“The call number for the Kama Sutra book is 375.4 W.” She pointed to the scrap of paper. “That’s what you wrote down.” She hit the back button on the screen to the book Henry had originally looked up. “The call number for the book you wanted is 372.4 W. You transposed the five and the two.”
“Brilliant, Henry,” he muttered.
She used one of the stubby pencils to correct the number on the scrap of paper, trying to hide a smile. “Well, the good news is this book should be on the same shelf. And it’s much more age-appropriate.”
“Pretty diverse subject matter to be on the same damned shelf,” he growled as he followed her. She had picked up the other book to re-shelve it.
“They’re both guides,” she explained, getting back up on the stool. Henry reached out to hold her hips again without thinking and she smiled a thanks down at him. “You know, those Idiot Guides and the books For Dummies, they’re all shelved in the same place, by last name. Just so happens both are written by an author with a last name starting with W.”
“Oh damn.” Her shoulders slumped. “ Teaching Kids to Read for Dummies isn’t here.”
“Is it checked out?”
“I don’t think so.” She slipped through his hands on the way down to the floor and the feel of her lithe little body gave him a jolt. “It would have said so on the computer. I bet someone’s stolen it.”
“That’s pretty low, stealing from a library.”
“Happens all the time. I can’t wait until books go all-digital. No more stealing, no more late fees, no more re-shelving!” She regarded him, cocking her head to one side, and he didn’t point out the obvious no more librarians conclusion implied in her train of thought. “Do you have an e-reader?”
“You mean, like one of those Kindle things?” He shook his head. “I’ve got a laptop, though.”
“You can check it out digitally if you want.” She sounded excited as he followed her down the row and back through the aisles of books. Pausing at the row of computers, she frowned. “But I don’t know if it would work so well for your little cousin, reading it on the computer.”
“Oh that’s okay.” He waved her concern away. “I’m just reading it so I can help him. The ‘Dummy’ in the title is me, not him.” That he believed the statement to be more true than he wanted to admit, even to himself, was another point he wasn’t going to bring up.
“That’s so sweet.” The look she gave him made him want to melt. There was the reaction he’d been expecting in the first place.
He hoped his blush appeared properly humble. “Thanks.”
“Let’s see if we have a digital copy.” She sat back down in front of the terminal, typing away again, and this time Henry sat beside her. He was big for the little chairs, but she fit perfectly, crossing her slender, shapely legs and leaning toward the screen.
“So are you a librarian?” He didn’t believe it for a minute.
“I’m just a student assistant,” she explained, frowning as used the mouse to scroll down the screen. “I started working here last year and love it so much I changed my major to library science.”
“So you’re a sophomore?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
At least she’s not a senior, he told himself, not volunteering the fact that he was just a lowly freshman. She could probably tell anyway, the way he’d been stumbling around the stacks, looking lost. His roommate, Dean, said freshmen were like baby pigs, lost and rooting around looking for something to get into. Of course, Dean didn’t really consider himself a freshman, even though he was. His parents were both alumni, his brother had graduated the year before, and his sister the year before that. He was like a celebrity on campus, a first string wide-receiver on the U of M football team.
“I’m sorry.” She pointed to the screen. “It’s not available as an ebook.”
“Ah well.” He shrugged. “We tried, right?”
Her eyes were a bright, shocking blue, and that, combined with the red hair and the smattering of freckles across her nose, and the way her lips pursed and her brow furrowed, made him think he’d never seen anything cuter in his life.
He’d seen lots of girls in his five weeks on campus-blondes, brunettes and redheads alike. Dean had introduced him to most of them. Some of them had been real knock-outs, the sort you couldn’t even approach without stammering and going cross-eyed, the kind you knew had to spend hours getting ready to go out every night.
But this girl…she was so naturally pretty it was hard to even wrap your head around it. She was the kind of girl that would grow old gracefully, who would spend her whole life looking beautiful not because she tried to be, just because that’s who she was, at her very center. It radiated out of her like light and he gravitated to it like a moth, feeling like he was bumping his head against glass the whole time.
“How about this one?”
He just observed her as she spoke, trance-like. “Huh?”
“We’ve got Phonics for Dummies.” She tapped the screen with her fingernail. “And most beginning reading problems usually stem from a phonics issue anyway.”
He stared at her, not really understanding a word she was saying, just sort of basking in her light. Now he didn’t feel like a moth-he felt more like a lizard on a rock, lazy and slow to respond, with no other thought in his head but his own basic need, which was growing more apparent by the moment.
“Um, okay,” he agreed. She could have said, “I think you should set your hair on fire and jump out the window,” and he probably would have agreed. Good thing they were in the basement.
“How exciting!” She stood, smoothing her skirt, and he remembered the texture of the material, wooly and soft, under his hands. He couldn’t have agreed more about the exciting part. “Let’s go upstairs. The ebook system is brand new, and this will be my first digital checkout!”
“So I can say I was your first?” Henry grinned as he followed her to the elevator.
“Dubious honor.” She pushed the button, giving him a sly, slanted look as she reached down to pick up the book he’d left in the chair. “But I suppose you can say you broke my digital-checkout cherry.”
He laughed. “Not quite as fun as the other one.”
“Print books, you mean?” She winked as the elevator doors closed behind them.
“Right.” He nodded. “That’s what I meant.”
Of course, now he was thinking things he shouldn’t and silently cursing the guy who got to hit that for the first time, if he was being totally honest. Which he wasn’t about to be, at least out loud, with the girl standing next to him.
“Have you ever read the Kama Sutra?” She leaned in close, as if there was someone else who could hear her, leafing through the book she’d picked up on their way into the elevator.
He eyed her, surprised, brain devoid of any snappy comeback. “No.”
“Look at that.” She paused at one of the pages. The book didn’t just have drawings of people, no-it was fully, pictorially illustrated. Christ. Henry swallowed, studying what was essentially porn open in the girl’s hands.”Do you think that’s even possible?”
“Ouch,” he agreed, noting the position, the guy standing, the woman’s legs bent at an awkward angle. How was he even holding her up?
“Oh, but this one’s nice,” she said, stopping on another page. The couple was kind of spooning.
“Nuh-nice.” Henry stammered.
“Sure you didn’t want to check this book out?” She winked and he noticed that even her eyelashes were red. A natural redhead. That meant that wherever else she had hair on her body, it was most likely red, too. She interrupted his straying thoughts. “No law saying you can’t. Thank god.”