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Claire drops her hands and lowers herself on the love seat across from me. Since Wilford usually picks me over her, I get the sofa. Wilford’s ample body needs a whole lot of room. “It’s—you guys have always been good together. I think, fundamentally, he’s a good guy who could make you happy—” She works her jaw. “—If he’d ever slow down enough to invest in a relationship. Frankly, I’m surprised that now, after all this time, he’s showing interest. I wonder why. I wonder what’s taken him so long. If he sees you as just another fling…if he were to hurt you…”
My heart pounds in my ears. She’s voicing the very concerns I used to have. “I get it. He’s unpredictable. And when he touched my face—Claire, he touched my mouth.” Even now, I can feel his thumb brush against my lips, feather light, stoking every nerve ending in my lips to ignition.
Claire’s features have softened. “So, he went in for the kiss and then you asked him if he really was going to move away?” she asks quietly. “You guys need to talk.”
“I tried, but I didn’t know what to think about what happened. And then we saw Troy, and Oliver was just so…territorial.”
Claire jumps up from the love seat and walks to me. She kneels down and rubs Wilford under his neck. “He was territorial, like a dog? Troy made Oliver jealous. That’s so crazy that it—”
The thrill of it all hits me again. “What? Claire, he had to wait until I’d met and broken up with Troy to realize his feelings? It’s just so maddening. He’s too late.”
“Maybe’s finally opened his clueless, lazy eyes,” Claire says with a grin.
“Lazy eyes?” I laugh. “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”
She throws her head back in laughter. After she composes herself, she grows serious. “It looks like it’s in your hands, Sophie. Do you want him or not?”
Her question jolts me with the same sharp surprise of a bee sting. “You know I do.” I attack the rice bag with a massaging fury. “But he’ll never stay put in Longdale. We discussed that too. He’s not staying and I’m not leaving.”
Claire tilts her head from side to side. “Well, you live half the year here, and half the year who-knows-where?”
“The council would really love that. ‘Hey, I’ll run the library for half the year, and for the other half, you guys are on your own.’”
“Or you could design resort libraries full-time?”
That thought feels exciting and daring. Terrifying and purposeful. I’m not ready to give it wings, though.
My breaths are ragged. This conversation with Claire doesn’t solve anything. He’s still a nebulous entity, readying himself to fly away in a matter of months. But if the opportunity to kiss him were to present itself again, I might.
I love the man.
Claire leans in for a quick hug, then carefully removes the rice bag from my violent hands. “You should probably go shower,” she says gently. She gives me this look like I’ve been in a coma for months and can’t be trusted with anything. Which may be more true than I’d realized, seeing as how I’m in such a daze, I could have walked right in the shower with the rice bag around my neck, completely ruining it.
She watches me so carefully that I know she’s concerned. I don’t want to deal with that right now. I need to get the aroma of Longdale Lake off me, so what if Wilford is fascinated by it?
After the shower, and after Wilford processes that I don’t smell like fish anymore, he lumbers onto the bed with me. It’s my mom’s bed, the same one I climbed in when I had a bad dream when I was little. He maneuvers and squeezes into his favorite spot: right in the middle.
“I just need to stick with you, Willie Boy,” I say, burying my head into the softness of his neck.
He sniffs me again and heaves a gentle sigh. I doubt Wilford can understand me, but even still, I adore my dog.
Ishouldjust stick with my Wilford Babe.
Chapter 15
Sophie
The next day, I’m running late and I’m all kinds of mad about it. I woke up with my head still thick from lake water and Oliver. I love the man, okay? But he’s leaving. Part of me wishes I could leave Longdale, too. Actually, that part is growing by the minute. My promise to my mom to take care of Claire, and my ties to my mom and Longdale because it represents her, feel muddy now.
Instead of Longdale being my safe cocoon, it’s starting to feel like it’s squeezing me a little too tight.
I drive over to Tollark, a town about five miles south of Longdale. It’s Violet’s day off, and I’m late opening up Scott. And yes, even though I’m only a few minutes late, it bothers me. A lot of things bother me. The stacks, with those chipped shelves that sag in the middle, make me want to write a nasty letter to whoever from the county denied my bid for a slight budget increase so we could replace them.
Why’d they even have to build this town here anyway? I haven’t had a single patron after an hour of me sitting here looking at the blasted, chipped shelves. Even though this means I have plenty of time to dig into the newest Colleen Hoover title, I’m still in a mood about the lack of patronage. Apparently, no one around here likes to read. I bet no one would even notice if I stopped coming.
I check my computer, my stomach growling. Yep, there are only six books due back here today. They were checked out two weeks ago. And I’m not scheduled to leave until two, when I can take my lunch break before driving over to Menton for the three to six p.m. slot.
I’m tempted to leave early, though. I should just make a big sign and put it up on the Food Mart’s door. “Attention all you non-literary minded people. I’ve gone home for the day. Maybe I’ll come back in a year when you all decide you want to stop wasting my freaking time.”
