Page 26 of Falling

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m just mad I can’t fit twenty-three of them into my mouth at once.”

“You saying I’ve got a big mouth?” Evie asked, raised eyebrow loud and clear again.

“If the marshmallows fit.” I grinned up at the ceiling.

“You know, whatever you say about all this… you sound happier. Just, for the record. Happier than you have in a long time. You sure there aren’t any cute girls?”

“The florist is actually ridiculously pretty,” I said. “So is her girlfriend.”

Evie snorted. “I’m coming to visit,” she said. “Sounds like my kind of town.”

“They’d love you,” I said. Everyone loved Evie. She moved through the world so easily. I doubted she’d ever said anything she regretted in her life or ever felt awkward in company.

Meanwhile, I was still wondering what the hell Booker saw in me that he was even entertaining the idea of wanting me to stick around in Otter Bay. Even if it was just for the sake of keeping the library open.

I’d watched him reading to the kids with real pleasure, doing the voices and keeping the pictures turned out to them like some kind of professional. More professional than me. I couldn’t have done that in a million years. I didn’t have the coordination for it. I probably would’ve toppled off the tiny seat he’d somehow managed to perch on and crushed a toddler.

“They love you, by the sound of it,” Evie said.

“Yeah, well.” I sighed. “We’ll see, I guess.”

“We’ll see,” she agreed. “What’s on for tonight?”

“Oh, you know me, party animal,” I said. “I’m planning to change into my comfiest pajamas and settle down in front of the fire with these new chapters of Ryder’s. I might even push the boat out and make a hot chocolate.”

Evie laughed. “On a weeknight? You’re really going off the rails.”

“I know, but what can you expect? I’m a librarian,” I said, pausing a second over the strange feeling of the word in my mouth.

I was a librarian. I had the piece of paper and everything that said I was. I even had my own library, now.

So why didn’t I feel like it?

“You sound tired,” Evie said.

Maybe that was it. Maybe I was just… exhausted. It’d been a long week, hadn’t it?

“I think I am.” I sighed again. “Well, Saturday’s bound to be quiet, right?”

“Sure,” Evie said.

I wondered why she didn’t sound convinced.

Saturday was not quiet.

When I showed up to unlock the library for the day there were already half a dozen people hanging around, all looking to sign up for library cards. From then on, for the rest of the day, there was a line at the front desk that I didn’t get through until half an hour after the place was supposed to be closed.

Booker’s flyers. If I’d doubted him at all, I didn’t anymore. I’d had to hold up the line six times while I gave the card printer five minutes to cool down.

It wasn’t just that, either. I felt like I’d met half of Otter Bay in one 10-hour shift. I’d never had contact with so many different people at once in my entire life.

While their cards had been printing, they’d all given me little pieces of their lives. Ward had dropped by wondering if we had books on antique furniture so he could try his hand at replicas and told me that Ryder wouldn’t shut up about me. Apparently, I asked all the right questions about his book.

Then there was a man called Wes, who wanted recipe books for beginners—and I wasn’t allowed to tell his husband, Hayden, about it. Because he wanted to learn to cook as a surprise.

An older lady with the most stunning auburn hair came in looking for crime novels, the grislier the better. A tiny dark-haired man came by, checked out every book in the metaphysical section, and told me Leos made great librarians and that was why I was doing such a great job.

I’d had to look up my star sign to determine that I was, in fact, a Leo. He hadn’t even asked for my birthday, so how he knew was a mystery to me.