Love in the Library

Love in the Library By J.M. Snyder I was that small tow-headed boy who sat by himself on the school bus, eyes wide behind thick glasses and nose buried in a book. So to me, a library job sounded perfect. My junior year of college I applied for a position and found myself working evenings seven to midnight, Monday through Thursday, with weekends off. Because I was the new guy on the shift, I got assigned to returns. In theory, it sounded simple enough—each book had its place on the shelves and none of the patrons could be expected to put anything back where it belonged. All books that came into the library were sorted and stacked onto carts, spine up and sorted by floor. Once a cart was full, I dragged it to the elevator and began the arduous task of putting the books back in their proper places. With five stories of stacks, one cart could take most of the night to empty, and any books left lying around the study carrels were to be re-shelved, too. As I pushed along my first cart of heavy hardcover books, I told myself returns weren’t all that bad. Some people just hated busy work. But my cart had a bad wheel that jiggled as I steered it towards the elevators. The noise filled the quiet library, making me cringe with each step. At the elevators, I bullied the cart inside an empty lift and hit the button for the fifth floor. Nothing happened. I hit the close button but the doors refused to obey. I hit the fifth floor button again—nothing. “God,” I muttered, leaning on the button. My reflection in the mirrored interior muttered in response—pale eyes blinked at me from behind wire-frame glasses almost obscured by straight blonde bangs. “Close,” I encouraged. Thin lips moved on my reflection, a ghostly mimic. Close. Disgusted, I let go of the button. As if by magic, the doors slid shut. “Thank you.” With a jerk, the elevator began its long, slow haul up while my stomach stayed behind. Almost out of spite, the doors started to open halfway between the last two floors. I watched with sick fascination as the ground beneath my feet crept up to meet the level of the fifth floor. The elevator stopped with a good inch left to spare. Note to self, I thought, tugging the cart out after me, never take the one on the right again. The cart’s bad wheel bumped against the uneven floor and turned, wedging itself in the gap between the floor and the elevator. “Oh f**k me,” I sighed. I hated elevators and I hated returns, in that order. When I tried to lift the heavily laden cart up to move it, the wheel pulled free from its socket and stayed put. Slowly, the elevator doors began to slide shut. Beneath my breath, I cursed. “I fucking hate returns.” The doors stopped when they hit the cart and opened again. Pushing the cart aside, I bent down to tug the wheel free from the gap but it was stuck in there good and didn’t budge. I got on my knees and waited for the doors to close, catch on the cart, and open again before I leaned in to grab the wheel with both hands. But my sweaty fingers couldn’t get a decent grip and slipped right off. I tried running a finger under the wheel, maybe to push it loose, but my knuckle was too big to get up under it and I almost lost my hand when the doors tried to close again. They hit the cart, bounced open, and on the other side I heard a handful of books tumble to the floor. Now I hated libraries in addition to elevators and returns, and in another minute more I’d probably swear off reading altogether. With a disgruntled huff, I fell back onto my butt and knocked against the legs of someone standing behind me. “Enjoying the show?” I asked, bitter. “You need some help?” came the reply. I ran my hand through my bangs to brush them out of my face and looked up to see dark eyes and dark curls above the brightest, sweetest, sexiest grin that had ever smiled down on me. I stared openly as he nodded at the wayward wheel. “Can’t you get it up?” Suddenly my mind spun out in a million different directions at once, leaving the elevator and the cart full of books far behind. My voice croaked when I told him, “I’ve never really had that problem before.” He laughed, a delicious sound that lit up his eyes. “Maybe if we both work at it, we can pull it out.” The frustration in me dissipated and I began to giggle. He gave me a quizzical look, a faint smile on perfect lips as if waiting to get in on the joke, and that only made me laugh harder. “I’m sorry,” I sighed, struggling to breathe. “It’s just—oh God. My mind’s in the gutter. I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath to steady myself and quashed the last of my giggles to put on a straight face. “I’m sorry.” “Laugh at me after I give it a try,” he told me, but there was humor in his voice and I liked the way his gaze lingered on me before he turned his attention to the wheel. “I’m Adam, by the way.” “Johnny.” I scooted back as he approached the elevator, studying the problem. Absently, his backpack slipped off one shoulder to fall beside me on the floor, and when the elevator doors started to shut, Adam stuck his foot out to stop them. He circled the wheel, looking at it from all angles, even going so far as to kick it once but the thing still didn’t move. In a low voice, I murmured, “Madam, I’m Adam.” At his sharp glance, I shrugged. “It’s a palindrome. Means it’s spelled the same way forward as backward.” “I know what it means.” Adam’s smile was back, and the intensity in his gaze made me blush. “I’m impressed you do, too. And here I thought you were just another pretty face.” There was nothing pretty about me. But because he watched me so closely, waiting for some sort of answer, I shrugged and resisted the urge to push up my glasses. “I’m an English major.” That earned me a grin. “And he dodges the play.” I ducked, unsure of what it was he wanted me to say. “I’m sorry.” “It’s cool,” Adam told me. “You’re obviously not interested—” “I am,” I said, a little too quickly. I wasn’t sure if he meant what I meant, but God knew I wanted to find out. “I’m sorry—” Adam nudged my foot with his. “Stop saying that already,” he told me with a laugh. “You won’t hear me apologize for hitting on you.” I bit back another sorry, my body buzzing at his words. With his back against the elevator’s door jamb Adam sank to the floor, legs splayed out in a V so the wheel waited between his knees. I watched him wrestle with the wheel, rocking it back and forth in the gap until he managed to work it free. “Ta-da!” he cried, and I laughed as he held it up in victory. Pushing himself up off the floor, he told me, “I suggest you take the other elevator on your way down.” He gave me the wheel, then lifted up one end of the cart. “I’ll hold still while you shove it in, what do you say?” “Do you always talk like this?” I asked, grinning, as I slid the wheel into its slot. Adam helped me to my feet. His grip was strong and sure, his palm warm in mine, and he held onto my hand a moment longer than he needed to. “Only when I’m flirting with someone. Nice meeting you, Johnny. You come here a lot?” “This is sort of my first day on the job,” I admitted, pulling a rumpled piece of paper from my back pocket to show him my schedule. He scribbled a phone number at the bottom of the page. “Call me or I’ll come looking for you.” With a grin, he added, “I know where you work.”