"Don't apologize. It's a library. People are allowed to be comfortable here."
He looks at me. Something quieter than the brightness of book talk crosses his face, quieter than the nervousness of earlyinteractions. The slow recognition of a person who's been seen and not judged for it.
"Yeah," he says. "I guess they are."
He goes back to his book. I go back to mine.
At noon, he leaves for his shift. He's helping again, covering a shift for Robin. I wonder if Robin actually needs the help, or if he actually just wants to help Devin in every way he can.
I stay in my corner for another hour, reading, thinking, not thinking. At one I go to the café, order coffee, sit in my booth. He brings it to me, the blue mug, the one he knows I like, and our fingers don't touch this time, but the space between them is warm.
"Chapter twelve yet?" he asks.
"Tonight."
"Text me."
"I will."
He smiles. Not the full brightness, not the animated book-talk grin. Something smaller. Something that's just for me, in the space between the counter and the booth, in the quiet afternoon of a café in a library in a town that's becoming something I didn't expect.
I read until 3:30. Leave at my usual time. The note from yesterday is still in my book, next to the first one, next to the second one. Three notes now. A collection.
At the bar, I eat dinner with the pride. Jason's chicken again, different recipe, somehow better. Knox mentions the five acres again, more concrete this time. He's been talking to acontractor. Vaughn says the fence line is clear. Nico pulls up something on his laptop about zoning and building permits, his brain already converting Knox's vague idea into actionable steps. Ezra watches Nico work with an expression that's somewhere between pride and amusement, his tea cooling untouched on the bar.
I eat my chicken and think about Devin sleeping in a library chair and Margaret letting him stay and the twenty-two minutes I counted on the clock while pretending not to.
My lion stirs. Not a declaration. Not a roar.
Just:pay attention.
I'm paying attention.
Chapter 7
Devin
Thursday morning, and I've been awake since four.
Not intentionally. Tyler came in late, tripped over his shoes, and knocked the mini-fridge into the wall. I pretended to stay asleep because he was humming, which means his date with Melissa went well, and waking up would've meant listening to every detail. I love Tyler but I don't need a play-by-play of his love life at 2 AM.
So I've been lying here in the dark, readingThe Name of the Windby the glow of my phone. Kvothe is at the University now, being brilliant and insufferable in equal measure, and I keep wanting to text Silas about it. Not because of chapter twelve. I'm past that, and he was right, I needed tissues. But because there's a passage about naming, about the true name of the wind, and it made me think of the way Silas says my name. Devin. Not Dev, like everyone else. The full word, like it matters.
I don't text him. It's 4:30 AM and that's a line even I know not to cross.
At 6:15, Tyler's alarm goes off. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze.
"Happy birthday to me," I mutter into my pillow.
"WAIT." Tyler bolts upright. "TODAY? It's TODAY?"
"Go back to sleep."
"DEV. It's your BIRTHDAY." He's already grabbing his phone. "I have plans. I have SO many plans."
"Tyler —"
"Melissa's coming, and she's bringing her friend Jade, and we're going to Murphy's because you're TWENTY-ONE and you can LEGALLY DRINK and this is HAPPENING."