CHAPTERONE
Darby
I'm overdressed. Or maybe I'm underdressed. What should a person wear to meet her fake boyfriend?
If it’s brown wool tights, I’m all set for this stupid, embarrassing meet-up.
Every time the heavy door to the Beaucoeur Public Library creaks open, I whip my head in that direction. My work day ended twenty minutes ago, so I’m hovering at the edge of children’s fiction, trying to act nonchalant. The bright December sun sears my eyes as the door swings shut, but each time it's not the person I'm waiting for. Not that I know what the person I'm waiting for looks like, but I'm pretty sure he's not a stressed-out mom of three or an eighty-year-old man with a walker.
Oh God, what if he's the eighty-year-old man with a walker?
I'm losing my nerve. Why did I let Faith talk me into this? It started off as a joke, but somehow it ballooned intothis.
I grab my phone to text her that I’m calling it off when the door opens one more time and a tall figure blots out the sun. I’m still a little dazzled as the door swings shut and the man’s eyes sweep across the main library room. I'm guessing he's doing the same calculus I've done, dismissing the frazzled mother, the old guy unloading his returns onto the wooden counter, and my bald boss Ron, bent over the computer at the main desk.
Then his eyes land on me, and his expression shifts from focused to friendly as he heads in my direction.
My palms are sweating. I scrub them along the sides of my corduroy skirt, aware that I'm going to have to shake his hand. Wait, do people still shake hands? Isn't that considered a hygienic no-no now? What do you say to the person who's going to be sharing a bathroom with you at the end of the month if everything goes right?
“Darby St. Claire?”
Guh.His voice is deep, and although he’s smiling at me as he tucks his knit hat into the pocket of his Carhartt jacket, he doesn't extend his hand to shake. Looks like he feels the same way I do about unnecessary germs. Oh hell, maybe he doesn't like touchingat all.
Wait, that's probably for the best given the circumstances.
He’s looking at me expectantly, his hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans, and I still haven't said anything. Double hell. I offer my best smile, which probably looks frighteningly perky, and tuck my hair behind my ear.
“Hi!” I clear my throat and try again, slightly more controlled this time. “Yeah, that's me. You’re Gabe?”
Gabe Dickenson. Faith hadn’t told me what he looked like, just that I wouldn’t be disappointed.
She was correct. This handsome man who smells like cold air and pine trees is waiting for me to take the lead on this meeting while I’m standing here staring at his shoulders. His beautiful broad shoulders.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” I finally say, my voice sounding abnormally stiff.
He glances over his shoulder at the checkout desk, then looks back at me. “Are they going to shush us?” His voice drops to a whisper. “Are we even allowed to talk?”
Thisgives me pause. “Have you never been to a library? You're allowed to talk.”
A frown, there and gone, passes over his face. Great, I've already managed to offend him. “Not that I think it's bad if you haven’t—”
“Faith said you have a proposition for me.” He’s still smiling, but it’s less relaxed now.
Okay then. Now I'm the one looking over my shoulder at the checkout desk. The old guy is sorting through his return pile as Ron patiently waits, his watchful gaze sweeping the main library floor.
“Follow me.” I jerk my head to the right and Gabe shrugs and lets me lead him past Sendak and Seuss and Silverstein until we reach the end of the children’s section and turn right, heading deep into adult periodicals. So much of it’s online now that this section doesn’t see much traffic, which means we should be able to talk without bothering anybody or being overheard. I'd rather die than have that last thing happen.
We both take a seat in the periodicals reading nook, and he shrugs out of his coat and leans back in his chair, propping his ankle on his knee and slinging his arm over the chair back. His jeans look comfortably worn and his boots are scraped and dirty, clearly for work and not for show. When the sleeve of his gray Henley pushes slightly up his wrist, I see the edges of a tattoo peeking under the cuff.
I swallow again. This was a bad idea.
“This was a bad idea.”
I don't usually say exactly what I'm thinking, but expediency seems important at this point.
“You say that like you’ve never hired a boyfriend before.” Every time he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkle. It’s a distraction. So is his messy dark hair and his tall, lean body. He's not at all who I'd pick as my boyfriend. He's not even somebody I'd stand next to at a bar while I was trying to catch the server’s eye. He’s too… scruffily attractive. Too confident. Too unaccustomed to libraries and the whole librarian lifestyle. Well,mylibrarian lifestyle anyway. Plenty of my cohorts are the cool types who never stay in on a Saturday night.
I lace my fingers together in my lap, feeling strung as tight as a drum in the face of his loose-limbed sprawl. “I haven’t. Obviously. Have you, um…”
