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When I picked Samantha up, I was in awe as I gazed up at her standing at the top of the steps outside the library. She’d changed her dress. It was definitely shorter, and her legs were bare beneath it. The only protection she had against the brisk February air was a bright pink sweater she wore over her dress, and it kept dragging my eyes down to those bare calves. Wasn’t she cold? I did like the look of her legs though. The longer skirts she usually wore kept them hidden. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her wear jeans.
“You changed,” I said.
She glanced down, fidgeting with the hem of the black dress two inches above her knees, the oversized sweater’s excess fabric bunching up around her wrist. Her fingernails had been painted the same color pink as her hair. “I did. You don’t like it?” She looked up, her eyes uncertain.
“Said nothin’ of the sort.”
Twisting her lips to one side, she frowned. “You didn’t really say anything.”
Shit. I was already blowing this date. “You’re beautiful no matter what you wear.” It was the truth.
That made her smile, and she stood a little taller.
“You ready?” I asked. “It’s cold. I’ll drive.”
“Let’s walk. It’s not that cold.”
“It’s February.”
“So?” she said, looking behind me. “The sunset is nice, and I’ve been sitting most of the day.”
“Okay then.” It was below freezing, and driving would be much more comfortable, but I wasn’t about to argue with her on our first date. It got me to thinking though. “You walk a lot.”
She nodded, slinging her big, flowery bag over her shoulder, clomping down the steps in her black combat boots. I tried not to let my smile show.
I’d been a keen observer of all things Samantha Russo for over a year, and the one thing I knew for certain about her was that she was kind and gentle, so the boots she wore, the colorfully dyed hair, and the flashes of silver from all the rings on her fingers and the tiny silver ball in her nose was all just a part of an armor she tried to project around herself. She wasn’t tough. She wouldn’t even hurt a spider. I’d seen her rescue them and carefully remove them from the library in a cup. She placed them in the grass outside and then watched as they crept away.
No, Wisper’s librarian and the most beautiful woman in my world was nothing if not sweet.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you drive.”
She tsked. “Well, that may be because I don’t know how. Oh, and I don’t have a car.”
Um… huh? “How’s that?”
She shrugged. “I never learned. My parents traveled a lot for their jobs, and I usually went with, so it was never a priority. And when I went to college, and then grad school, I didn’t need a car.”
I fell in step beside her when she hopped off the bottom step, and we walked slowly and silently down Franklin to the corner. Before we crossed, she pushed her arm through mine, holding onto my forearm.
She looked up at me, and I nearly tripped and fell on my face. Her eyes this close up were the prettiest hazel color. I’d always thought they were just plain brown, but since she’d changed her hair, I’d started noticing the flecks of amber and green in them, and now, they sparkled at me.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Paulo’s.”
“What’s that?”
“New restaurant downtown.”
“Okay. That sounds nice.”
She let go of me to adjust her dress, tugging at the hem again like maybe she wasn’t used to the length or maybe her legs were cold. The slide of her arm against my side was warm, but she was shivering a little. It was barely noticeable, but I took my jacket off and draped it over her shoulders, then reached for her hand, guiding it under my arm again as we continued walking.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t you have a coat?”
“Yeah. It didn’t go with my outfit.”
