Nick waves hello to thelibrarian in the life sciences department.
“Morning, Sara!” he calls out, relieved to be back to his usual sunshiny self. His Psychology of Sleep students wereon ittoday, and that felt amazing. Plus, he loves this library, with its endearingly retro carpeting that hasn’t been updated since the ’90s and windows that look out onto the botanical garden. Always a place of solace.
Sara waves back, and he wanders the aisles searching for a book on sleep, humming a Velvet Underground song. Yesterday was just a temporary lapse back into gloom.
“Oh—sorry,” a female voice says when she bumps into him from behind, and all that solace twists itself into anxiety.
As forcefully as he can, he pushes it away.Optimism,he reminds himself.
“Wilder! Hello,” he says, probably too enthusiastically. Arehis chinos wrinkled? Did he miss any spots while shaving? “What are you doing here? You don’t have class on Thursdays, do you?”
“Looking for a book for my marine biology paper. I heard this rumor that libraries are these cool places where they just let you borrow the books for free?”
Ramona runs a hand through her hair, and he wishes he didn’t remember how soft it is. It’s the first time they’ve been truly face-to-face since Monday, and she is so stunningly high-definition, proof that his memories haven’t been able to do her justice.
How is she so…calm? Normal? Or maybe she’s just an expert at hiding it, the way he really, really hopes he is.
She reaches out to graze the top book on his stack. “Looks like a real page-turner.”
“It has its moments,” Nick says.
“Guess I’ll have to wait until I’m in one of your advanced classes to find out. If you let me pass this one, that is.”
It must be a skill, really, for 50 percent of what she says to come out sounding flirtatious. He’s not sure if she’s doing it intentionally.
“I’m glad I ran into you, actually,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand. “I’ve been wanting to talk, but…”
“Class isn’t the appropriate place and we both know what happened in the office last time?”
A rough laugh. “Something like that.” Suddenly he’s unsure how to properly carry these books. In one hand, casually hanging in front of his body? Tucked under his arm? Why does this girl make him so infinitely useless?
He’s aware of her watching him as he shifts his books from one arm to the other. He should be in control here. Campus is his domain.
A few students at a nearby table have been eyeing her, stealing glances between pages of their textbooks. So he reaches for her elbow, gently guiding her down the next aisle and around the corner. Maybe the library isn’t the appropriate place for this talk either, but he feels better having it in such a public location. More certain that he won’t devolve into an overly hormonal ape just because of the way she smirks at him.
“Look—I don’t know what got into me,” he says, keeping his voice low. “And it’s not that I didn’t…have a good time.” Everything in his brain shouts that he’s a fucking liar.Good timecould describe his last trip to the dentist.
Ramona presses her lips together, like she’s trying to hold back laughter at his choice of words. “I had a good time too. In case that wasn’t obvious.” There’s almost a thread of shyness in the way she says it.I’m not very easy—that’s what it sounds like, especially in this husky timbre of her voice. The way she mixes shyness and confidence, uncertainty and power, shouldn’t destabilize him like this.
“I—I got that. A mutually good time.” She’s still too close to him. Close enough for him to see those three freckles on the side of her mouth. The hollow of her throat, where he kissed her right before she—
“Well. Not completely mutual,” she says, and the way his body reacts to that is entirely inappropriate for a library.
“Regardless,” he says, intent on soldiering through. “It was unprofessional. I’m your teacher, and I’m much older than you…I should have exhibited better judgment.”
Exhibited better judgment.He doesn’t talk like this, and yet he’s determined to bring an air of propriety he did not demonstrate on Monday.
She cocks an eyebrow. “What, thirty-two? Thirty-three?”
“Thirty-six. Guess that wasn’t on my UCLA profile. I’m sorry.”
“You’re always apologizing to me. For the texting, and for what happened in your office…” She folds her arms over her chest, and he can’t quite interpret how she feels about his age. “And now for being born in 1990, I guess.”
“Eighty-nine.”
He has to admit she has a point there. He’s not sure what, exactly, he’s apologizing for this time. For the lapse in decorum, yes, but for being a decade older than she is? Even if he were twenty-six—god help him, he doesn’t want to be twenty-six again—they’d be wholly mismatched.
Another thought hits him. When he was twenty-six, she was sixteen.
