Page 40 of Night Shift

It’s my turn to frown. “Wait. What?”

Vincent stares at me for a moment like he can’t tell if I’m joking or not, and then he does the last thing I expect. He laughs. I watch him, dumbstruck, as he sits down on the edge of his bed and scrubs his hands over his face. “Oh my God,” he moans, then he drops his hands into his lap. “I knew it.”

I feel like my brain is lagging.

“Knew what?” I ask.

Vincent shakes his head. “It’s my fault—it was a dumb idea. It was that first night, when I came in during your shift and we—” He tilts his head in silent acknowledgment of our make-out session. “The librarian was helping me check out the anthology you gave me, and I—” Vincent laughs again, like he’s embarrassed, and hides his face behind one hand. “I wrote you a little note and my phone number on a piece of paper. I put it in your book.”

“What book?” I ask, and then abruptly I remember The Mafia’s Princess. The book he caught me reading. The book I left on the circulation desk when we went upstairs. The book I never finished reading because I couldn’t look at the cover without thinking about how badly I’d fucked up with Vincent. “Stop. You’re kidding me.”

Vincent bites down on his lower lip and nods.

“Fuck!” I cry.

All this time—three miserable weeks—and I had his phone number in the book I couldn’t bring myself to finish. I had solid, tangible proof that Vincent Knight wanted me, and I passed it off to Nina and told her she could either read it or toss it in a donation bin.

I bury my face in my hands.

“I didn’t finish the book,” I groan into my palms. “Oh my God, I—I told Nina she could have it. Shit. She probably donated it.” Because if she’d found a note from Vincent Knight tucked in my romance novel, she never would’ve shut up about it.

“No wonder you were so pissed off at Starbucks.”

“Oh my God, I was furious. I thought you were purposefully sending mixed signals. You kiss me, and then you disappear, and then I don’t hear from you again until you need a tutor—like, what was I supposed to do with that?”

“I thought you ghosted me after the night we met. I never got a text from you, and I thought maybe you weren’t interested, but I had to know for sure. Asking for help with poetry was, like, my Hail Mary to see you again. And then you emailed me, and it was so stiff and formal, and I thought—”

“That I didn’t want to see you again,” I finish.

He nods. “And you thought I just wanted a tutor.”

It’s both satisfying and infuriating to finally clear this up.

One thing I’m definitely sure of: miscommunication truly is the worst trope.

“Well, we’re brilliant,” I announce.

Vincent laughs. It’s loud and loose and makes the knot in my chest come undone.

“I’m not very good at asking for what I want,” he admits, his cheeks and the tips of his ears tinged with pink as he picks at invisible lint on his duvet. I’ve never seen him so bashful. “If I’m advocating for someone else, it’s easy. I’m just being team captain. But if it’s just for me, I—I don’t know. I feel greedy.”

The idea that Vincent—confident, quick-witted, flirty, dirty-minded Vincent—doesn’t like advocating for himself doesn’t seem to fit. But the puzzle piece slots into place.

He’s never been good at asking for help, has he?

I think of the way he kissed me in the library, and his offer to let me practice on him. How sheepish he was when he asked me to be patient and let him try to lift me with one arm, for my own enjoyment. The way he teased me at Starbucks, the whole time thinking I’d just come for the money but hoping, quietly, that I wanted him the way he wanted me. He’s always left the door open for me. Even when I slam it shut in his face, he opens it up again.

But all this time, he’s been too afraid to ask me to come inside.

It’s enough to break my heart. It’s enough to make me want to clutch him tight and pepper kisses over every inch of his face, to apologize for being a coward—and to reprimand him for being a coward too.

“Well,” I say. “We’re just going to have to communicate better, aren’t we? Be honest with each other. Clear. Direct.”

Vincent swallows and sits up straighter.

“Then for the sake of being direct,” he says, “I can’t stop thinking about you, Kendall. And I’ve read every goddamned poem Elizabeth Barrett Browning ever wrote. In three weeks. For fun.”

I bark out a surprised laugh and press my hands to my overheated cheeks.

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