to herself. She hoped he did know some secluded places where she could talk to him, not interrogate him, but just talk to him, get to know him. Pretend she was normal. Let the woman inside of her who desperately wanted to come out and live, do so.
Once they turned off the highway onto the roads that wove around heavy forests of tall, impressive redwood trees towering above them, Scarlet found herself staring upward. She couldn’t stop from tilting her head back. It was a little dizzying even though Aleksei rode slow and maneuvered through the tight curves easily on the motorcycle. The sun shone through the canopy in stripes, creating a strobe effect as they rode. There were countless leaves on the road and built up on the ground so one couldn’t see dirt or rocks under the years of trees shedding the needles. Branches and limbs lay haphazardly in the forest along with some hollowed-out trunks. Some trees had fallen over time and lay, the trunks so large they looked taller than she was.
Clearly, Aleksei had come here often. He made his way through the avenue to a small turnout where there was water dripping over a large rock and several tree roots sticking out of an embankment. There was a very narrow trail that she wouldn’t have even noticed and doubted if most people would have. He slowed their progress even more, taking them carefully along the surprisingly well-packed road to a little area with just enough space for him to turn the bike around.
He let her off, turned the motorcycle around and then parked it before getting off himself. Scarlet looked around her. It was eerily silent, reminding her she was off in the middle of nowhere with a man she’d seen in the library for six weeks but really didn’t know. She had no friends. She hadn’t told a single soul who she was going out with or where she was going. He could murder her and bury her body out here and no one would know. Where were all her amazing survival self-preservation skills she’d honed to perfection?
Aleksei pulled off his helmet and dark glasses. “This is it. When I can’t find a library and I need to get away, this is where I come. I call it my cathedral. I’ll show you why in a minute.” He gave her that slow, devastatingly beautiful smile.
The burn started immediately in the pit of her stomach and just continued to move lower. She shivered, awareness of him in every cell of her body. “How did you discover this place?”
“Sometimes my head feels like it’s going to explode when I’m around too many people for too long.” He rubbed his forehead with his gloved hands. “That sounds bad. It isn’t that I don’t like people, it’s just that sometimes their emotions are … overwhelming to me. I need quiet places. Even that makes me sound like I’m crazy.”
It didn’t. She understood completely. That was why she was a librarian. Libraries were quiet and most of the people who entered were there for the purpose of studying or finding books to read or reference. They weren’t there for counseling. Unless you counted the occasional teen.
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” She didn’t remove her gloves either. She watched him take a blanket and a rolled-up small duffel from a compartment of his bike. There was the faintest of trails and he indicated for her to follow him. “This is still a long way from the library, Aleksei.”
“My brothers, sisters and close friends call me Absinthe.”
She was silent for a moment, processing that. “Like the drink?”
“Yeah. Like the drink.”
For the first time he sounded wary, as if he didn’t want her to question him on why his friends would call him that. It would be natural to ask.
“If I ask why your family and friends call you that, are you going to tell me?”
He gave a heavy, exaggerated sigh. “Because they think they’re funny, that’s why.”
He walked a few more steps and she stayed silent, just waiting. She knew he was going to tell her. He didn’t look back at her, but she could tell he was a little embarrassed. This wasn’t about drinking too much. He hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic when they’d gone to dinner the other night. But maybe that was the reason. Maybe …
“In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in France, artists and writers were particularly fond of the drink. I like the written word. I sometimes