Page 23 of Seas the Dating Coach

The only other time I’d allowed someone to captivate me like this, to get past my lacquered layers, she’d smashed my heart to shards. After that, I’ve kept my relationships mutually beneficial. Transactional. Everyone knows what they are getting from the start. Vivian lacks Katelyn’s ruthless capacity, but I’ve been fooled before.

I grimace when I find an unopened container of Clorox wipes sitting on my desk. At least I haven’t received any wayward book recommendations today.

“Very funny.” I raise the container over my head, searching for the culprit through my glass wall.

A few regulars glance at me before quickly returning to their reading. I plunk into my chair, surlier than I’ve been in a long while. Maybe I should forgo tonight’s HIIT class at The Garage Gym and head toward civilization. I could listen to an audiobook to make the drive to Virginia Beach tolerable.

“Mr. Reynolds?” Letitia, the community engagement librarian, knocks on my open door.

I don’t have it in me to request that she call me Finnagain. I’ve been asking since I arrived, and everyone seems bent on keeping the formality. At least Letitia is kind about it. Since I’ve arrived, she’s been visibly torn over having to regard me as an outcast. I think that’s more on account of her affable personality than anything to do with me.

“What can I do for you?” I straighten, setting a friendly smile on my face.

She barely steps inside, keeping her left foot firmly on the exterior carpet. My spine sags an inch, but I try not to let it show.

“No one showed up for tonight’s job application class. Since it’s been fifteen minutes, I was wondering if I could go home?”

Letitia is two years older than me but already has a husband, a three-year-old, and a one-year-old to get home to.

I glance at my watch. “Sure.”

Letitia’s shoulders soften, already turning. Before she can escape, my question snags her like a lure. “Why do you think no one attended?”

I’d asked Letitia to organize this class my first week here. This and free classes on resume/CV building were often overfilled at the Central Library. Half of the time, the librarian assisting those in Central Library’s media room acted as an unofficial job counselor. The lack of community support classes provided by the Wilks Beach branch is borderline reckless. For many people, libraries are the only place to learn these skills.

She pauses, her hesitation as easy to read as a large-print book.

I rub my temples, pain starting to throb behind my left eye. “Just tell me.”

“The community this library serves doesn’t need assistance with job applications.”

The longer I spend here, the more I realize what a different ecosystem this library is to any I’ve ever worked in. For example, library closures make me incredibly uneasy. Our free public buildings are a safe haven for so many citizens. I’ve always tried to connect potentially unhoused individuals with nearby resources during scheduled closings. This past three-day weekend, I checked around the building twice each day and didn’t see anyone needing help.

“What do they need, then? Let’s give it to them.”

Just like before, every expression plays on Letitia’s face. Shock at my direct tone. Surprise over the question. Something softer—like approval?—remaining after the first two waned.

“Entertainment.”

I lean back in my chair, about to ask for clarification, when Letitia bustles into my office, sits on the edge of my desk, and starts talking.

ten

Vivian

“Ihave Atticus’s number.” The sentence slips from my lips as I clutch my phone in both hands, staring like it’s The One Ring. With the way I’m murmuring, singularly focused on the glowing digits while blindly walking home, I might as well be saying, “My precious.”

Out of habit, I hook around the back of Dotty’s Market, weaving between discarded cardboard boxes and wooden pallets. Cliff, Dotty’s grandson and employee, sits on an overturned bucket, vaping. He gives me an upward nod of acknowledgment as I pass.

Before I fling open the unlocked door at the back of my building, I take a breath to process the last half hour. It worked. The wish. Finn’s dating advice. All of it. I not only spoke real words—whole sentences!—to my crush, I got his phone number.And more importantly, he has mine. Now I just need to wait for him to ask me out.

Ican’t waitto tell Brynn.

My expanding smile grows as I push open the back door. Once, in middle school, two girls from a group project convinced me to have our planning meeting at my house just to see the only residence on the island that sat atop a coffee shop. I felt a little like an outer space tour guide, showing them the singular entrance at the back of the building, the narrow vestibule holding two doors to the shop and also the staircase. They’d oohed and ahhed over the unusual ingress.

Once we arrived upstairs, my classmates were less impressed. At that time, Aunt Tammy ran Seabreeze Beans, sleeping in the bedroom facing the nature preserve while Brynn and I shared a set of bunk beds in the bedroom facing the road. The compact size of our living room and the galley kitchen that you had to walk through to get to the bedrooms didn’t win any awards either.

Toeing my canvas shoes onto the small rack beneath the skinny entry table at the top of the stairs, I call out to Brynn, “Honey, I’m home. What do you want me to make for dinner?”

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