“I don’t know,” I said. “Bragging rights?”
“Lame, but all right.” Ryan twisted the piece of paper around until it was right side up.
“What, you have something better?”
“Winner gets to choose.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I could only imagine what he would have me do if he won. Not, of course, that he would. I knew this library like the back of my hand after spending so many hours inside of it, with or without being coerced into helping Faith with whatever her latest project was. Witch to witch.
Which basically just meant Faith batted her purple eyelashes a few extra times after being told she couldn’t require such hard labor, stacking and restacking, from any of the other students sitting at the desk for work study.
“Fine,” I agreed.
“Fantastic.”
“On your mark, get set—”
“Hey!” Ryan yelled before quickly settling into a whisper, clearly forgetting that we were more or less alone in the nearly empty library. His head whipped back and forth for any angry librarians.
I curved around the side of one of the bookcases, paying his concern no heed. Still, Ryan managed to be close behind.
“You didn’t say go.”
“And?”
“Obviously, you don’t know what sportsmanship is.” He hustled after me, using more of his leg than was probably wise.
It wasn’t only me who had a competitive edge.
I turned down another shelf, lifting myself up onto my toes to see on the shelf above my head. My finger slid down the spines of books.
I snatched my first oversized reference book down from the shelf at nearly the same time Ryan found his first. I tucked the book under my arm before skimming the next row over. I knew that it was somewhere. I, myself, had taken the same class that Ryan was now in, though that professor had had much more of a preoccupation for the Brontë sisters at the time.
The section of eighteenth through nineteenth-century women writers was sadly small, right next to the monstrosity of the school’s Shakespeare and romance collection.
Another book was yanked down off the shelf, and I went for the final one. I found it easily, the edge sticking out, likely from someone else who was also using the library for a similar project. I jogged my way around to the bookend, where Ryan was already. I lifted the book up in front of him. He still had to go to the aisle I had just been in to get his last one. Maybe I should’ve made it a little fairer. I should’ve only given him two compared to my three.
“Aha! Beat that.”
When he pressed his lips together, it almost looked like he was forcing himself not to smile at his devastating loss. It didn’t last long before he exposed his pearly teeth and pulled out the final book at his side.
I stared at it. My eyes widened. “How …”
“Guess this means I won, huh?” asked Ryan smugly.
I said nothing as I turned back toward our table.
“Don’t worry. I’m still trying to think of the perfect thing I want as a reward for my exceptional win.”
He could keep thinking all he wanted, for as long as he wanted. I shrugged, as if it were nothing. His smugness could only continue, however, for so long.
“Seriously, how did you get that one? I didn’t see you in the shelves there.”
“Can’t give away my secrets,” he said simply.
“Maybe then you’ll be able to find all your own books.”
“Nah, that would be a whole lot less interesting without you here to beat.”
