I swallow down a relieved sigh as I reach the counter, feeling at least a little more concealed now that my bottom half is hidden behind something. As this is my considerably larger half, it’s probably the better part to have obscured. “What seems to be the problem?”
“This gentleman has a book on reserve, but I can’t seem to find it.Someonemust have shelved it wrong.”
Gee, Erica, could youbea little more obvious?I think in my best snide Chandler Bing voice. To the Red Unicorn, I offer a polite smile. “Okay, let’s see if we can figure out what happened to it.” I hesitate. The easiest option would be to look up his name, but I’ve been avoiding knowing it for all this time. I don’t actually want to knowwhohe is. I want him to remain the nameless Red Unicorn, an anonymous, safe, almost-fictional man who can never disappoint me. “What was the name of the book?” I ask instead.
“Death on the Nile.”
Smiling to myself, I remember seeing him reading a Poirot mystery the night before. He must have finished it already and ordered the next. I’m the same way with mysteries, exercising as little restraint with them as I manage with Pizookies. “Of course—another Agatha Christie.”
Too late, I realize my mistake. I’ve just unwittingly betrayed that I’ve been keeping track of his books. The Red Unicorn looks perplexed, furrowing his brow a little. “What?”
I paste on my blandest smile, even as my heart races, knowing my only hope is to play it completely and totally dumb. “Agatha Christie wroteDeath on the Nile, another one of her many mysteries!”
The pucker in the Red Unicorn’s brow increases, but he doesn’t comment, and I hope that I’ve convinced him, or at the very least confused him enough that he won’t know what to think.
“Hmm.” Grateful for the distraction, I focus on the computer screen in front of me. “I’m not seeing any order forDeath on the Nile. When did you make it?”
“Last night.”
“And you received confirmation that it was here?”
Erica lets out an irritated groan. “I already asked him that.” She smiles, sickly sweet, at the Red Unicorn. “I’ll check in the back. See if it got misplaced.” She offers one last accusatory glare at me before disappearing into the back room.
The Red Unicorn clears his throat. “It’s not important. I can come back for it later.”
I hate the thought of him—of any patron, really—wanting a book and not having it available. If he ordered the book last night, it must have been after he finished the one he’d been reading in the restaurant. He might be playing it cool now, but I know from experience it’s such a disappointment to think your book is waiting at the library only to have it not be there after all.
I offer him a sympathetic smile. “I don’t mind looking through the reserves again, just one more time, if you want to wait.”
He shrugs, so I turn my back to him and begin looking through the spines of the books. It’s tedious work but it takes my full attention for a few minutes, distracting me from his presence.
Well, mostly. He’s so silent that I glance over my shoulder a moment later, just to make sure he hasn’t disappeared. What I see makes me do a double take in surprise.
The Red Unicorn is doing a slow, leisurely perusal of my body, starting from my feet and winding up over my calves, my thighs, my backside, lingering there for a long moment before continuing up past the small of my waist, my back, and finally meeting my gaze over my shoulder.
For a brief but intense moment we just look at one another. Then the Red Unicorn slides his gaze away.
I resist my first instinctive urge, which is to awkwardly cover my body, and I force myself to turn around to face him. I will use my most normal, everyday voice because what happened isn’t a big deal. He just looked at me, that’s all. People look at each other all the time. This is not an event! “I’m sorry.” My stupid, traitorous voice sounds suspiciously winded, like I’ve just come running up a flight of stairs. “I’m not seeing it.”
“I’ll come back.” I see a muscle in his jaw pulsing, and then—as if he can’t help himself—his eyes dart down to my breasts, and just as quickly away again. He stands there for a moment, not speaking, then abruptly leaves.
I stare after him, baffled. The Red Unicorn, who has not so much as looked at me once the entire time he’s been coming to the library, has by all appearances just…checked me out. As absurd as it sounds, I don’t know any other way to describe what just took place.
Holy. Cow.
Chapter 6
Helen
As anticipated, Nina is supportive—in her calm, reserved way—of this new development, as indicated by her single heart emoji in response to my text. Matilda, as usual, has stronger opinions, on every subject.
So what? she texts back. Heterosexual men like boobs. You have larger than normal breasts. Ergo, he looked.
I know Matilda is right, at least in theory. Most women on any given day can probably expect to be ogled at least a handful of times, just going about their normal business: grocery shopping, drinking coffee, walking to their car. That doesn’t make it right, of course, but it happens—to other people. I, unlike most women, do not get ogled on a regular basis. The way I present myself was designed to result in this very outcome, and it has worked very well for me. I can walk by a construction site completely unnoticed; it’s one of my superpowers. Because…I don’t want to be noticed. I don’t want to be catcalled. I spent so much of my life not allowing myself to think of my body as being in any way sexual that the thought of some stranger thinking of me in that way makes me feel physically ill.
The point isn’t thatsome guylooked at my boobs, though. The point is thatthe Red Unicorndid. And in that moment, all the anxiety, the unease, the fear that I’ve associated with my body being noticed was missing. I felt…excited that he was seeing me. A little unnerved, yes, but also…anticipatory. I liked knowing he was looking at me. I like imagining him thinking about me the way…
The way I’ve been thinking about him.
