“It’s just . . . you never really struck me as the reading type. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with not being a reader; it’s just—”
“Just that I’m a dumb jock who probably thinks Hemingway is a type of beer?”
“No! That’s not what I meant at all. I just—” I felt my face heat up. God, I was an idiot. I’d just insulted him . . . after he’d done so much to make me happy. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
Jeremiah’s expression softened. “It’s okay. I get that a lot. People see the muscles and blond hair and assume my brain is just for show.”
His eyes drifted into a past I couldn’t see. “My mom used to read to me when I was little. Classic stuff—Dickens, Twain, even some Shakespeare when I got older. She’d do all the voices, make it come alive. I fell in love with those stories, those characters. I can still picture some of them in my mind—Sydney Carton, Huckleberry Finn, Lady Macbeth.”
The way he said it, with such genuine fondness, made something twist in my chest. It sounded almost as if he was describing old friends rather than fictional characters.
“I always saw books as little movies that played in my head, just for me,” he continued. “Something no one could ever intrude on or take away. When everything else got complicated or messy, I could disappear into a story and just . . . be somewhere else for a while. I could be someone else, too.”
There was something in his voice, a carefully controlled emotion that made me want to dig deeper, to understand what those “complicated or messy” times had been. What had driven him to seek refuge in books? What had he needed to escape from? Why would he—this beautiful, remarkable man—ever want to be someone else?
But something in his expression told me this wasn’t the moment for those questions. Not yet. Maybe someday he’d trust me with whatever shadows lived behind that casual explanation, but tonight was about beginnings, not excavating painful histories.
“That’s beautiful,” I said instead, and meant it. “Your mom sounds like an amazing woman.”
“She was,” he said simply, and I caught the past tense, filed it away with all the other pieces of Jeremiah I was slowly collecting.
My chest felt tight with something that might have been overwhelming gratitude or a growing sense of something so much deeper. The thoughtfulness of everything, the way he’d remembered what mattered to me and found a way to make our date about the things that made me happiest—it was almost too much to process.
“Table for Mikel,” Jeremiah told the hostess, a woman with silver hair pulled back in a neat bun who looked like she might be as old as some of the books surrounding us.
“Right this way, dears,” she said with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “I’ve got you at one of our corner tables. Perfect for . . . a private conversation.”
She led us to a small table nestled between two towering shelves, the surface lit by an antique brass lamp that cast everything in warm, golden light. It was intimate without feeling cramped, cozy without being claustrophobic.
Romantic without . . . no . . . it was beautifully romantic.
I settled into my chair and immediately found myself craning my neck to read the spines within arm’s reach, sheltered behind a shield of glass: a first-edition Dickens, what looked like an original printing of Whitman’sLeaves of Grass, a collection of Shakespeare’s works that was probably worth more than my car.
“You’re going to give yourself a crick in your neck if you keep doing that,” Jeremiah observed, but his tone was playful and fond rather than annoyed.
“Sorry,” I said, forcing myself to look at him instead of the literary treasures surrounding us. “It’s just . . . this is incredible. I can’t believe places like this still exist.”
“Just wait. The food’s pretty amazing, too,” he said, handing me a menu that looked like it had been bound in the same style as the books around us. “Though I have a feeling you’ll still be more interested in what’s on the shelves than what’s on the plates.”
He wasn’t wrong.
My fingers were already itching to explore, to pull down volumes and see what secrets they held. When was the last time these particular editions had been read? Who had owned them before they found their way here? What stories did they contain beyond the words printed on their pages?
“Thank you,” I said quietly, meeting his eyes across the table. “This is . . . it’s perfect. I couldn’t have imagined a better place for our first real date.”
Jeremiah’s smile was soft and genuine, and when he reached across the table to take my hand, I felt that same flutter in my chest that had been building all evening.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “Because I was hoping we could make this a regular thing. You, me, good food, and more books than either of us could read in a lifetime.”
The future he was painting—quiet evenings in this magical place, sharing meals and literary discoveries—sounded like everything I’d ever wanted but had been afraid to hope for.
“I think I could get used to that,” I said, echoing his words from the car.
Jeremiah stared a moment longer before clearing his throat and reaching across the table with his other hand to pluck the menu out of my hands.
“I should probably mention,” he said, “I ordered for us ahead of time. I hope that’s okay.”
I blinked at him. “You . . . ordered . . . before we got here?”
