t have been all that surprised.

I looked up at him and he laughed again. Which was good, because I’d given him what I thought was a pretty venomous look without being able to stop myself. Apparently it’d just bounced off him.

I was willing to bet he’d weathered worse.

“Okay, well, what about we start with help getting the glue out of your hair? We can see how you feel about community participation after that.”