“Don’t apologize aboutthat.” Hayley focused a stern look on him, appearing every inch a caricature of an exacting librarian, sans bifocals perched on her nose and hair tied back in a severe bun. Bossy. Authoritarian.
Levi kind of liked it. He kind of like it a lot.
“Never apologize forthat,” she stressed.
He nodded, wanting to change the subject, then lifted the backpack off the ground. “I brought lunch.”
She brightened, and just like that, the embarrassment of his reaction was washed away as if it had never happened. “Thank you. I’m starving.”
He looked around. There had to be something better than the oil-stained cement ground to offer her as a seat. He spotted the rolling mechanic creeper he used when he had to position himself under a vehicle’s chassis. Not exactly a chair, but it was cushioned and would be more comfortable than the cold, hard ground. With a push of his foot, he sent the swivel wheels spinning toward Hayley.
She stopped the creeper’s movement with her own foot, then lowered herself down on one side, patting the other.
Levi eyed where her hand made a tapping motion.
“There’s enough room for both of us.”
He hesitated. What if his body betrayed him again? What if the anomaly of her—or his reaction to her, rather—was just that? An aberration that was here for but a blessed moment but had already vanished? Right then, in the in-between, he still had the small sliver of hope that Hayley was different.That he’d finally met someone who didn’t make him feel ... what? Too much? Wasn’t that what most people searched for? Someone who made them feel more? More alive? More sparks? More of everything?
Yet another tally mark under the column that made him know something wasn’t quite right with him. That he wasn’t like other guys.
He wasn’t standing there, hoping that if he sat next to Hayley that he’d feel more. That fireworks would shoot off or internal chemistry would ignite a fire between them. He wanted to sit next to her and feel, well, not less, exactly. Just...
He shook his head. He didn’t know what. He just knew he didn’t want and probably couldn’t handlemore.
Hayley’s brow furrowed. “You’re not going to sit?”
Levi moved to the side. The creeper was long enough for both of them, but barely. He didn’t want to accidentally crush her, so he lowered himself slowly until he was perched in the padded bench, his knees almost up to his chin. He unfolded his legs and let them shoot out straight ahead of him, his heels digging into the cement floor.
“See? Plenty of room.” Hayley smirked over the curve of her shoulder at him and then did a little shimmy to emphasize her point.
A shimmy he felt up and down his bicep as the sides of their bodies were lined up against each other, touching all the way from her shoulder against his arm, to her hip against his thigh, and her ankle against his calf.
He waited for the assault to come. For his skin to overreact, the hairs on his arms to rise like hackles on a dog, the snarling an uncomfortable sensation at each point where they touched.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like physical contact. He did, actually. It was just that he only liked certain types of touches. The other kinds ... well, unfortunately, the other types were how most people touched one another. Lightly. Softly. Carefully.Caresses and gentle strokes. Touches like those made him want to crawl out of his body and flay off his skin.
Except with his family, Levi had never told anyone how he liked to be touched. One didn’t go around commanding people to only touch him with firm, deep pressure; the harder the better. They’d have looked at Levi like he was some kind of twisted human with dark, depraved tastes.
Even though their bodies were pressed together, instead of scuttling away, Hayley scooted herself in his direction, pushing firmly into him and instantly settling his fired-up nerve endings.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was about to fall off the edge.”
“It’s—” He cleared his throat. “It’s fine.”
More than fine. His body hummed with contentment instead of buzzing frantically. He sank farther into the seat. A satisfied calm came to rest between each one of his ribs, and he took in a deep, relaxed breath of air.
It hadn’t been an anomaly. He’d never thought it would happen, but Levi had finally found someone he could stand to be around. Someone who quieted his spirit and calmed the chaos inside him.
He’d finally found her, and if the DOT timeline stayed the same, he was going to have to let her go in less than two weeks.
14
Word seemed to spread that the bookmobile was open for business, the influx of people streaming in the afternoon almost doubling what the morning had brought. Most of the people Levi had never seen before, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Besides Jack MacDonald, who made a nuisance of himself to anyone within a drivable radius, and Deborah Smith, the retired doctor who Jack had dragged into Levi’s house last winter when he’d been sick with COVID, Levi didn’t really know many of his neighbors. He recognized a few faces here and there—the owner of the Chevy Silverado that he’d replaced brake pads on two weeks ago, for instance—but he couldn’t put any names to those faces.
What he also couldn’t do was fool himself into thinking he was going to get any work done. Not at the service station, anyway. Which meant he might as well go home and start chipping away at some of the things he needed to get done there.
He didn’t exactly want to walk into the bay, not when there were—he peeked through the office blinds and counted—six people waiting to become new members of the Polk County library system, but he also didn’t want to leave without lettingHayley know where he was in case she needed him for some reason.
