“Anyway, I’ve got a delivery for the library. This is the library, right? Not the . . . uh . . . the book gymnasium?”
I blinked. “The . . . what?”
“You know, where they keep all the books for exercising your brain?” He looked genuinely confused by his own words. “Wait, that doesn’t sound right. The intellectual fitness center?”
Oh my God, is he trying to be clever? It’s kind of adorable.
“This is definitely the library,” I managed.
“Oh, good!” His face lit up with relief. “Because this box is getting really . . . um . . . burdensome. That’s a big word you use in a place like this, right? Burdensome?”
Am I watching an overly muscled golden retriever perform a trick?
“It’s . . . yes, that is a word.”
He beamed like I’d just given him a gold star. “Great! I’ve been trying to use more . . . what do you call them . . . sesquipedalian words?”
Wait. Did he just use ‘sesquipedalian’ correctly? That’s . . . actually impressive.
“That’s . . .” I swallowed hard, trying not to focus on how his chest strained against his shirt as he adjusted the box. “That’s very . . . ambitious of you.”
“Thanks! I’m trying to be more eruditious. Wait, is that right?” He frowned slightly. “Erudite? No, that’s not fancy enough. Eruditionary?”
“Erudite is perfect,” I squeaked, jumping up from my chair so fast that I knocked over my coffee mug. The coffee spread across my desk in a growing puddle, and I grabbed a handful of napkins, frantically trying to dab it up while stealing glances at the delivery god who was currently witnessing my breakdown. “It’s . . . very scholarly of you . . . I’m not usually . . . I don’t normally . . . this isn’t how I . . .”
“Oh no, did I cause some kind of . . . cerebral disturbance?” He looked genuinely concerned. “That’s when your brain gets all mixed up, right? I learned that from a medical show.”
I looked up at him, this beautiful, seemingly sweet, apparently clueless man who thought ‘cerebral disturbance’ was a real medical term, and felt my heart do something that was definitelynotmedically advisable.
“You have very nice . . . arms . . . I mean chest . . . damn it, eyes. You have nice eyes,” tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. “For carrying. Boxes. And other heavy things. Probably. I imagine you carry a lot of things. Heavy things . . . with your arms . . . not your eyes.”
Oh God, I’m babbling. Kill me. Please. One bullet. Let this be done.
He chuckled, a low rumble that somehow reached across the counter and gripped me. “Thanks! I work out a lot. Gotta stay in good physical conditionality.”
“Conditionality,” I repeated weakly.
“Yeah, you know, the state of being in condition? I made that up. Pretty smart, huh? I could be an author, you know.”
For the love of Walt Whitman . . .
“Very smart,” I lied, because his arms were definitely affecting my ability to think rationally.
“So where . . . where would you like this package?”
The what? Oh, package. The box he was holding, not his—
“Right over there, behind the reference section.”
He turned and headed toward where I’d pointed. I followed, mostly because my legs seemed to have developed a mind of their own. Also, because watching him walk was doing things to my blood pressure that I found most enjoyable.
“So what’s in the box?” he asked.
“Definitely not kitchen equipment,” I said, my brain immediately bitch-slapping my mouth for insubordination.
“Books,” I clarified. “We get new ones every week.”
We reached the processing area, and he set the box down with a soft grunt, then he straightened up and looked around with the expression of someone who’d just accomplished something monumentally important.
