Page 10 of Night Shift

There’s no sign of Vincent.

“Did the printing go okay?” I ask.

Margie nods. “Poor kid has a career fair in the morning and couldn’t figure out how to get the right margins on his résumé.”

I hum sympathetically.

Margie heads off with a box of East Asian literature she wants to relocate to a display on the other side of the atrium. I scan the moonlit tables there for any sign of brown-eyed basketball players, then discreetly pull up the library’s checkout database on my computer.

There’s one new entry to the system: six minutes ago, Knight-comma-Vincent checked out Engman’s Anthology.

I slump back in my chair, the air in my lungs leaving in a heavy whoosh. He’s gone. He left while I hid in the bathroom like the coward he accused me of being.

If he wanted to, a voice in my head whispers, he would’ve stayed.

But he didn’t.

It’s probably for the best, actually. It would’ve been awkward to reconvene in the bright fluorescent lights here and try to pretend we didn’t just maul each other. And it would’ve been painful to trudge through small talk as we discovered that, once the thrill of being alone with a member of the opposite sex in a dimly lit corner of the library was gone, the two of us have nothing in common. I still don’t know anything about Vincent Knight—aside from the fact that he’s an obscenely tall basketball player who hates English classes and has a mouth made for kissing.

He probably won’t remember my name by next Friday. I’ll be just another wild hookup story that he tells his teammates about over rounds of beer pong or in the locker room after practice. Because that’s what nonfictional men do: disappoint you.

So, really, I should be thankful that he left without saying goodbye.

Wrapping my cardigan even tighter around myself, I reach for The Mafia’s Princess, still face down where I stowed it on the desk. The naked torso on the cover feels like it’s mocking me. With a heavy sigh, I lean down and stow it in my backpack.

I’ve had enough romance for one night.

Five

It’s five thirty in the morning when I clock out of my shift, shoulder open the library doors, and emerge into the real world. The sky is still dark and star-speckled. In the orange glow of the lampposts stationed around the quad, there’s a misty haze from the sprinklers in the grass. No one else is in sight. But that’s typical—no one else has a good reason to be on campus before sunrise on a Saturday. I’m sure most of Clement’s student body is still asleep.

An unwelcome image flickers into my head: Vincent Knight, curled up under a cloud of blankets and duvets, hair mussed and eyelashes like dark feathers in the hollows over his cheeks.

“Oh, fuck off,” I grumble.

It’s been a good seven hours now since he came into the library, and I’m stuck between wishing he never had and wishing I hadn’t let him leave. Because what if that was it? My one chance to see what it feels like to live out my very own romance novel.

I don’t need a man, I remind myself. Nobody needs a man.

I’m fine. I’ll be fine.

I unchain my bike from the racks out front (with a bit more aggression than is strictly necessary) and pedal home, my teeth chattering in the cool California fall air.

Harper, Nina, and I lease an apartment a couple blocks north of campus. It’s an old redbrick building nestled beneath wide oak trees that shed leaves onto the sidewalk below regardless of the season. They crunch under my sneakers as I tie up my bike and march up the front steps.

On most Saturday mornings, I’m as quiet as humanly possible when I get home so I don’t wake up my roommates. But today, I don’t have to bother—as soon as I step out of the stairwell on the second floor, I hear the unmistakable sound of Harper and Nina’s laughter muffled through the wall.

I barely have the keys in the lock before the door flies open, and there’s Harper, her corkscrew curls pulled back in a loose ponytail and fine glitter dusted across her dark cheekbones.

“Surprise!” she whisper-shouts. “We made you breakfast.”

Over her shoulder, I can see Nina standing at the stovetop, spatula in hand.

“You guys are up?” I take in Harper’s smeared makeup and Nina’s deflated brown waves. They haven’t roused themselves at the crack of dawn just to treat me to eggs and toast. “Oh my God, you haven’t slept.”

“Nope,” Harper says with a giddy grin.

“We got home, like, half an hour ago,” Nina tosses over her shoulder. “Do you want raspberry jam?”

---