Deeper

Library

I find him on the fourth floor of the library.

It’s all journals up here, the shelves shoved together in the middle and study desks around the outside walls, plus a Xerox machine where I spent way too much time copying literary criticism of T. S. Eliot last year.

West is standing by a cart full of books with his back to me, shelving a fat red volume of something. It takes me a minute to realize it’s really him. I already looked all over the first three floors, and I was starting to panic that he might not be here. I’d noticed I often see him with his cart on Thursday afternoons, but that doesn’t mean much.

He’s got earbuds in, and I don’t think he’s seen me, so I take a second to think about what I even want to say to him. I feel kind of sweaty and unkempt, even though I took time after lunch to change my shirt and slick on lip gloss.

I’ve never done this before.

I’ve never initiated a conversation with West.

It feels more intimidating than it should, not only because of who he is—the forbiddenness of him—but also because this is the fourth floor. It’s an unwritten rule of Putnam that the fourth floor of the library is a space of sacred silence.

West grabs another book. He has to reach above his head to shelve it, which means his shirt hikes up and I see he’s got a thick brown leather belt holding his jeans on. It doesn’t match. His boots are black, and so is his T-shirt. It’s got this big jagged orange seam sewn across the back, as though a shark came along and bit a giant rip in it, and then he handed it over to a seven-year-old to fix it.

I can’t imagine how such a T-shirt even happens. Or why anyone would wear it.

West’s clothes are sometimes like that. Just . . . random.

I kind of like it.

When he lowers back down to his heels and bends over the cart, his shirt gets caught on his belt and rides up, exposing some of his lower back.

I clear my throat, but his music must be too loud, because he doesn’t turn toward me. I step closer. He’s got his head down, his hand reaching for a book on the lower shelf.

Crap. Now I’m so close that I’m bound to startle him when he finally figures out I’m here.

There’s nothing I can do to prevent it. I reach out, meaning to touch him just long enough to get his attention, but I end up pressing my palm flat against his lower spine instead.

It’s an accident. I’m almost sure it’s an accident.

Eighty percent sure.

He doesn’t jump. He just goes completely, utterly still. So still that I can hear the music playing over his earbuds. It’s loud, with angry vocals and an insistent, pounding beat that matches the sudden pulse between my legs.

Oh, I think.

Maybe it’s not an accident, after all.

West’s back is indecently hot beneath my palm. I stare at my fingers, ordering them to move for several long seconds before they actually obey. When I pull my hand away, it feels magnetized. Like there’s this drag, this force, tugging it back toward West.

I’m pretty sure the force is called lust.

I know even before West straightens and turns around that I’ve miscalculated, and now I’m totally at his mercy, which means I’m doomed. I’m not sure he has mercy. He sure didn’t seem like he did when he was hitting Nate hard enough to make me physically ill.