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She walked past all the aisles, from fiction to nonfiction then stopped in surprise when she saw ‘some boy’ reaching to the top shelf with little effort to slip a book in between two others. Tully felt like laughing, but she just crossed her arms shook her head, and walked over to her familiar not-boyfriend.
“Volunteer hours, huh?”
He jumped, surprised by her sudden appearance and the book he was reaching with almost fell from his grip. He caught it with some skill only a ball player could manage and huffed in relief. “Could you walk a little louder next time? And yes, I heard fromsomeonethat it might help my chances for college.”
“Well, whoever told you that must be very smart.”
“I sometimes think she might be a genius.” He grinned and handed a book to her. She accepted it and scanned the author names before finding the correct spot for it.
The cart was between them, and she turned and looked at it in surprise. The final bell didn’t ring more than ten minutes ago and the first two rows on the cart were already empty. She frowned.
“Was this all there is?”
“Huh?” He followed her line of sight and shook his head. “Oh, no. I did those ones.”
“How long have you been here?”
He glanced at his watch. “Almost five minutes. Why? Am I going too slow?”
Too slow? On a normal day it would take her ten minutes to shelve that many books. Was he just obnoxiously quick or was she obnoxiously slow?
She shook her head and shrugged. “You’re doing fine.”
Nathan looked at her for a few seconds, but when she didn’t expound he just let it drop and went back to his work.
When she told Stephanie they were a great team, she wasn’t exaggerating. They worked well in any aspect, even extending outside of their fake romance. He was a great pupil for a good teacher, and they demolished those books together. What normally took her an hour was nearing its end side by side with Nathan in twenty minutes. Her volunteer hours were going to lower significantly as long as Nathan worked with her, but she was fine with that. He reached the shelves she often needed a stool for, and she could guide him to the right nonfiction section so he didn’t have to struggle with decoding. It left her more time to study for her exam by Friday.
“New shirt?” he asked as she handed him a book so he could put it at the very top.
She looked down at the shirt. It was the first time wearing the Aerosmith shirt that Eugene sent her. Her hand ran over it subconsciously. “Yeah. My brother sent it to me.”
“You have a brother?”
“Eugene. He graduated three years ago.”
“One brother and one sister,” Nathan laughed. “That’s a lot of kids.”
“Too many kids you mean,” Tully said.
“I dunno. I think I’d like to have at least one sibling.”
“You should be able to tell from me and Joliet’s relationship that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“You’ve got a point.” He reached out his hand and Tully put another book into it. “But you still have a brother.”
“Sure, Eugene counts. He’s really the only one who cares, but even he doesn’t have a lot of time since he’s always busy with school and New York. Places like that don’t give you any time to slow down even for a little sister.”
“NYU?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess that’s why you want to go there.”
Tully paused, surprised. “How did you know I wanted to go there?”
Nathan smiled down at her sheepishly and grabbed a book from the cart. “You told me. Well, kind of. Your notebook did. It was written right on the back cover of the World History one.”
Tully’s lips circled. She’d forgotten about that. She took that class two years ago and when Eugene graduated and announced his decision to uproot from Richmond and steal away to the city lights of the Big Apple, Tully decided right then and there that she was going to do the same thing and needed to write it down so she would feel motivated to make it there. “I forgot about that.”
