Page 68 of Forgotten Romance

Orson:

There he is.

I smile and pocket my phone. That might have been a tangent I wasn’t expecting when I messaged them, but Art confirmed my thoughts, and Orson nudged me in the direction I was avoiding thinking about myself.

I leave my desk and the how to homeschool tab behind and make my way into the stacks. We’ve got our history and geography sections up front and most of the fiction down the back. Tonya’s always sneaking in time to read at work for research, so there’s no reason why I can’t do the same whenever I get a free five minutes.

The fantasy aisle calls to me, and I step into it, breathing in the smell of books. Chatter from the knitting club just behind me breaks up the silence. I run my fingers along spine-cracked books, hoping that one will jump out at me. Anything.

I could pick up The Hobbit again, but the thought of diving into something that detailed makes me exhausted already. Am I in the mood for dragons? Epic fantasy? Intricate worldbuilding? I’m waiting for an impulse, for my hand to find a book and be like “this one,” but that doesn’t happen.

There are too many, and I’m overwhelmed by the choices available. Maybe I should have googled this too? For a librarian, I really don’t have up-to-date knowledge on the new bookish trends.

Fuck, am I a bad librarian as well as a bad husband? All I need is to be a sucky dad as well for my whole life to crumble apart.

Already overwhelmed, I drop down to the floor and lean against the books behind me, craning my neck to look up at all the options.

“Oh, there you are, love. We’re off,” Judith says, pausing at the top of the aisle. She’s got a pink rinse in her hair, and her knitting glasses are still on, making her look slightly bug-eyed. “Come now, why are you on the floor?”

I smile up at her. “Just thinking.”

“And it’s easier from down there, is it?”

“It’s more that the weight of it all got me into this position.”

Judith tsks. “My husband used to say you’ve gotta keep a strong back. You’re not going to get one all hunched over like that.”

Ignoring the generational gaps in that comment, I change the subject. “I thought you still had another half an hour.”

“Well, we were supposed to, but then Freida got on Maree about whose quilt was going to be voted first at the fair, and it became a whole thing. The two of them are like bulls locked at the horns. I’ll never understand it, myself.” She turns her nose up. “Always been perfectly agreeable. My husband always used to say, delicate like a flower, I am.”

If there’s anything Judith isn’t, it’s a flower. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll go and deal with the room.”

“Good lad. We’ll see you next week.”

She bustles away, and I sigh, pushing myself up from the floor, about to grab a random book and take a gamble.

Then, an author’s name catches my attention.

Beau Rickshaw.

Holy fuck. Beau! I’d always planned on picking up something of his, but then life filled up, and it totally slipped my mind. I have no idea what these books are about, but a quick glance at the blurb looks promising. Not quite Tolkien heavy, but definitely some sort of fantasy aspect.

I tuck it under my arm, then deal with the pitchers of water and empty glasses in the meeting room before setting it all back out into its generic layout. We don’t have to use it again until a meeting tomorrow, so I lock up and walk back out to my desk, flipping through the book. It’s got a bio of Beau inside the back cover, and it’s so weird to see someone I know smiling from the inside of a book.

This is freaking cool.

Am I nervous I won’t like it? A little bit. But if I don’t mention to him or Payne that I have it, we don’t need to deal with that awkward conversation if the book isn’t for me. I’m well aware I’m putting a lot of pressure on my friend to get me back into something I used to love, so he doesn’t need to know that too.

I drop down into my desk chair and wake up my computer before I turn to set the book down again. Except there, in the spot I was going to set it, is a copy of The Hobbit.

I frown at the offending book, not finding it so cute this time. Luke and I agreed to be friends. That’s it. So if there’s another cutesy love note in there, that’s going to confuse the hell out of me. I’ll probably have to have an awkward conversation, and then how do I even be friends with him if I don’t trust him to drop it?

Right before I can cross into actual stress mode, I pick up the book to see if there’s even a note in this one.

And of course there is.

Fuck. Right. Well.

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