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“Mom’s from South Carolina, and she hated the cold. I don’t think she ever did get used to it.”
She turned toward him, surprised. “I’m from South Carolina as well. That’s where I grew up until twelfth grade when we moved to Indiana.” Her memories there weren’t very happy, since her mom had moved because she left her dad.
Her family didn’t really talk about it, and her dad died shortly after.
It hadn’t been officially ruled a suicide, since there was no note. But the gun was found at the scene, and the trajectory of the bullet seemed to indicate that.
“You don’t like the north either,” he observed.
He surprised her, especially since his previous comments indicated he didn’t want to have any personal type of interaction with her.
“I didn’t at first. But it’s grown on me. Actually, to be honest, Indiana was okay, but I’m really loving North Dakota. Although winter is brutal.”
“It is. Reading makes it a little bit more bearable.” He almost smiled as he said that. Maybe he would have. She wasn’t sure how much the scars kept his face from moving.
Maybe he was actually smiling this whole time, and they just made him look like he was glaring.
She kind of doubted it, since there had been fire in his eyes when he’d been angry, but she supposed it was a possibility.
But now, since he was talking to her, she said, “I... I didn’t realize this was going to be such a big job. It might take me a while. I explained to you that I have a business.”
“I’m not in any big rush. But I have no idea what all is here.” He stepped forward a bit and pointed down one of the rows. “There’s a desk back there, and there’s a new computer sitting on it. That’s what I was going to use to catalog them.” He seemed to want her to walk down, so she started, and he followed her.
The desk was huge, with a comfortable-looking chair behind it, and the computer looked typical to her. Although, she had been using a laptop for so long, it was a little odd to see a desk computer.
“I have a buddy, lives in New York. He designed this for me,” he said as he went around the desk, pulling some things out and setting them on top of it.
Something that looked like a handheld scanner and a stack of square papers that had QR codes and looked like they had sticky backs.
“I haven’t tried it, and the charger is in the drawer.” He straightened, indicating the walls. “There are wall sockets all around. Not as many as we might be used to in a regular house, though. I don’t know how long this thing will work before it needs to be charged.” He held it up. “You should be able to scan the title of the book, although in some instances, you may have to put it in manually. Then, scan the QR code, then you pull off the sticky paper and put it on the inside cover of the book.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard. In fact, that’s a lot easier than what I was thinking it was going to be.”
“If you notice, all of the shelves are numbered, and once you scan the title and QR code, a form should come up for you to put the shelf number in.” He held the scanner in his hand and looked around at the immensity of the library. “I believe Mom did this forty years ago or more, and she loosely based it on the Dewey decimal system. I think there’s a place for you to put that in as well if the book has a Dewey decimal number on it, because some of the books that have been added since then don’t.” He went on to explain a little bit more, and then he turned his handheld scanner on and grabbed a book to demonstrate.
“Should I rearrange the books if they seem like they’re in the wrong place?” she asked.
“Yes. If they’ve been put back incorrectly, please move them to the proper spot.” He added a few more directions, and even though she still felt overwhelmed, she felt like she would be able to cope.
This was still going to be a bigger job than what she had anticipated, but at least she wasn’t going to be handwriting titles or even typing them in. The scanner would make things a lot easier, even if there were some older titles that she’d have to enter manually.
Bryce held out the scanner. “I guess that’s about it. Do you think you’re going to be okay?”
He stared down at her, his face just as closed off as it had been the entire time. Almost as though he were afraid to open himself up because she might reject him.
An odd feeling, since he had been the one who had been rejecting her.
Still, she pushed it aside and nodded. “I think I’ll be fine. I was planning on working until midnight, and then I was going to head out. If you want, I can lock the door behind me, if you’ll already be in bed.”
“I’ll be up.”
He didn’t say anything else and didn’t hang around to allow her to continue any kind of conversation. She had enough work in front of her to keep her busy for a very long time, so it was probably just as well, although he left her with a lot of questions.
Not just about the library, but about him.
Obviously, he cared about it. Did he read the books? Did he spend a lot of time here?
She could go on and on, but she figured it was quite possibly just a waste of time, since he didn’t seem to be interested in having any type of relationship with her.
