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“Huh?”
He leaned over and whispered, “The shelves have written stories, and the people have living ones.”
“Are you here for the poetry reading?” asked an elderly woman with pink-dyed hair and a wrinkled rose tattoo—at least what I thought was a rose—on her wrist as she approached with the help of a walking stick.
“Yes, we are,” Gale answered proudly, causing the woman to smile widely.
“Oh, good. We don’t get many young’uns in here anymore,” she said and pointed to the book at the desk. “Pick a poem and join us by the window.”
“Pick a poem?” I repeated.
“Yes, dear. We pick them from the stacks and then take turns reading. Anything you want is fine.”
“Thank you,” Gale stated, taking my hand, and I tried not to make a big deal out of it in my head again, but that didn’t work. I couldn’t help but think about how causally we just held hands now.
“Are you sure you are okay with this?” I whispered as we reached the first stack of books.
“Why would I not be,” he whispered back. “I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s very interesting. Are you not okay?”
I shook my head quickly. “I’m fine, it’s not what I was thinking, but it’s fine. But if you’re happy, I’m okay.”
“Is that so?” His eyebrow rose. “Careful, Ms. Wyntor, one might think you are trying to sweep me off my feet and not the other way around.”
I rolled my eyes and let go of his hand. “Go pick a poem.”
He chuckled, saying nothing as he turned back to glance through the shelves. And because I was...bubbly, I found myself watching him as he picked up a book and flipped through a few pages, every once in a while finding a verse or passage that caught his eye, and he stood still completely engrossed, the corner of his lips upturned happily.
“You’re staring, Odette.”
I nearly dropped the book I was reaching for. He hadn’t glanced up at me until that moment, looking through the shelves to see me.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I lied, looking away from him as I reached for a book in another row.
Of course, he followed me, leaning up beside me, a grin on his face as he spoke.
“Oh, whose starry eyes peer down upon me,
Black swan,
Young fawn,
Aborning, forewarning the morning dawn.”
I glanced over his arm to see if that was on the page or from his mind, but the book was in another language, so I couldn’t tell.
“Is that what it says?”
Instead of answering, he kissed my cheek and moved on to another bookshelf—and there went a can of bubbles. I took a breath and tried to ignore him.
But the harder I tried, the more...the more I wanted not to.
How had everything changed so quickly?
And how long could it stay like this?
The thing about stories that started with once upon a time was that they were never very simple or easy.
And that is what it felt like being with Gale right now. Simple and easy, and I wanted it to last for as long as possible. But how was that possible? It could be long.
