Page 34 of Seas the Dating Coach

Brynn stares at my outstretched hand for two beats before closing my office door. “Listen, Mainlander. My sister has been through a lot and—”

“You both lost your parents at a young age.” I barely keep the flaring irritation out of my voice. It’s clear that Brynn only wants to protect her sister, but it’s overly cautious responses like this that contribute to Vivian feeling so small. “Vivian told me. My condolences to you as well.”

Brynn takes a half step back, her brows crashing together. “She…she told you.”

“We’ve become friends,” I say, suppressing the memories from last night—of what happened right before I drew that line in the sand.

I’d been able to keep up my confident persona until Vivian had been inches from me. Then, I’d completely forgotten who I was supposed to be. Vivian’s soft scent dismantled the intricate layers I keep tight around myself until all I could do was trace my fingers up her warm skin and bring my mouth to hers.

It’d been the sweetest torture to pace myself, to give Vivian the gentle first kiss she’d needed. Even when she’d demanded more, I held back out of self-preservation. But then Vivian had touched my chest, and I’d been lost, structurally rearranged, and given a soul-satiating sense of belonging in the span of three seconds. It’d taken all my willpower to step back when all I’d wanted was to possess her mouth with the same ferocity that her fingertips had captured my heart.

My fingers flex as my brain drags the rest of me back to my office.

“Friends?”

I nod, tucking my hands into my pockets. “Vivian is helping me find ways to connect with patrons who want to improve this library. Dave—or Dr. Prescott, as Vivian calls him—has already offered to match the sum of donations brought in through a fundraising event. I’m working to determine what kind of event would best serve this community.”

Her scrutinizing gaze slides from my Oxfords to the gloss of my hair. “You’re up to something.”

“Yes.” It’s been a while since I’ve needed to use this much effort to remain cheerfully neutral. “I’m trying to improve the media room. I’d also like to establish a preservation space for Wilks Beach’s historic books, but…”—I lift a casual shoulder—“one step at a time.”

Brynn shakes her head subtly, her right fingers fisting. “You held her hand.”

Vivian hadn’t been lying when she said that word travels fast in a small town. Though I silently curse myself for not thinking about what holding Vivian’s hand must have looked like from outside the conversation, I can’t seem to conjure a single speck of regret over the action.

“Briefly, yes, while she told me about your parents’ deaths.”

Brynn’s facial features soften.

“I don’t mean Vivian, or anyone in this town, harm. I’m simply here to do my job.”

I don’t add that, after last night, I’d reroute the ocean if it’d help Vivian achieve her goals.

The only thing Ican’t dois kiss her again.

Brynn opens her mouth as if to retort, but I’m rescued by Trudy knocking and then cracking open the glass door. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s urgent.”

“You shouldn’t come to the library smelling like crab cakes and cigars,” a woman’s brassy voice drifts through my office door. It sounds like she’s shouting from downstairs.

Judith and Bonnie have abandoned their project and are leaning over the short half wall that separates the upstairs reading area from the first floor.

“Yeah, well at least I don’t smell like an overgrown hothouse,” a man’s voice retorts.

“People like flowers!”

“People like cigars!”

“You better get down there before they start throwing chairs,” Trudy says, worry etching the subtle lines that bracket her hazel eyes.

I slip past both women, thundering down the stairs and arriving on the main floor just in time to catch a fluttering hardback mid-flight. A bleach-blonde woman—whose head was the book’s intended target—snatches up a corner-gnawed board book from a nearby reshelving cart and holds it aloft. I stop her heavily perfumed forearm with my open palm, halting her throw.

“That’s enough! I don’t know what’s going on here, but it stops now.” My voice is entirely too loud for the library, but tossing books like they’re opened pudding cups in a cafeteria food fight is completely unacceptable.

Carol Cook snorts from beside the circulation desk. “It will now that you’ve acknowledged these idiots.” She leans heavily on the desktop to use her cane to point at the tank-top clad man. “These two just need to brawl it out publicly every few weeks or so.”

As if Carol’s words had been a switch, remorse floods the man’s face. He rubs a hand over his unkempt beard, stepping forward. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll ease up on the cigars.”

The woman crosses her arms over her mesh swimsuit cover, tucking the board book against her side and looking away with a defiant chin lift.

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