Page 4 of Break Points and Face Offs

My gaze lands on the title I’m looking for and I reach out to take it, relief soaring through my veins at the knowledge I won’t have to try and find a way to buy it. My fingertips have just grazed the spine when it’s yanked from the shelf.

“Excuse me,” I say, turning to the guy holding the book. The second I look at him, I can tell he belongs here. Like he might have been born in the anthropology section or something. He’s wearing a tailored suit, for fuck’s sake. I get a waft of overpowering, obviously expensive cologne.

He’s just standing there, still studying the books, like he hasn’t just snatched that one straight from my hand. “Excuse me,” I say again.

He throws me a bored glance, “What?”

I blink a few times. Is this guy for real?

“What?” I raise my voice. It comes out too loud. I swallow, reminding myself I’m in a library. I’m not on the ice now, I should know this. There are different ways to speak to different types of people. I can be civilized. I’m civilized as fuck.

“I was about to grab that book.”

I gesture to the heavy book pressed against his chest, along with a stack of others. I narrow my eyes. Some of the titles on the spines look familiar. Are those all the books on the essential reading list?

My blood boils, but I’m still of the belief that diplomacy is king here.

He shrugs, pulling another book from the shelf. “Looks like you weren’t fast enough.”

I spit out a childish sound, but hold my tongue. It’s getting harder not to resort to brute force.

“I touched it first.”

One side of his mouth quirks in a smile.

“We don’t operate under the dibs policy here.”

He says ‘dibs’ like it’s a foreign concept.

I count to ten in my head to calm myself down. It’s obvious he can afford to just go out and buy every one of those library books he’s clutching to his chest. Why is he in here, stealing them from someone who needs them, like me? And then it hits me: so no one else can have them. This son of a bitch.

“Listen, you can’t just come in here and take out every book on the reading list.”

“Why not? Isn’t that what you were trying to do?”

“What? No, I was just …” Was it? “I just want that one.”

The others I might be able to find elsewhere at an affordable price. But that book is the most expensive and the most essential. I need that book.

“Maybe you should get here earlier next time. Or learn the Dewey Decimal System, it really is a lot faster to⁠—”

“I know the Dewey Decimal System,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Really? Because you were studying those spines for a while before you found⁠—”

“You were watching me?”

He shrugs and turns away, like this conversation is boring him. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve got my hand on his shoulder and I’m turning him back around.

He looks down at my hand. His eyebrow quirks. Fuck. I let him go, quickly. The last thing I need is some legacy student with lawyer parents accusing me of assault and getting me kicked out of school before I’ve even started.

“Sorry, I⁠—”

“Forget it,” he says with a smirk. “Let’s just chalk this up to experience, yes?”

Smug prick. I take a deep breath through my nose and feel my nostrils flare. Desperation rushes through me.

I could just explain that I can’t afford to buy that book, or any of the others, and appeal to his human side. But something tells me he probably doesn’t have a human side. Plus, the last thing I want is to advertise my weaknesses to people like him. If he’s taking out all the same books on my syllabus, he’s taking my course. He probably knows everyone and has a special relationship with the professor. His parents probably dine with her at the country club. I need to show people I fit in here, not remind them that I don’t.