Page 62 of Night Shift

I’ve never been so happy to see a naked male torso on a cover. With a sigh of relief and glee, I shove my hand deep into the treacherous pit of books and grip the corner of The Mafia’s Princess between my fingers. It takes a great deal of tugging to get the thing free, and when I do, I stumble back a few steps.

A little scrap of something—the pale-pink lined paper I recognize from the notepad Margie keeps on the circulation desk—flutters out from the pages and drifts down to the floor. It lands face up. I recognize the neat block letters with a sharp pang of endearment.

It’s Vincent’s handwriting.

i’m not poetic

but call me for a good time

(i really like you)

Printed beneath this is a phone number. His phone number. My eyes trace over the note three more times before it hits me. Three lines. Five, seven, five syllables.

He wrote me a haiku.

I bark out a laugh even as tears spring to my eyes. It’s self-deprecating and tongue-in-cheek and so utterly him. The mental image of Vincent hunched over the circulation desk—maybe still trying to hide his boner, or maybe shielding this scrap of paper from Margie’s prying eyes—and counting out syllables on his fingers is the nail in the coffin. I’m fucked. So utterly fucked. Maybe I should be mad at the cruel irony of it all, that this silly little book with a naked man on the cover is our Chekhov’s gun, but all I can bring myself to do is pick up the note and read it again and again until I think the words might actually be seared into my brain forever.

And then, with my bouquet of sunflowers and my smutty romance novel cradled in one arm, I reach for my phone. I’m trembling a little because I’m so fucking cold and hopped up on adrenaline, but I manage to pull the keypad up so I can dial the number on the note. Just to check. Just to hear his voice (whether I get his voicemail or he says hello and I have to hang up like a complete stalker) so I can’t talk myself back into doubt.

I lift my phone to my ear.

A moment later, I hear ringing—both against my ear and somewhere in the store.

And surely it must be a coincidence that someone a few aisles over is getting a call right now. Surely real life can’t be so cinematic. It’s too convenient. Too contrived. My English professors would rip it apart. But I grab my sunflowers, and my feet carry me around the corner and down the rows until I’m standing at the end of an aisle that I’m all too familiar with.

Vincent Knight stands in the middle of it, a romance novel in one hand and his ringing phone in the other.

Twenty-five

Vincent’s hair is windblown, his black Clement Athletics jacket is speckled with rain, and his nose is a little bit pink from the cold. He’s utterly and devastatingly beautiful. And for one brief but magical moment while he’s frowning down at the ringing phone in his hand like he’s debating whether or not to take a chance on an unknown number, I get to absorb the full weight of how badly I’ve missed him.

Then he looks up, and his dark eyes land on me like I’ve shouted his name.

My stomach drops into my feet. I want to run. It takes everything in me to fight that gut instinct, even though I’m really not ready for this. I’m dripping wet, my hands are full, and I still don’t have a grand gesture planned. But I’m fresh out of time to brainstorm, because Vincent is straightening his spine and squaring up to face me. His expression is equal parts dutiful—like he sort of saw this coming—and pained—like he’d really rather not.

And his phone is still ringing.

“Oh, shit,” I blurt. “Sorry. Hold on.”

I fumble with my sunflowers and Vincent’s note and The Mafia’s Princess, nearly dropping all three in the process, before I manage to tap the button on my screen to end the call. Vincent looks between me and his (now-silent) phone like he’s just now connecting the dots.

“Hi,” I say, taking a cautious step into the aisle.

“Hi,” he says back, and fuck, I’ve missed the deep timbre of his voice.

But he doesn’t exactly sound thrilled to see me. Not that I can blame him. The last time we saw each other, at his birthday party, I told him to fuck off and leave me alone.

“Hi.” Fuck, I already said that. “I, um, come in peace.”

I offer him the brightest smile I can muster and hope he doesn’t notice that I’m shaking. This is the worst. I hate being brave. I hate being perceived. Most of all, I hate this weird distance between us. Not the literal one—it would only take another five or six steps forward to get to him—but the metaphorical one. Vincent’s not smiling back at me. I want him to. I want him to crack a joke about if I come here often, and I want him to call me by my last name and make a double entendre about the fact that I’m dripping wet.

I want us back the way we were.

But I broke it, so now I have to fix it.

“What are you doing here, Kendall?” Vincent asks on a weary sigh. “It’s Friday. You’re supposed to be at the library.”

I shouldn’t be so touched that he remembers my work schedule.

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