Page 95 of Night Shift

We have time.

All the time in the world.

Epilogue

The library is quiet.

Then again, it’s always quiet on Friday nights.

Moonlight floods the atrium. The fake ferns rustle softly in the heat spilling from the air vents. Somewhere on the other side of the nearly empty first floor, the wheels of Margie’s book cart are squeaking sporadically as she weaves up and down the stacks. It’s all very routine, except for one minor detail: for the first time since I started working at the library, I’m not holed up behind the circulation desk with a romance novel in my hands.

Instead, I have my laptop propped open, a draft of the first chapter of my first novel staring back at me in full-screen mode to help fight the siren call of “just checking” Twitter.

Nobody warned me how hard writing would be.

It’s brutal, and it’s frustrating, and it’s entirely worth the pain every time I manage to string the right words together to capture the image in my head or the feeling in my bones. There’s something satisfying about creative endeavors. I think I finally understand why Shakespeare wrote all those love sonnets and Taylor Swift writes all those songs. I get it now—the inexplicable and inescapable need to untangle the garden of feelings growing inside you, leaf by leaf and vine by vine, to put them into words.

“Are you writing erotica about me again?”

My head snaps up.

Vincent stands above me, a teasing smile on his face and a cup of coffee in his hand. He sets it on the circulation desk. His name is printed on the side along with a tiny permanent marker doodle of a sunflower that I recognize as Vincent’s handiwork.

“I thought you promised not to distract me during my shift,” I say, snatching the cup up to take a sip.

Our arrangement is simple: every other Friday, I swap my night shift out for an afternoon shift so I can hang out with Vincent in the evenings. It’s actually kind of fun now that I’ve gotten to know most of the guys on the team. We hang out at Vincent’s place, or mine. We go on double dates with Jabari and Harper. We even go to the occasional party, where I’ll let Vincent make me the weakest mixed drink known to man if he promises to dance with me, because I like when he’s tipsy and loose and belts out glaringly incorrect lyrics to popular songs just to make me laugh.

In return for this small modification of my schedule, Vincent has agreed to give me my Friday-night shifts as a devoted time for peace, quiet, and my works in progress.

So, I tell him, “You’re not allowed to be here.”

“Oh, I’m not here for you,” Vincent says.

I arch an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I can’t believe you’d think that. For your information, I’m here as a tuition-paying student, not your boyfriend. The coffee was just a nice gesture.”

I clutch the warm cup to my chest and watch him through narrowed eyes.

“You’re not going to distract me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I purse my lips. “You didn’t bring a backpack.”

Without breaking eye contact, Vincent reaches over to grab the latest issue of Clement University’s student-run newspaper off the wire rack beside the circulation desk. He holds it up so I can read the front-page headline (sex, drugs, and rock and roll: national collegiate improv festival busted by local law enforcement), tucks it under one arm, and turns to stride across the atrium. He takes a seat at the closest table and makes himself comfortable.

Nobody should look this good reading the newspaper.

His hair is fluffy and disheveled in that way it gets when he sleeps on it wet, and his long-sleeved Clement basketball shirt is stretched tight across his chest. His face is a work of art, each sharp line and wicked curve of his profile enough for me to write entire essays on. Cast in the moonlight, he’s magnificent. I could almost imagine he’s a Mafia hit man on the job, a cutthroat billionaire in the boardroom, or a brooding duke poring over important letters from Parliament.

I can’t decide if I want to write fiction about him or march across the library, drag him to the floor, and ravish him.

Then Vincent props his elbows on the table, biceps straining and bunching against the sleeves of his shirt, and I know without a doubt that he knows I’m watching and that he’s flexing on purpose. To test me.

Well, joke’s on him.

Two can play at that game.

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