I glanced up to see Donnie standing next to our table, his arm around Mara’s waist.
“Hi, Donnie,” I said, smiling up at them. “How are you?”
Mara pulled me out of the booth and wrapped me in a bone-cracking hug. “We’re great. Thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome?” I said, confused.
“I decided you were right,” Donnie told me. “That I wanted to be happy, and that meant being with Mara. So, I went home and told my family that I was in love with her.”
“We eloped!” Mara cried, showing me a tiny, earnest diamond sparkling on her finger, part of a wedding set.
“Wow, when you rebel, you guys go full out.” I laughed. “Congratulations. And how did your family respond?”
“Tossed me right off the compound,” he said, grinning. “I’m the family shame.”
“But no one has said anything to me,” I said. “My aunts still think we’re going to the movies next weekend. They said you had a fungus!”
“Yeah, my daddy hasn’t had the heart to tell anyone. They might send one of my cousins to the movie theatre and try to convince you that’s how I looked all along,” he said.
“Well, I’ll try to be nicer to him than I was to you,” I said.
“Oh, hell no,” Donnie objected. “You were nicer than I deserved. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Do me a favor and don’t tell your family that, okay?”
“We promise,” he said as Mara wrapped me in another rib-crusher of a hug.
“Have a good night,” I told them, as they left for their own booth.
As I sat down, I looked at the twins. “You didn’t see anything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Janelyn said.
“I’m not sure we saw you tonight,” Joe told me.
A few days later, I was back at the library, and everything felt so shabby after the charms of Jane’s shop. Mrs. Stubblefield was not pleased to see me and somehow, despite all being empty, none of the study carrels were open for me.
I checked my email, again, expecting to find some cancellations from Jane’s friends. But all I had was a note from Libby, saying she really liked the new Facebook business page I’d set up for her and a thank you from Meadow, who said her customers had mentioned how much more user-friendly her website was now.
What if I’d misjudged all of them? What if I could go back to the shop and work and see Dick and his magical coffee creations? I would feel like an idiot if I was suffering the pains of the library tables for no reason.
“Now, what’s making a pretty girl like you frown like that?”
I looked up, finding a vampire standing over me. It was the same guy who had tried to talk to me at Southern Eclectic, the one without a scent. He was a perfectly nice-looking guy, I supposed—light brown hair in a spiky, tousled style, deep brown eyes, almost cherubic lips that could have been seen as sensitive if they weren’t turned in a smirk. He still didn’t smell of anything…except rubber that was so new it reeked of chemicals. It was all I could do not to gag as I glanced under the table. Yep, brand new sneakers in a neon-colored European brand I didn’t recognize. Was he trying to impress me with new shoes or something? Did I seem like the kind of girl who would be impressed by that sort of thing? I hoped not.
My phone buzzed. I shoved it into my backpack, unwilling to even let him see who might be calling.
“Nice to see you again,” he said, giving me what I’m sure he thought was his most winning smile.
“Hello. I don’t want to be rude.” I paused to gesture towards my laptop. “But I’m working and don’t have time for company.”
“You’re working? At the library?” He flopped into the chair across from me.
“I didn’t invite you to sit down,” I noted.
He shrugged lazily. “It’s a public library.”
“The fact that you have to say that should tell you what a bad idea this is.”
He smirked at me, as if it was adorable that I thought I had the right to say who could be near me. I didn’t like the way this guy was looking at me. I wanted to put my laptop away, to make it as easy as possible to get up and get away, but I also didn’t want him to think he’d rattled me. Apex predators