The mother blinked, then managed a slightly stunned but polite smile. “Thank you for… helping him.”
Jeremy was still staring up at Rion with pure awe. “Do you live in a maze?”
“A labyrinth,” he said. “And yes.”
Jeremy gasped like Christmas had come early.
After they left, I looked at Rion. “You are very good with children.”
He shrugged and reached for another book. “They ask honest questions.”
Unlike adults, who stare and whisper.
He did not say it, but I heard it anyway.
I bumped his arm lightly with mine. “You probably just became the most exciting thing that has ever happened to Jeremy in this library.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “That’s a low threshold.”
“Don’t be modest. You are definitely making show-and-tell.”
That got another faint smile out of him, and the warmth of it settled low in my chest.
We finished shelving the last of the books in a silence that felt full rather than awkward. When the final volume was in place, he checked his watch.
“It’s noon,” he said. “You should eat.”
As if summoned, my stomach growled.
I sighed. “Nothing about me is mysterious.”
“Would you like company?” he asked.
The question was simple. The look in his eyes was not.
“I brought sandwiches,” I said. “You can join me in the break room if you don’t mind a space roughly the size of a broom closet.”
“I don’t mind.”
The break room looked even smaller once Rion was in it. His horns came dangerously close to the ceiling. His shoulders made the room feel like it had shrunk in self-defense. When he sat, the chair creaked like it regretted every decision that had led it here.
“Sorry,” I said, handing him a sandwich. “The library board keeps promising improvements, but staff comfort remains a tragically unpopular line item.”
“It’s sufficient.” He accepted the sandwich with a delicacy that would have been funny if it weren’t so distracting. “My home began as a much smaller structure.”
“Before you turned it into an architectural masterpiece?”
He took a bite. “Each addition served a purpose.”
“Like a library,” I said. “Everything grows where it’s needed.”
His gaze met mine. “Exactly.”
I sank into the chair opposite him and took a bite of my own sandwich, suddenly aware of the narrow space under the little round table. Our knees brushed almost immediately.
Neither of us moved.
The contact was slight, but steady and impossible to ignore.
