Page 56 of Faking It with the Bad Boy

Meet me at midnight? The Victorian medical section needs reorganizing.

I brought coffee and color-coded sticky notes.

And maybe some trust worth preserving.

Just in case you're brave enough to believe.”

J

***

I filed it under green.

For the parts that made me want to be brave. For the parts that felt real. For the parts that made me think some risks were worth taking. For the way he remembered preservation protocols and humidity levels and everything that mattered to me.

Even if they involved motorcycles, bad boys, and hearts that didn't follow proper preservation procedures.

Because maybe love, like riding motorcycles, wasn't about being naturally good at it.

Maybe it was about learning to lean into turns or trusting someone enough to hold on. Or maybe it was about being brave enough to believe that some things – like coffee at midnight, color-coded notes, and boys who knew your heart better than your organizational system – were worth the risk of falling.

Even if it meant breaking all the rules about professional distance. Even if it meant admitting that some forms of preservation had nothing to do with artifacts. Even if it meant learning that the scariest part wasn't the riding.

It was the believing.

And maybe, just maybe, I was ready to believe that some things – like trust and love and boys who memorized preservation protocols – were worth preserving.

Even if they didn't come with proper handling instructions. Even if they required learning to lean into uncertainty. Even if they meant risking everything for the chance at something real.

Something worth protecting. Something worth preserving. Something worth believing in.

Like a boy who knew the exact humidity requirements for Civil War surgical tools. Like a heart learning to trust again or love found between motorcycle lessons and medical history.

Chapter seventeen

Hidden Talents

There are precisely twenty-three ways to organize a personal library. I know because I wrote my sophomore thesis on Victorian cataloging systems. But none of them prepared me for finding Jack Morrison in the rare book room at midnight, surrounded by first editions and looking entirely too comfortable among the leather-bound volumes.

"Before you say anything," he said without looking up from what appeared to be an original Dickens, "I have permission to be here. And yes, I'm handling it correctly. And no, this isn't part of some elaborate act."

He sat cross-legged on the floor, books spread around him in careful semicircles. His reading glasses perched on his nose, and his hair was messy like he'd been running his hands through it while reading. The whole scene was cosmically unfair.

"I wasn't going to say anything," I lied, trying not to notice how right he looked there, among centuries of literature. "Just... wondering why the star hockey player is fondling Victorian novels at midnight."

"Fondling?" His smile was dangerous. "Is that the technical term for book handling? I must have missed that in your preservation lectures."

"You know what I mean."

"I do." He carefully marked his place with an actual bookmark (not a folded page - another cosmically unfair detail). "I'm building a collection. Thought you might help evaluate some finds."

He gestured to a stack of books beside him. First editions. Early printings. The kind of volumes that made bibliophiles weep and museum curators swoon.

"Where did you—"

"Estate sales. Online auctions. That weird bookshop downtown that's only open during lunar eclipses." He shrugged, but I could see the pride beneath the casual gesture. "Turns out hockey players can be book collectors, too. Who knew?"

I moved closer, drawn by the siren song of rare books. "Is that—"

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