Page 10 of Teach Me to Laugh

“Anyway,” tending to avoid awkward situations, I was looking for an escape when I announced, “I’m off to the bath I promised myself this morning.”

That heat I saw in his eyes earlier came back with a vengeance. It was all I could do to make one foot move in front of the other as I attempted to flee. But then he spoke, “You wanna catch a movie after?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on,” he pushed. “It’s Saturday.”

“I,” I looked at the couch and then back at Beckett. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, and that was why I shook my head and snapped, “I already said no. Goodnight, Beckett.”

“Night, peanut.” He said, sounding just as disappointed as he looked.

And I cursed myself throughout the length of my bath, and later as I lay in bed. The man was going to ruin me.

“How dare you tell him about my cake addiction? That’s like treason.” I accused and Raina raised her brows slowly, testily, as she opened the door of the Library.

In the summer, Raina and I didn’t cover the same shifts, but during school when the Library was busy and more people were needed on nights, those in class covered the nights whilethe owner and her daughter covered the days.

The owner’s daughter, Jocelyn, or Joss, is a woman I’ll always look at as my saving grace. She took me in and gave me a job when I needed one desperately. Not only to make my bills and keep my booty off the street, but also to keep my sanity. I’m not one of those girls who could handle flaunting my assets in a bar or club for a nice payday. I don’t handle men well, if you haven’t already read as much into me. I also don’t handle bossy people, so working as a unit clerk or something equally as demanding is also another no-go.

I was at one of the computers in this very library, searching for a job with a frightening desperation, when Joss approached me. She asked me a few odd questions and wham, bam, thank-you ma’am—I had a job!

I’ve been here ever since. That was three and a half years ago. I now held the responsibility of hiring and scheduling. Joss doesn’t let me fire people as I can be quite blunt—aka insensitive, but she says eventually she’ll get me there. “You just need some living under your belt, my girl.” I could hear her sweetly croaked words in my mind as a prequel to Raina’s high-pitched denial.

“Excuse me? Treason?” She scoffed. “You want to talk treason?”

“I do.”

“All right,” she planted her hands on her hips. “What do you call packing my bag for camping and packing nothing but lingerie? What’s that if it’s not treason?”

It’s all I could do to keep from snorting in laughter. While Raina and Kaiden were dancing around the formations of whatis now their relationship, I dabbled a bit in Cupid’s art. I found to my shock that it was totally fun and I’d absolutely do it again.

“That’s completely different. You and Kaiden were already making eyes at each other. I don’t want eyes from Beckett.”

“You just don’t realize you want eyes from him. But believe me, you want eyes.” She snorted. “You want more than the eyes.”

“I really don’t.” I didn’t have to be a person who never smiled for Raina to know that I was serious. She knew. She knew me better than pretty much anyone, and she knew I was serious.

“Mar,” she started, and I just knew I wasn’t going to like whatever nonsense she was going to give me. “You’ve gotta open up eventually. For goodness sakes, honey, you’re always so tight and—and impenetrable. Let him pop your,”

“If you say cherry I’ll hurt you.”

She smiled that bright as day Raina smile, and I scowled. I have the art of scowling down to perfection.

“Let him pop your safe little bubble. Let him get through your wall and you might actually find you’re happy.”

“I am happy.”

“You’re content. You think you’re safe, but you’re not really living.”

“You sound like Maddy. She’s always spewing on about the importance of living.”

Raina flinched. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know why, but I feigned ignorance. Acknowledging my mistake was just too hard. Too emotional. Too much.

I shouldn’t have said what I said.

“We both know why living is important to Maddy.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sliding my bag from my shoulder, I gave it a light kick under my desk. I was hoping the night would be lax because I had a wicked amount of homework haunting the tail of every thought.

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