Page 59 of Falling

Was he maybe my boyfriend, too? I’d never had one of those.

I liked the sound of it, though.

“So you and he…?” Ryder gestured vaguely.

It was true that I wasn’t the greatest picker-up of hints, but even I knew what he was asking. I nodded again, excited at the thought of everything I’d discovered.

“I didn’t know it could be like that,” I confessed softly. “I feel so different this morning. I feel like I’m seeing the world in full color for the first time.”

“You’re gonna make me cry, hold on,” Ryder said, striding around the desk. “Can I hug you? I wanna hug you.”

“I love hugs.” I laughed as he dragged me out of my chair and wrapped his arms around me, squeezing tight. I squeezed back, sighing happily. Evie had called me hug-powered once. While the people of Otter Bay had been, on the whole, ridiculously kind to me, I hadn’t gotten many hugs.

This one meant a lot.

“So happy for you,” Ryder murmured, squeezing even tighter before he backed off, keeping both hands on my shoulders. “So that’s… research, then?” he nodded to the book I’d put down to hug him.

“I… am reading the smutty parts in the hopes of not putting the entire burden of teaching me on Booker,” I admitted.

“You’re adorable,” Ryder said. “I bet Booker doesn’t mind, though. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

I blinked at him. “You have?”

Ryder chuckled, patting me on the shoulder. “Miles, everyone in town has. He might as well have I have a crush on the new librarian written across his forehead,” he said. “But I’m realizing now that like… Obviously, you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’d… I mean… I hadn’t completely not noticed that he maybe liked me…” I said, but Ryder was right. I didn’t know what I was looking for, so I hadn’t seen it.

I hadn’t really believed that anyone could want me. I loved being so sure Booker did.

“You’re so cute,” Ryder said. “I love you, you know that?”

The grin I broke into at that must’ve looked ridiculous, but it earned me another hug and I wasn’t about to say no to that. The more hugs, the better.

“Are we celebrating something?”

Booker.

My heart did a little backflip at the sound of his voice, low and gentle as always.

Ryder backed off with a laugh, squeezing my shoulders before finally letting go of me.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” he said, clapping Booker on the arm. “I know you’ll take care of him, but if you don’t, you’ll have me to deal with. Okay?”

Booker smiled wryly. “Yes, sir.”

Ryder stuck his tongue out at him as he walked away, throwing me a wave over his shoulder.

I turned to face Booker with a tiny twinge of uncertainty. “He guessed,” I said. “I didn’t tell him but I didn’t want to⁠—“

“Shh,” Booker soothed, reaching out to curl his hand around my arm. “It’s okay. You can tell people if you want to. Or not tell people, if you don’t want to?”

I hadn’t thought yet about whether or not I wanted to. On the one hand, I wanted to climb onto the roof with a megaphone and announce that someone liked me. Someone good and kind and sweet, someone better than I thought I deserved.

On the other hand, things were happening so fast. I didn’t regret any of it, but I needed time to process. Ryder wasn’t a gossip—he might tell Ward, I hadn’t told him not to—but Ward wouldn’t tell anyone. It was still more or less a secret.

“Can I think about it?” I asked.

“For as long as you want,” Booker said. He wouldn’t have told a soul, if I asked him not to. It could’ve been our secret forever.