His expression changes, and something I haven’t seen on him before tugs at the corner of his mouth, making it dip down. Hisgaze skids off mine, and he says, “Perhaps you were right about me after all. I can’t think of a line from that one.”
I titter at that, and an uncomfortable silence follows. Naturally, I can’t let that stand. “Why did you stop reading?” I ask.
“The meds,” he says with a resigned shrug. “They make me so foggy that I can’t focus. Words swim on the page, and I can’t make sense of them.” He runs his fingers over the embossed title of one of the books. “I missed it so much that when I first started my treatment, I used to come in, sit over there”—he points to the settees near the children’s book section—“and simply hold books in my hands. I’d recite as many lines as I could to try to remember what it felt like to read.”
My heart aches. I feel awful for him. A life without reading is unimaginable to me. On top of everything he’s lost because of being on a suppressant, not being able to find comfort in reading seems especially cruel.
“I could read to you if you want,” I offer.
I don’t realize that I’m expecting him to turn the offer down until he doesn’t. “Really?” His face transforms, mouth slashing open, boyish excitement making his cheeks ruddy. “You’d do that for me? Thank you, Jensen.”
His sincerity buckles the knees of the doubt I was feeling about whether it was a good idea to make the offer. “Of course! It’s no problem at all. Why don’t you come back after lunch? I usually read on my break anyway.”
He leaves the library soon afterward. I watch him go, waiting until he’s out of sight before I let my gaze land onThe Importance of Being Earnest. I pick the book up and turn it over in my hands.
Something was off about him when he talked about this book. Something happened when he told me he couldn’t think of a quote from it. Something that hasn’t happened before. That littletwitch of his mouth was strange. I think Lord Augustus lied to me.
It’s the first time I’ve ever thought he was being dishonest. It was notable and obvious because he’s not a good liar at all.
I open the book, flicking through pages one by one, momentarily transported by the familiar, repetitive action. I feel a little odd, kind of removed, and kind of sure about something I can’t quite put my finger on.
Dusty crème pages flutter, a softschliff-wiffas they turn. Nothing stands out, and nothing stands out, and then, suddenly, something does. Near the bottom of a left-side page, there are words underlined.
One sentence only.
A line with a thin pencil marking underneath it.
My heart squeezes so hard that the air is forced from my lungs as I read it. It’s one of my favorite lines of any book ever.
“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
I feel a bit odd when the lord returns to the library after lunch. A bit lightheaded and spluttery. In retrospect, I think asking a man as handsome as he is to quote me lines from books I love might have been a mistake. In my world, handsome men clutching their chests and saying things like “half angst, half hope” is dirty talk of epic proportions, and there’s no getting around that.
I shouldn’t have put myself through that, especially not while I’m at work.
He sails into the room, disturbing the air around me, and takes a seat on one of the settees.
“What would you like me to read?”
He’s still and quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull, please.”
“Why that one?” I ask as I begin searching for the book.
“It’s the book I was reading when I started my treatment. I got about halfway and never finished it. I’ve always hated that I didn’t get to finish it.”
I take a seat on the settee to his left and open the novella. “Would you like me to start from the beginning?”
He nods. “Yes, please.”
My voice sounds a little strained when I start reading, but not so much that someone else would notice. At least, I hope not. At first, I’m flustered by the way he’s looking at me, dark eyes fixed and intent. His gaze is trained on my lips, highly focused and unnerving, only dipping once in a while to the book in my hands. It hovers there for a second and then quickly flicks back up to my face. When our eyes meet, his expression softens, and he leans his head against the settee, offering me a tantalizing view of his neck.
He’s wearing a pale-blue Oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. The color contrasts with his hair and eyes, making them appear darker and shinier than usual. His chest looks broad in the garment. It’s pulled tight over his pecs and drapes a little looser over the concave dip of his stomach.
It takes a few paragraphs for me to find my stride, but after a while, words begin to flow easily. After the first chapter, I stop thinking about how he’s looking at me, and the curtain between reality and the sky-blue world seagulls live in dissolves to nothing.
Now and again, I’m aware of the lord moving. Raising a hip, crossing a leg to get more comfortable. Eventually, he tosses a throw pillow onto the rug at my feet and stretches out on his back on the floor. He looks up at the ceiling for a while,a contented smile tugging at his lips. Eventually, his eyes slide shut, but his smile doesn’t fade. It widens as I read.
After an hour or so, I clear my throat. I’m not used to reading aloud for this long, and it’s left me a little parched. “Excuse me,” I say, patting my chest as a dry tickle travels there.
