Page 7

Chapter seven

Late Night Study

T here are exactly twenty-six rules about after-hours tutoring sessions, including specific guidelines about proper lighting (Rule 445), minimum distance requirements (Rule 447), and emergency protocols (Rule 452). None of them, however, covered what to do when a power outage traps you in the library's rare book room with a guy who's recently revealed he's not quite as bad as advertised.

Preston University's library at night was a different world entirely. The massive Gothic windows cast checkered moonlight across centuries-old wooden tables, their surfaces scarred by generations of desperate studying. The rare books room occupied the top floor of the west wing, a cathedral-like space with vaulted ceilings and reading nooks tucked between towering oak shelves. By day, it was impressive. By night, it was almost magical.

We'd been studying for hours, surrounded by stacks of Victorian literature and the faint scent of aging leather bindings. Jack had been making actual progress on his analysis of social mobility in "Great Expectations," his notes surprisingly thorough despite his earlier complaints about Dickens being "unnecessarily verbose."

"This is your fault," I said, watching Jack fiddle with the electric door lock after the power cut out. His phone's flashlight cast dramatic shadows across the ceiling's carved wooden beams. "If you hadn't insisted on checking that first edition—"

"Pretty sure you're the one who said, and I quote, 'Just five more minutes to compare these publication dates.'" His smirk was visible even in the dim light. "Face it, Sophie. Your book addiction is just as bad as mine."

"I do not have an addiction. I have an academic interest in—" The lights flickered once, hopefully, then died completely. "Perfect."

"Could be worse," Jack said, settling onto the floor near the window. Moonlight caught his profile, and I tried very hard not to notice how it traced the edge of his jaw. The antique Persian rug beneath him had probably witnessed centuries of similar late-night study sessions, though probably none quite like this. "Could be trapped in here with someone who doesn't know the entire history of Victorian dentistry."

"Are you mocking my interests?"

"Never." He patted the floor beside him, where a patch of moonlight illuminated an elaborate pattern of woven roses on the carpet. A leather-bound copy of "Great Expectations" lay open beside him, its pages marked with sticky notes in at least three different colors.

"Come on. Security will do their rounds eventually. Might as well be comfortable." I should have cited Rule 447 about maintaining proper distance. Instead, I found myself sliding down next to him, careful to leave exactly 2.5 feet between us as per regulation.

This is fine. Totally fine. Just two people trapped in a dark library with nothing but moonlight and questionable proximity and—focus, Sophie.

"Your notes on Pip's social climbing are pretty decent," I said, picking up his essay draft. His handwriting was surprisingly elegant, nothing like the careless scrawl I'd expected. "Though your comparison to modern sports recruitment is a bit of a stretch."

"Is it?" He shifted, reaching for his notebook. "Think about it - a lower-class kid gets noticed by someone with influence, suddenly thrown into a world he doesn't understand, expected to learn new rules while pretending he belongs..." He trailed off, suddenly very interested in the carpet's pattern.

"You're not talking about Pip anymore, are you?"

The silence was broken only by the soft rustle of pages as he flipped through his notes. The massive room felt smaller somehow, more intimate in the darkness. Outside, a half-moon hung in the Gothic window like a stage light, illuminating dust motes that danced between the shelves.

"Your tattoo," I said, noticing how the moonlight caught the ink on his forearm. "The one from Paradise Lost. It’s glowing in the moonlight."

He was quiet for a moment, then rolled up his sleeve. The tattoo was beautiful – intricate lines of text woven into angel wings. "Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."

"What about the others?" I asked, moving closer to see in the dim light. Our open textbooks lay forgotten between us, pages rustling slightly in the draft from the ancient windows. Rule 447 protested weakly in the back of my mind.

"Shakespeare here," he turned his arm, revealing quotes wrapped in thorny vines that disappeared under his sleeve. "'We know what we are, but know not what we may be.' Got that one after my first playoff game. Dad wanted NHL photos. I wanted Hamlet."

His essay draft caught my eye - a surprisingly nuanced analysis of Pip's relationship with Joe Gargery. His margin notes drew parallels between Victorian class expectations and modern athletic pressures in a way that suddenly felt less like an academic stretch and more like personal insight.

"And this one?" I reached out without thinking, fingers tracing a line of text near his wrist. His skin was warm. Through the window, the moon cast enough light to read by, turning the library into a silver-edged dream.

"Careful," his voice was rough. "Pretty sure that violates at least three rules."

"I'm making an exception. For academic purposes."

Academic purposes. Right. Because there's nothing personal about sitting in the dark, touching someone's tattoos. Totally professional.

"Academic purposes," he repeated but didn't pull away. "It's Keats. 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"

"Why that one?"

Around us, the library settled into its nighttime quiet. Ancient wood creaked as the temperature dropped. Somewhere in the stacks, a radiator clanked protestingly. Our abandoned coffee cups cast long shadows across scattered notes about Victorian social reform.

He was quiet for so long that I thought he wouldn't answer. "Got it after the library incident. A reminder that sometimes the beautiful thing isn't the obvious thing. Sometimes, it's late nights with old books and color-coded sticky notes."

His notebook lay open between us, pages dense with actual literary analysis. He'd mapped character relationships in neat diagrams, highlighted thematic parallels, and drawn connections between Victorian social mobility and modern class structures. This wasn't the work of someone pretending to study - this was real engagement with the text.

"Your turn," he said suddenly, closing the notebook. "Tell me something real. Not filtered through rules and requirements."

"Like what?"

"Like why someone who loves history and literature spends so much time with dental tools."

The moonlight had shifted, casting new shadows across the room's carved ceiling. A banner above the windows read "Scientia est Lux Lucis" - Knowledge is Light - the gilt letters catching occasional glints of starlight.

I stared at the shadowy bookshelves, at the neat rows of Victorian literature we'd been studying. Dickens. Bront?. Thackeray. Authors who wrote about people trying to find their place in a world of rigid expectations.

"My parents are doctors. Third generation. The Chen Family Medical Legacy." The words tasted bitter. "But I faint at the sight of blood. So the history of medicine was the compromise."

"That's why you organize everything? Control what you can?"

"Says the guy who color-codes rare books at 2 AM."

"Touché." He shifted, and somehow, we were closer than Rule 447 would ever allow. The scent of his cologne mixed with old books and coffee. His essay draft lay forgotten between us, the page open to a surprisingly insightful analysis of class mobility in Victorian England. "You know what I think?"

"That's dangerous."

"I think," he continued, ignoring my attempt at deflection, "we both have expectations we're trying to live up to. You with your rules and family legacy. Me with my bad boy reputation and hockey future."

His copy of "Great Expectations" had fallen open to a passage about Pip's first dinner at Miss Havisham's. The margins were filled with his neat handwriting: observations about social performance, pretending to be something you're not, and the weight of others' expectations.

"That's..." Insightful. Uncomfortable. True. Making me think about things I'd rather not examine too closely. "...against Rule 335. No personal discussions."

"Pretty sure we broke that rule somewhere between Paradise Lost and family pressure."

The library felt different now as if the darkness had transformed it from a study space into something more intimate. The towering shelves loomed around us like silent witnesses, their contents - hundreds of years of human stories - watching our own story unfold.

"Your glasses," I said suddenly, noticing them peeking from his jacket pocket. A stack of sticky notes marked our place in four different Victorian novels, each color representing a different theme we'd been tracking. "The ones you wear for reading. Where are they?"

He reached into his pocket, retrieving the wire-framed glasses that had started appearing during our late-night study sessions. "Promise not to tell anyone? They'd ruin my carefully cultivated image."

"Put them on."

He did, and something in my chest tightened. In the moonlight, with his glasses and surrounded by books, he looked more like a graduate student than a hockey star. The glasses softened his features and made him look more like the person I'd glimpsed in his essay notes - thoughtful, observant, surprisingly literary.

"What?" he asked, noticing my stare.

"Nothing. Just cataloging violations of Rule 552." Behind him, his open notebook showed a detailed analysis of Victorian social structures, complete with modern parallels.

"Which one is that again?"

"No looking unfairly attractive while discussing literature."

The words hung between us, as tangible as the dust motes dancing in the moonlight. Jack turned toward me, and I suddenly realized how close we were. His "Great Expectations" essay lay forgotten between us, the pages covered in thoughtful commentary about masks and expectations and the price of pretending.

Did I say that out loud? I definitely said that out loud. Quick, cite another rule. Quote something academic. Do NOT think about how he looks in those glasses or how warm he feels this close or—

"Sophie," he said softly, and my name had never sounded like that before. His hand came up, barely touching my cheek. The touch was softer than anyone would expect from a hockey player, from the supposed campus bad boy.

"I'm about to break a lot of rules."

My heart hammered against my ribs. The library felt too small suddenly, despite its vaulted ceiling and endless rows of books. Our study materials lay scattered around us - evidence of hours spent discussing Victorian literature, of conversations that had wandered far beyond academic requirements.

His lips were inches from mine when the emergency lights flashed on, followed by the heavy tread of security boots. We jumped apart like guilty Victorian teenagers caught reading questionable novels.

"Anyone in here?" a voice called. Flashlight beams swept across the room, catching the gilt edges of leather-bound books and making the brass reading lamps glint accusingly.

We scrambled to our feet, nearly knocking over a stack of literary criticism. Jack's glasses were askew, and my carefully organized notes had scattered across the antique carpet like academic confetti.

"Just students!" I called back, my voice embarrassingly high. Several annotated pages of "Great Expectations" fluttered to the floor. "Power outage trapped us!"

The security guard rounded the corner, a flashlight beam catching us in its glare. Officer Martinez - I recognized him from my late-night museum shifts. His eyebrows rose as he took in the scene: books everywhere, coffee cups in various states of emptiness, and enough sticky notes to supply a small office.

"Library's closed. You two need to... wait, Morrison? What are you doing in the rare books room?"

"Tutoring," Jack said smoothly, pushing his glasses up. He gestured to the scattered evidence of actual studying - his half-finished essay, my color-coded notes, the Victorian novels bristling with page markers. "Very academic. Completely legitimate."

Martinez's flashlight beam lingered on Jack's open notebook, where his neat handwriting filled the margins with surprisingly detailed literary analysis. "This about that paper Williams assigned? On social mobility?"

"You know about Victorian literature?" Jack asked, surprise momentarily breaking through his casual facade.

"English major before I switched to security," Martinez grinned. "Your comparison of Pip to modern athletes isn't bad. But you might want to consider how the role of mentorship affects class transition." He nodded toward a particular passage Jack had highlighted.

We stared at him. Through the Gothic windows, the moon had shifted, casting new shadows across the room's elaborate woodwork.

"Clear out," he said finally, but his tone was gentle. "Building's closing. Though..." he hesitated, "the morning shift doesn't start until six. Just saying."

He disappeared back into the stacks, whistling what sounded suspiciously like a Victorian parlor song.

We gathered our things in awkward silence. Every book we picked up, every note we collected, felt charged with the memory of what had almost happened. Jack's essay draft had landed near a shelf of romantic poetry, which felt like the universe's idea of a joke.

At the library steps, Jack paused. "Sophie—"

"Rule 335," I said quickly. "No personal discussions."

"Right." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Wouldn't want to break any more rules."

He walked away, hands in his pockets, moonlight catching his tattoos one last time.

And I was left standing there, wondering why following the rules suddenly felt like the biggest mistake I could make.

I spent the next hour walking around campus, trying to clear my head. But all I could think about was the way Paradise Lost looked inked on his skin, how his voice sounded when saying my name in the dark, and how those glasses made him look both softer and more dangerous at the same time.

Maybe some rules weren't meant to be followed.

Maybe some moments were worth the risk.

Maybe it was time to write a new rulebook entirely.

Starting with: Sometimes the right thing and the safe thing aren't the same at all.