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“Well, inthatcase,” said Jasper, “do you think you could help me find some cookbooks?”
Bless him for giving me a work-related task.ThatI could do.
“Oh, absolutely. Let me just put my focaccia on the desk and we’ll find you some good ones.”
“We’ll be at the bean bags,” said Tony, pulling Billie along with him. “You two have fun.”
I pushed away the quiet urge to tuck myself back into Jasper’s arms to breathe in his scent, and slotted him into a mental box. He was a patron of the library. I could handle that.
Setting my bread out of the way, I turned to Jasper and led him over to nonfiction, winding through the stacks to the cooking section. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“Well, I’m mostly here for the company to see what all of Billie's fuss was about. But for the sake of you not getting into trouble, I’d love to see something that highlights recipes I probably haven’t tried.”
“A tall order when I have no idea how adventurous you are.”
Jasper's eyes flashed with mischief. “As adventurous as you’d like.”
My mouth went dry. I tucked Jasper back into my mental patron-box. I should have done that with Billie and Tony, but I wasn’t always as swift on the uptake as I needed to be. At least I hadn’t masturbated over Jasper, yet.
“Oh, actually I saw a couple neat ones when I was poking around the other day.” I pulled out one text on Uzbek cuisine and another on Ghanaian. “Are those okay?”
He reached for them. “I see bread on the cover and that's good enough for me.”
Relieved, I leaned against one of the shelves. “Billie said that you run a bakery?”
Jasper lit up. “You heard correctly.”
I indulged myself in a few minutes of chatting with Jasper about baked goods. I may not know about the finer points of the business, but I was no stranger to delicious treats, and Jasper seemed more than happy to talk about his work.
At a lull in the conversation, I sighed. “I should get to my overnight tasks so my coworkers don’t hate me in the morning.”
“Understandable.” He winked. “Come hang out when you have time, yeah?”
“I’ll try to squeak some time,” I promised.
The three of them let me work in peace for the first two hours of my shift, but it feltweirdto know they were there and I wasn’t nearby. I hauled the romance section around, making room to slot in the new authors and series we’d acquired. Every so often I’d catch a whiff of spices or chocolate or caramel, and I’d have to forcibly pull my focus away from them. I wasn’t usually this pathetic. Though, to be fair, most people didn’t smell that delicious.
I’d rearranged half the section by the time Billie wandered over.
“Hey, Books.” Billie grinned and leaned against the shelves, purple curls falling over their shoulders. “I dunno how to be any way but how I am, so I’m gonna ask you an awkward question if that's cool?”
“Um, sure?”
“What’re the odds you’ll let me take you out for breakfast at the end of your shift?”
My heart kicked my ribs so hard I struggled to pull in a breath and my blood hummed with the bucket of adrenaline just dumped into it. “On a…”
“Date, yeah.”
My gaze flicked in the direction of where Tony and Jasper were.
“But, what about—”
“They’re cool with it. The whole pack knows I’ve got a giant crush and they’re pretty chill about me dating when I have the rare inclination. They all met each other because of me thirsting over everyone, so they’ve learned to trust my thirsty judgement.”
I could hardly think past the roar of my pulse in my ears.
“Did I turn your brain off?” Billie asked.
