Page 17 of Must Love Libraries and Libations (Moonshine Hollow #2)
ERASMUS
W hat have I done?
The question rang in my head over and over again as I turned and headed back into the library.
The moment the reality of the situation hit me. We’d been moments away from joining completely. I’d told her I was falling for her.
What have I done?
I’d been poised to claim her completely. I wanted to. I’d never wanted something more in my whole life. She tasted like strawberries and summer rain and was the softest, sweetest thing I had ever encountered.
I wanted to make her mine.
And I had told her so.
I’d told her I was falling for her.
What had I been thinking? To bare my heart like that? Now what was I going to do?
Moving quietly, I made my way into the library to discover it was very, very late. The clock in the central part of the library showed it was just before six o’clock in the morning. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky had turned gray in the hours before dawn. A whole day had passed.
The bookwyrms barked loudly.
“I am sorry, friends,” I told them. “You missed your meal, thanks to the witch’s meddling. I will see to you directly,” I told them.
Behind me, I heard a soft gasp.
I turned to find Primrose there, her eyes on the Wyrmwood tree. In those hazel depths, I could see the reflection of the ruby-red blossoms.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
So are you.
“Wait… Is it night?” she asked me, her face screwing up with worry.
“Nearly dawn. We’ve lost a whole day.”
“A whole day! But the party and… Oh. My. Gods. My mother. My mother will be beside herself,” she said, then inhaled and exhaled deeply, calming herself once more. “She can wait,” she muttered, then turned and stepped toward me. “Erasmus, what happened between us was?—”
“A mistake,” I blurted out, not knowing where the words were coming from.
“What?” she asked, so startled, it was as if I had struck her.
“We were under the influence of the spell…and the wine. The witch tricked us. We weren’t thinking clearly.”
“Are you saying I wasn’t thinking clearly?” Her tone had gone dangerously quiet.
“I’m saying we both might have acted on impulses we wouldn’t normally have.”
She smoothed down her skirts with sharp, angry movements. “Right. Of course. Because why would someone like you want someone like me? Too loud, right? Not intellectual enough? Not serious enough? All sparkle and no substance?”
“That’s not what I meant, I?—”
“Isn’t it?” she seethed. The hurt in her hazel eyes was like a dagger to my chest. “You told me you were falling for me, Erasmus. Was that just the wine talking, too?”
I wanted to tell her no. I wanted to tell her that every word had been true, that I’d never felt anything like what I felt for her. Instead, I said, “We should probably forget it happened.”
The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but they came out anyway. Better to hurt her now than to let her waste time on someone who could never give her what she deserved. She deserved a life full of light and joy, sunshine and happiness. I was…well, that was not me.
“Forget it happened,” she repeated, her voice flat.
“Right. Okay, consider it forgotten, but for what it’s worth, Erasmus, I meant what I said.
All of it. But you’re clearly not ready to be part of the present, so I’ll leave you to your past. After the party, I won’t come back here ever again,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. Turning, she stormed off.
I heard the front door of the library open and close behind her with a soft click that was somehow louder than a slam. She would never slam a door. That wasn’t her way. As mad as she might have been at me, she wouldn’t have dared disrupt the bookwyrms or the library itself.
I sighed heavily.
But the moment was shaken when a book hit me on the side of the head.
“What the?” I asked, looking around and finding a red-scaled bookwyrm glowering at me from atop a nearby bookcase, tapping another book in his hand as he threatened to take aim.
“I know, I know,” I told Stevenson, rubbing my head. “You don’t have to lob the next volume. I’m fully aware that I’m ruining the best thing that has happened to me. But it’s not about me, it’s about her. She deserves better than me. I am little more than a relic.”
Stevenson squinted at me.
“I know ,” I told him.
He huffed out a small puff of disappointed smoke, then fluttered up to join the others in the Wyrmwood tree.
I sat down on the couch and stared at the tree, trying not to think about how right she’d felt in my arms, how her laugh made something in my chest come to life, expanding in a way I’d never felt before. She had looked at me like I wasn’t an artifact, but simply a man worth caring about.
I’d spent centuries protecting precious things, but when she offered me something truly irreplaceable, I’d turned her away.
The worst part was, I knew exactly why I’d done it.
I was terrified that in the light of day, she would see the truth.
I was an old, outdated thing. She was full of life and joy.
But as I sat there in the dark, breathing in the lingering scent of her presence, I began to wonder if my fear was really protecting either of us, or if it was just another way of hiding from the world.
From the tree, one of the bookwyrms clicked once more, reminding me again of their missing dinner.
A moment later, Merlin appeared at my side. He trilled apologetically at me.
“It’s not your fault the spell got away,” I said, giving him a pat. “And the enchantment is now spent. I should be able to finish the codex today. No harm done, except a little wine headache.” And the harm I’d just done to Primrose’s heart.
In the span of a heartbeat, I had taken the best thing that had ever happened to me and messed it up.
The bookwyrms clicked once more.
My movements automatic, I rose and set about my tasks in the darkness of the library.
For the first time in my life, I had truly felt alive, felt joy. Primrose was walking sunshine. She was everything I needed. And I had turned her away. Oh, gods, I had turned her away.
What have I done?