Page 17 of Magic and Mayhem

It was hidden in her bottom drawer and she wasn’t as sneaky as she seemed to think she was.

Glancing between my car and the library across the street as I exited the building, I sighed. “You’re an idiot.”

But I was an idiot who started walking because it looked like the parking lot was mostly empty and I wanted the librarian to have some privacy when I made him nervous.

It started out pretty well.

When he looked up from the large desk and realized I was human, he relaxed, visibly sinking back into his chair before sitting up straight again. “Hello, welcome to the library.”

If I went for shy and easily startled, he’d be cute, but I wasn’t into always worrying about making my date hide. “Good day.”

I didn’t bother trying to be subtle as I looked around the building. “Anyone else here?”

It was probably the cop thing that made him shake his head confidently, but we were going to have to work on his self-preservation instincts because he answered me entirely too easily. “No, Sir.”

Yep, little or something close to it.

“Good. Good.” There was no good way to go about it, so I just charged right in. “You’re going to get an invite to the next kinky playdate event over at the VFW.”

When his mouth dropped open but he didn’t panic, I kept going. “They’re once a month, so you’ve got a few weeks before it actually happens. But if you don’t want to go, just politely tell the cuties who are going to come over that you’re not interested.”

All I got were blinks.

“No one in town cares what your sexuality or preferences are.” I shrugged. “It’s a local thing because they don’t even tell the hippy guy to keep his clothes on most of the time. I just wanted to give you a heads-up so you have time to process how you feel about it before you get the invite.”

The librarian finally swallowed as his eyes went back to a more normal size. “I…the locals are very polite.”

My snort had him finally smiling.

“That’s one word for ’em.”

His slow nod said he knew something was up with the locals too, but he didn’t volunteer any information. “Thank you for explaining why I’ve gotten so many people telling me about the VFW lately. I thought they were somehow under the assumption that I was a military veteran.”

“Nope. They’re overly helpful and think you’re kinky.” My response had his cheeks going pink and he looked like he wanted to hide under the desk. “But like I said, if you politely tell them no, they’ll leave you alone.”

He sucked in his lower lip and nodded as he nibbled on it, but the conflicting signals had me wondering if he knew he was a sub or not. I’d also started wondering if I’d scared him too much when he managed to start talking again. “The…the town seems very open-minded.”

Weirdly so.

“I think most of them realize they have…interesting parts of their life too, so they’ve learned to accept people for who they are.” I’d always assumed we’d get violently invaded by aliens, but it was good to see that we could all live together.

He actually laughed before going red again. “Sorry.”

Rolling my eyes got another giggle out of him. “Oh, don’t apologize to me. I know how weird this place is.”

Nodding like a bobblehead doll, he looked relieved to talk to someone who understood. “People here are. A woman was. I mean, she sneezed and.”

I shrugged as his words just stopped. “But they’re polite and they pay well.”

His face scrunched up and he had to nod. “That’s very true. I’ve never had a job where so many people have been so nice.”

“I think it’s worth putting up with some eccentricities, but if it makes you feel any better, I told the sheriff about our floater.” Yep, still had to say crazy shit.

“That’s wonderful because I wasn’t sure what would happen if she had a sneezing fit.” He looked up at the ceiling. “There’s no cushion up there at all.”

He had a point.

Someone could get hurt.

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