I need to get to the library.
* * *
He's in his usual spot when I arrive. Reference section, back corner, the comfortable chair with the reading lamp that casts a warm circle of light. His jacket's draped over the armrest, the same thin jacket, the only jacket, the one that doesn't keep the rain out. He's already deep in The Name of the Wind, hunched forward over the pages with the intensity of someone who reads like breathing. Like Robin said.
I don't announce myself. Just go to the fiction shelves, pullThe Lions of Al-Rassan, and settle into my corner. Close enough to share the quiet. Far enough to let him have his space.
He notices me. I know because I hear the small intake of breath. Not surprise, more like recognition. The sound of something expected arriving and being exactly what you hoped it would be.
He doesn't wave today. Just lifts his book slightly, showing me the cover, and I lift mine. A salute. Two people with books, acknowledging each other across a silent room.
We read.
This is the thing I didn't expect, that the silence would be the best part. I've been quiet my whole life. The pride jokes about it, calls me the monk, the hermit, the one who communicates exclusively through book recommendations and strategic grunts. Knox understands because Knox is quiet too, but Knox's quiet is authority. Mine is just absence. The space where a personality should be, filled with other people's words instead of my own.
But reading next to Devin doesn't feel like absence. It feels like presence. Two people doing the same thing in the same space, and the silence between them isn't empty. It's full. Full of pages turning and the hum of the overhead lights and the distant sound of Margaret's keyboard and the quality of air between two people who are comfortable enough to not speak.
I get up for vending machine coffee. Two cups. I set his on the table near his section without a word. He takes it without a word. We drink terrible coffee and read good books and don't talk and it's perfect.
At 8:30, the seniors arrive. The book club, six women who treat the library like a living room, loud and cheerful and absolutely certain that everyone wants to hear about Barbara's hip replacement and the shocking twist in this month's pick, which appears to be a romance novel with a pirate on the cover.
"Marlene says the love scenes are gratuitous," one of them announces. "I say they're the whole point."
"Marlene thinks holding hands is gratuitous," another says.
Devin catches my eye across the room. He's trying not to laugh, his lips pressed together, shoulders shaking slightly. I raise an eyebrow. He raises one back. A whole conversation in two eyebrows and a shared look.
I open my notebook, the one I use for book notes, quotes I want to remember, fragments that stay with me, and write:
The seniors are reviewing a pirate romance. The love scenes are, apparently, the whole point.
I tear out the page, fold it, and walk past his table on my way to the restroom. Drop it on his book as I pass.
When I come back, there's a note on my table.
Marlene is wrong. The love scenes ARE the point. Also, the tall one in the blue cardigan cries every single week at story hour. She's secretly a romantic.
I put the note in my book.
* * *
Tuesday afternoon.
Robin comes out from the cafe, spots him reading where he always is, and lights up.
"Dev! You're here." Robin leans on the booth. "Listen, I know it's Tuesday and I know you're off, but the afternoon rush is going to murder me. Any chance you want to pick up a shift? I'll pay you extra."
Devin's already closing his book. "Yeah, of course. Anytime."
"You're sure? It's your day off. You're allowed to say no."
"Robin, I'm always up for extra shifts."
"You're a saint. A literal saint. I'm paying you time and a half and you're not allowed to argue about it." Robin squeezes his shoulder and heads back to the counter. "Apron's on the hook. You know the drill."
Devin pulls on his apron — crooked, the way it always is when he ties it in a rush — and falls into the rhythm behind the counter. Robin reties it for him without asking, reaching over with the casual intimacy of a boss who's become something closer to family.
I watch this from my booth withThe Lions of Al-Rassanand a coffee. The ease between them. The way Robin asked and Devin said yes before Robin finished the sentence, not because he's a pushover but because extra hours mean extra money and Devin doesn't waste opportunities. He was right about the prose, restrained, layered, the kind of writing that trusts you to feel the weight of what's unsaid. I'm forty pages in and already know this book is going to break me.