Page 9 of Night Shift

It’s a book.

I must’ve knocked it off the shelf. I’ll have to figure out where it came from so Margie doesn’t have to—

Oh, fuck.

Margie.

It’s definitely been fifteen minutes by now, which means there’s a very real chance she’ll come up here to reshelve some books.

I tap Vincent’s arm frantically. “Put me down, please.”

He does so immediately.

The moment my feet are on the ground, I shuffle around him and put a few feet of space between us. His good arm falls back to his side. In the absence of the heat of Vincent’s body, I’m reminded just how arctic it gets in this library, but I resist the urge to wrap my cardigan tight around myself and burrow into it. I will not hide. Not when Vincent’s standing in front of me with pink cheeks, kiss-swollen lips, disheveled hair, and a dazed expression on his face.

I did that, I tell myself. I made a mess of him.

My roommates would scream if they could see me now. Harper and Nina have given me shit for years about being the homebody, the reasonable one, the mom friend of our group. Tonight? I’m unrecognizable. Out of my mind. Fully out of character.

“I told you,” I say with a calmness I don’t actually feel, “I’m not afraid.”

Vincent’s lips twitch. “Fair enough.”

His voice is low and hoarse in a way that makes me feel wobbly. But I need to be more pragmatic. I’m on the clock. There’s a supervisor who might come looking for me soon. And what next? Lose my virginity to a boy I’ve just met in a dark corner of Clement’s only twenty-four-hour library?

Logic and reason are cruel bitches.

I smooth down the front of my shirt and clear my throat. “I should really get back to work. But if you want to follow me to the front desk, I can help you check that book out.”

I take a step backward. Vincent smiles, but it looks a bit like a grimace.

“I’ll meet you down there,” he says. At my curious stare, he motions to the crotch of his pants. It’s dimly lit, and his joggers are black, but I catch the outline of an impressive erection tenting the fabric. “I need a minute.”

My face flushes. “Oh. Oh, right.”

It feels like I should say something else—something to acknowledge the gravity of what just happened—but there’s too much to cover. I don’t even know where to start.

I don’t look back as I leave the stacks, because if I do, there’s a good chance I’ll go running back to finish what we started.

At the top of the stairs, I hesitate before veering off down the hall to dart into the women’s bathroom. The girl who looks back at me in the mirror over the row of sinks is a stranger—eyes wide, lips pink and puffy. A strangled laugh bubbles up in my throat. I have to be dreaming. I did not just make out with Vincent Knight. In the library. During my shift. After some (apparently very erotic) live reading of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

What do we do now? Like, am I supposed to ask him out? Does Vincent Knight even date? Or is this going to be a casual thing where he comes to the library during my night shifts and we come up with a million different ways to defile each section? Maybe that’s too presumptuous of me. Maybe this was a weird, onetime thing. A moment of passion that we’ll laugh off before we part ways.

I don’t know what happens next. I’ve lost the fucking plot.

My hands shake when I reach out to turn the tap on and pat icy cold water on my overheated cheeks. Minutes pass—I don’t know how many, since I don’t have my phone on me—but my body doesn’t seem to want to cool down.

I need to meet Vincent at the circulation desk.

So why aren’t my feet moving?

“Shit,” I say aloud. The word echoes down the line of empty toilet stalls. I meet my own eyes in the mirror again and realize, with startling clarity, that Vincent might’ve been right.

Maybe I am a coward.

• • •

After finally mustering up the strength to emerge from the girls’ bathroom, I hurry down the stairs and head straight to the circulation desk, my shoulders hunched with shame. Margie is back, shuffling books around on one of the small rolling carts we use for reshelving.

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