Page 67 of The Librarians

“That night…” she begins again, trying hard not to clamp her fingers into a fist. “I wasn’t sure what you were telling me. At times it sounded as if you were listing the reasons we wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—be together.”

He reaches down and picks up the hem of her ankle-length green dress. For all that he’s declared that he would spend the next two days in the physical exploration of her person, his gesture isn’t flirtatious but pensive. “What do you think would have happened to us, if we’d kept in touch?”

A question for the ages.

“Realistically, and forgive me for saying so, it would have depended on how good you were in bed.”

He smiles slightly. “Let’s assume I was eager to learn and willing to listen to feedback. And let’s assume that I quickly achieved adequacy, if not virtuosity.”

Heat licks her like a summer day in Austin.

She swallows. “I used to think that we’d have had a memorable affair, three, maybe even five years together, leaving me sadder but much wiser at the end.

And I’d have a book like this”—she gestures to the volume on the coffee table, still open to the page of her irrepressible delight—“of our entire time together, but wouldn’t show it to anyone, not until I was really old.

“But that’s what I thought in a vacuum.” With him forever remaining the idealized version in her memories. “What do you think would have happened?”

He still has his fingers on the hem of her dress, as if the stitches on the reverse could convey a secret code if only he stroked them long enough.

“I think we would have had a fantastic few months. We boarded only two guests at Charleston, instead of the scheduled three, so you could have bought a passage on the ship, for a reduced rate, possibly, and sailed with us around Cape Horn.”

Rounding Cape Horn is the sailing equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—the waves there can toss a yacht end over end.

“Did your yacht somersault?”

“Not quite, but our first mate was swept out to sea. Fortunately he had a tether, so we hauled him back in and he suffered nothing worse than a torn rotator cuff.”

She would have loved it, a real adventure. Until…

“San Diego was the end of my first contract and that was where I found out. We would have been okay until the funeral—I was in denial until then. But afterward I was a mess.” He lets go of her hem.

“It wouldn’t have been a pretty breakup.

I would have hurt you and you wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyone about me in your old age. ”

She aches for him, for the boy for whom the sky was falling. “But that didn’t happen. We didn’t happen.”

“No, we became beautiful ideas to each other.” He reaches up and touches the ends of her hair.

“And I didn’t want just the idea of you any longer.

If you never came to Austin I’d have gone to Singapore at some point to see if the heiress version of you would have me—and that woman makes me worry for myself. ”

“Why does she make you nervous?”

“Because—” He pulls her close—now they touch from shoulder to ankle—and kisses the corner of her lips. “She would have an affair with me and move on with the rest of her life.”

It is the lightest contact, his lips to her skin, yet she is singed. She wraps her hand behind his head—at last, the sensation of his bristly hair upon her inner wrist again—and kisses him below his ear.

He sucks in a breath.

“And you wouldn’t move on?” she murmurs, her lips against the helix of his ear, right where it had been pierced.

“I can’t.” He bends his head and kisses her neck. “I’ve never been able to move on.”

Pleasure jolts her.

He cups her face and speaks with his lips two inches from hers. “And I don’t plan to move on ever again.”

Her lips part. She stares into his eyes, and then down at his lips.

He traces his thumb over her lower lip. But instead of kissing her, he reaches over for the box of ear barbells.

“Do you want to put one on me? Which one says Man over thirty with career, house, and extremely beautiful girlfriend ?”

She has a sudden insight into the kind of lover he would prove to be: Her adorable young man has grown up into a tease.

But also, it dawns on her that unlike what she thought earlier, he isn’t waiting for anything—not anymore, in any case.

He is simply enjoying this hard-earned moment, this grace from the universe.

She yanks the box from his hand, tosses it aside with un-Hazel-like abandon, and pushes him down on the couch. His look of astonishment quickly turns into one of pure masculine glee. “Are you sure I can’t offer you some dinner first? Or at least a drink that isn’t just water?”

She straddles him, settles her hands on his deltoids, and marvels at how strong and lovely those rower’s shoulders feel under her palms. “You can offer me both. But first I need to hear something else from you.”

He gazes up at her, his extraordinary eyes crinkled playfully. “Are you going to make me say ‘I love you’ this early?”

Would he say it if she asked him to? Her heart flutters. “You can hold that one up your sleeve until the time of your choosing. I’m looking for something different.”

He studies her, one hand trailing up her arm. “If you’re afraid what happened to your mum will happen to you, we can waive the forty-eight-hour waiting period and talk about those three million pounds now. Afterward you can always throw extra money at me—I don’t have a problem with sugar mummies.”

She snorts.

He pulls her lower, so that he is again speaking with his lips only two inches from hers. “And I can promise you I will never make you choose between me and something else that is important to you. I will always conduct myself so you can have more of what you love in your life, not less.”

At some point since she arrived in his house, possibly when he said, I can’t. I’ve never been able to move on , she understood that she too is all in. That the commitment has been made, today and long ago, and she doesn’t need to wait for any further signal from the universe.

But what he said just now—and the thought behind it—she kisses him deeply, solemnly, with all the resolve and devotion of her heart.

And then, when he would kiss her again, she raises herself up and punches him on the chest. “Liar.”

“Ow, careful. That’s where you kicked me.”

She has no choice but to fuss over him and lift up his sweater to kiss him on the fading bruise. “Asshole. When we met you said you’d turn nineteen in three days. That was in early October. Your birthday isn’t until the end of the year.”

“Kiss here too.” He points at an entirely unbruised part of his torso.

And when she complies, he adds, “And here. And here. And aren’t you glad I did?

If you learned I was still solidly eighteen, you’d have bought me a binkie and sent me home.

Besides, you lied too. Your birthday isn’t a month from early October. It’s also in December.”

True, none of it matters, except now there will never be that slender portion of the year during which she is only three years older than him and not four.

“One minute.” He pauses in the unbuttoning of her dress—when did he start to do that? “Are you telling me that your family back home is already looking into me? You told them about me?”

His eyes are all lit up. She’s never seen anyone so happy to be investigated. Her heart melts into a puddle. “I told them I don’t want to know anything, but they still sent me an email and your birthday showed in the preview.”

“Let’s look at that email together in forty-eight hours. I want to see how I come across in a PI report.”

She snorts once more. “I don’t have forty-eight hours. I need to be at the library tomorrow.”

“Should I drive you home now so you can sleep early?” He sits up. “Let’s feed you first. And don’t forget to give me the jigsaw puzzle that—”

Once more she pushes him down. “Young man, how well we do in our future together still depends on how good you are in bed.”

“Ah, why didn’t you say so?” He wraps his arms around her and kisses her again. “For the record, I’ve never been so motivated to be an extraordinary lover.”