Her eyes snapped back to me. I’d taken a cue from Emily and refused to give any details into my life that weren’t already public knowledge. What I wanted to say was, “Yes, Emily and I are dating, and it’s none of your damn business,” but I didn’t.
“It’s a shame we have two competing events in the town, it’ll be hard on residents having so many tourists in.” Margo pushed a stray strand of hair back into the twist she kept it in.
“Good luck to you in convincing your family to switch their event to another weekend.”
Stepping past her, I strolled up to the building. Letting myself in with my sister’s key, I let the door close, but I paused at the first level of stairs to watch Margo walk away. Somebody needed to put the Hill family in their place.
Continuing to Emily’s door, I shook off the interaction and focused on the good news we’d gotten. In the end, no matter if this event succeeded or not, we would have tried our hardest to save the library. Releasing a heavy breath, I lifted my hand and knocked on Emily’s door.
There was a bit of shuffling behind her door, and a couple of seconds later, she opened it. Her eyes sparkled, and a radiant smile lit her face. My eyes traveled over her, and I was gobsmacked by how beautiful she was.
She wore a long sleeved forest green dress that ended an inch above her knees with black knee high boots. The front dipped down showing her ample cleavage, and she wore a simple silver necklace with a black stone pendant.
“Wow! You look amazing,” I said, not taking my eyes off her.
“Thank you, you look good too.”
I wore a simple gray button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark wash jeans. She grabbed her purse from her kitchen table before joining me outside of the apartment. After locking the door, Emily turned to me.
“I have some good news,” I stated, offering my arm to her.
She took it, and asked, “What’s that?”
“Addison March is attending.”
Her eyes widened. “No shit! That’s amazing!”
After Emily and I both got into my car, I drove us toward Fairwood. The entire trip, Emily was excitedly telling me about the new series she was working on, and how it was actually a spin off from the series she recently finished. It sounded interesting, and I planned on reading it, too.
I hadn’t told her I had already read every single last one of her books and was eagerly awaiting this next one. One day I might tell her, but for now I liked how she’d explain her backstories to me, and I’d ask questions. I enjoyed listening to how excited she would get about her series.
At the restaurant, after we placed our orders, I asked, “So are you going to write and release or rapid release this next series?”
“I think I might not do a rapid release with this series. I actually want to slow down a little bit, maybe do some volunteer work at the library we are about to save.”
“If we’re able to save it. I’d love to have you around. We could always use the extra help.”
“I was actually thinking, I’ve had so much fun planning this event. Maybe I could take on finding funding as my volunteer project. Put the event together, contact authors, everything, that way you can get back to your normal job duties.”
“We will see. As things sit right now, this event may not give us enough funding to make it the full year.”
“Oh,” Emily said, looking down at her hands. “What happens if we can’t get enough funding and the library has to close?”
“Then the books will likely be donated, sold, or possibly destroyed, and the building and property will be sold, likely back to the city.”
“Right, but what happens with you?”
Her eyebrows raised in concern, and I gave her a small smile, “I don’t know.”
“Will you have to leave?”
“I’m going to do my best to make sure I don’t have to. Outside of my friends and my sister, there is this wonderful and accomplished woman I think I’m falling for.”
“Oh yeah?” The corner of her mouth lifted as her eyes sparkled a bit.
“Yeah.” I nodded softly.
“That’s cool. I mean I think I’m falling for this amazing, hunky librarian.”