“Yeah, censorship sucks,” he agreed, boldly reaching over and flipping a page. Then another. He could smell her, a light, clean scent, soap or shampoo maybe.
She stopped him, a small noise escaping her throat. “That one.”
The guy’s face was buried between the woman’s thighs, her legs up over his shoulders. You couldn’t really see anything, but you knew just what was going on.
“One of my all-time favorites.” Henry’s arm brushed hers as he reached out to turn the page again.
“Mine, too,” she breathed, making another noise at the position on the next page. “That’s a fun one. Ride ’em, cowgirl.”
“Is it just me or is it hot in here?” He shifted from foot to foot, peeking at the lights on the elevator. They were passing the ground floor now. Checkout was on the second floor.
“Got kind of intimate all of a sudden, didn’t it?” She was so close he could count her freckles. “Elevators do that to me anyway.” Her voice was low and sexy. The tone made his mouth water. He saw a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Closed spaces.”
“You’re obviously not claustrophobic.”
First floor. Almost there.
She laughed as the elevator doors opened, stepping out and walking toward the checkout. Henry followed, giving up his student ID, which doubled as his library card, watching her as she typed and swiped and did whatever she needed to do.
There was another woman watching them-probably the real librarian, a pudgy woman with short black hair and thickly painted on red lipstick that was bleeding into the faint outline of her mustache. She was a far cry from his wet dream archetypal image of a librarian, but her demeanor was similar, the serious frown, the watchful eyes. She looked like she was about to say, “Shhh!” at any moment.
The flirty, suggestive girl from the elevator had disappeared-the redhead turned into all-business when the librarian was around.
“Okay, I think I did this right.” She handed back his card. “You’ll get an email with a link. Just click it and download the ebook file. It will expire in two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Henry gulped. How in the hell was he going to learn to read in two weeks?
“You can check it out again, as long as it hasn’t been requested by someone else,” she explained. There was a line behind him now, and the red-lipstick librarian was watching them with raised eyebrows.
“Okay you’re all set…Henry,” the redhead said loudly, squinting at his card as she handed it back to him.
“Thanks.” He leaned forward onto the counter, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You know, they say you never forget your first.”
She smiled. “But you don’t even know my name.”
“I’m such a dog.” He pulled out his wallet so he could put his card back-just an excuse to talk to her longer. “With a long string of ebook checkout firsts all through the state…”
“Olivia.” She leaned forward to tell him, so close he felt her breath on his cheek. “Libby.”
He heard the girl behind him grumble loudly as he slipped his ID into his wallet.
“Maybe I’ll see you around, Libby.” Henry put his wallet into his back pocket, stepping away from the counter.
Libby winked. “I’ll be here.”
The dragon-lady, a name passed on year after year to incoming freshman by her former students, was a formidable figure in front of the classroom. She towered over them, her heels clicking up and down the aisles, hips swaying. She reminded Henry of both a dragon and a cat at times. It was the way she moved, the way her eyes narrowed, and if she had a tail, it would swish constantly.
She was also drop-dead gorgeous. It wasn’t just her curves-and the woman had those in spades, and in all the right places-she had a kind of cool beauty that made your breath catch in her presence. Unlike most women her age, she hadn’t followed the trend and cut her hair short. Instead it hung long and free, so black it was almost blue under the fluorescents. She wore it up on occasion, or braided into a long, thick plait down her back, but mostly she didn’t and it was a terrible distraction.
It was her eyes, though, that mostly got to Henry. They were dark eyes, framed by thick lashes, and they watched him. It seemed as if she watched him constantly. Whenever he looked up, her gaze was on him, as if she knew him, or knew something about him. It was unnerving. But it also intrigued him.
“Mr. Baumgartner.” Professor Franklin sighed loudly as he fumbled with his microcassette recorder. He never took notes. Instead, he’d used his recorder all through high school and it was proving to be invaluable in college as well.
“Uh…yeah?” Henry glanced up, turning the cassette over and pushing the red button. Not that he wanted to record this exchange for posterity. For some reason, she liked to focus on him, single him out.
“Must you do that?” She had her paperback version of The Great Gatsby open, had been in the middle of reading them a passage, when his tape had run out.
“Do what?”
She pointed. “Use that…thing?”
“It’s…” Necessary was the word that came to mind. Instead he said, “Easier.”
“Easier than what? Taking notes?” She waved her hand around the room. Everyone else had a notebook open.
“Yeah, for me.” He sounded more defensive than he wanted to. “It is.”
“Easy isn’t always best.” She considered his recorder, the tape turning again. “Can I go on now?”
He felt his face burning. “Sure.”
She began to read again from the book, “He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go-but now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn’t realize just how extraordinary a ‘nice’ girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby-nothing. He felt married to her, that was all.”
She stopped, inspecting around the room. “Why do you think he felt that way?”
Henry blurted out, “She was his soul mate.”
“That’s very romantic, Henry.” It was the closest he’d ever seen her to smiling.
He shrugged. “Isn’t it a romance?”
“Gatsby?” She blinked at him. “Austen, maybe…that’s romance. Pride and Prejudice. Sense and Sensibility. Matches and marriages are made. Happy endings are implied. But Gatsby? Have you read to the end of the book?”
“Yeah.” Well, that was partially true. Thanks to audio books and his iPod, he’d managed.
She raised her eyebrows. “Then you know how it all ends?”
“Just because people die, doesn’t mean it’s not a romance,” Henry said, defending his position. “I mean, they love each other, right? Just because Romeo and Juliet end up dead doesn’t mean they didn’t love each other.”
Professor Franklin folded the book in front of her, keeping her place with her finger. “But Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy.”
“Not in the beginning,” Henry countered. “I mean, sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. But love is love. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s true.” She gave him a nod of acknowledgment, turning back to the book. Then she paused, focusing once again on him. “Henry, will you keep reading for me, please?”
It was the first time she’d called him by his first name. It was the first time he’d heard her call any student by their first name. But he couldn’t read out loud. It was hard enough slogging through it by himself. One page could take him an hour.
Henry considered his predicament, trying to find a way out of it. “I’ve got a cold. My throat kind of hurts.”
She didn’t drop her gaze. “Just the next paragraph.”
“Just one paragraph?” He picked up his book, glancing at the clock. It was almost time to go. Maybe he could stall… “What page are we on again?”
“Two-nineteen.”
He started flipping through the pages, feeling his face begin to burn. This always happened, every time he got put on the spot. And if he had trouble with words to begin with, it was even worse under pressure. It became impossible to think, let alone read.