Page 25 of The Wanderer

"Okay, drag me through the city. But I get to pick the place we eat."

"Deal." She stuck out her hand, unprepared for him to tug her toward him when he took it.

"You're incredible," he said, slanting a soft kiss across her lips that made her melt against him. "I love sparring with you."

"I can feel how much." She pressed against him, glad they were sheltered in an alcove off the library's main entrance. "We better go check out that dome so we can take care of…you later."

She almost said, 'this' and felt him up, but doing it in a dark alley shielded from prying eyes was a far cry from groping him in one of Melbourne's iconic landmarks.

"The dome's not really that important," he said, holding her upper arms and easing her away. "I only tagged along to spend some time with you."

Stunned by his admission, and quelling the instinctual urge to flee because of it, she stared at him.

"Because we've basically fucked twice and that's it," he continued, sounding endearingly bashful. "I wanted to show you I really do want to hang out with you while I'm in town.”

She searched for the right response to convey how much she appreciated his effort without alerting him to how the thought of getting closer by ‘hanging out’ struck terror into her heart.

When she came up lacking, she settled for, "Thanks, I like spending time with you too."

"So shall we check out the dome or leave?"

Her body clamoured to leave but she had this gorgeous guy alongside in one of her favourite places; she'd be a fool to pass up this opportunity to enjoy his company.

"Dome, but we'll make it quick."

He nodded his approval and took her hand. It felt surreal as they took the elevator to the sixth floor, walked out onto the highest level of the LaTrobe Reading Room, and surveyed the stunning room below, with eight long tables fanning out like the tentacles of an octopus.

She loved the reverent hush, the whisper-quiet of students lining those tables, heads bent over books backlit by green lawyer lamps.

"Impressive," he said, barely glancing at the tables below before the dome above drew his attention. He gaped a little and she knew the feeling, the massive soaring architectural feat never failing to make her feel insignificant.

"This is one of my favourite places," she said, pointing to the ancient books in shelves that lined the alcoves of the room. "There's over thirty-two thousand books in here alone and I wish I could curl up and read every one of them."

"I can barely bring myself to read the newspaper," he said, an odd wistfulness lacing his tone. "My mum was the bookworm."

She noted his use of past tense and dithered over whether to ask him about her or not. She knew nothing about him beyond his job and the small town he'd come from. If they were going to spend time together, maybe it wouldn't hurt to know more.

"She died when I was eighteen," he added, before she could question him further.

"And your dad?"

"He's around but we don't get on."

From his clipped tone and deep frown, there was a world of untold angst there, but his clenched jaw and visible cording of the muscles in his neck alerted her that now probably wasn’t the best time to delve.

Time to change the subject. "Now that you've seen the dome, can we do a quick tour through the red and blue rotundas before we leave? They house some fabulous paintings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."

He visibly relaxed, his shoulders lowering and his expression easing into curiosity. "You really are an artsy-fartsy cliché," he said, sounding amused rather than judgemental. "Okay, let's go look at these paintings."

However, his phone buzzed at that moment. "Excuse me," he said, fishing it out of his pocket and moving slightly away to answer. He spoke in low tones so she couldn't hear the conversation but one look at his lips compressed into a white slash and his narrowed eyes meant she'd lost her library partner. He grimaced when he hung up and thrust it back into his pocket, cursing under his breath.

"Sorry, I have to go. There's some glitch at the council with a permit that needs sorting. Rain-check?"

She hid her disappointment and nodded, tilting her face up for his incoming kiss. It was all too brief, a bare glance of his mouth across hers, before he eyed the door.

"I'll call you," he said, touching her lightly on the arm.

"Okay."

---