Page 220 of Things We Left Behind

Assface:It doesn’t have to be this way, Pixie. We could find a way to be friends.

Friends? Ha. Friends trusted each other. Friends were honest with each other. I’d wasted enough of my life on a man who was never going to admit to having feelings for me. I didn’t need anything else from Lucian Rollins.

I had more important things to do. Probably.

How was I supposed to find a man, allow him the space and time to prove to me that he was trustworthy, and thenconvince him to get married while my eggs were still viable? That seemed like a decades-­long project.

What if my eggs weren’t actually viable?

What if I wasn’t going to find a Simon Walton?

What if that wasn’t part of my story?

“Oh my God, I’m annoying myself,” I complained over my music. “Stop moping and fucking do something.”

But what? My heart and vagina just weren’t into the dating scene. But that didn’t mean I had no other options. I thought of Knox and Naomi and Waylay, then, chewing on my lower lip, I navigated to the county’s foster care system page and started scrolling.

Icona Pop was in the middle of the chorus of “I Love It” when a faraway noise dragged me out of research mode. I turned down the music to listen, only to be startled by the ancient printer spitting out the foster care and adoption brochures.

I snatched the papers out of the tray and strained my ears. Nothing. It was probably a book tumbling off a shelf or one of the heavy poster boards in the children’s section finally winning its war against the tape.

I returned the music to its original volume and launched my inbox to take care of a few remaining tasks.

This time, it wasn’t a sound that caught my attention. It was a smell. A faint, bitter, chemical scent. Almost like melting plastic or old, stale coffee that had cooked to the bottom of the pot.

I’d turned off the coffee makers. Hadn’t I?

Yes. I always remembered to do it after seeing the news special about a family’s house that had burned down on Christmas Eve due to a faulty air fryer.

I pushed away from my desk with a frown. The smell was getting stronger now. The lights in the library were still out, but there appeared to be a sort of eerie glow through my office window. Was it getting hotter in here? Maybe the furnace was on the fritz.

I opened my office door, and the sharp tang of smoke hit me.

“What the…”

It couldn’t be a fire. The entire building had been equipped with a state-­of-­the-­art sprinkler system when it had been built.

But there was no mistaking that orange, undulating glow coming from the first floor or the punch of heat that enveloped my body.

I raced back to my desk and picked up the phone to call for help. But there was no dial tone. The line was dead.

“Damn it! Okay. Think, Sloane. Do not fucking panic.”

With shaking hands, I found my cell phone and managed to dial 911. As it rang, I gathered my tote, indiscriminately shoving books and personal items inside. I yanked Ezra Abbott’s Valentine’s Day pirate drawing off the window and rolled it up.

“911. What is your emergency?”

“This is Sloane Walton calling from the Knockemout Public Library,” I said as I raced back to the door. “There’s a fire. In the library. At least I think it’s a fire.” The air felt thick and hot, and it burned the back of my throat.

A coughing fit overtook me, and I bent at the waist, trying to suck in a breath.

“Calm down, ma’am. Please tell me your location.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Sharice. And don’t ma’am me either. The library is on fire,” I rasped as I left my office. Sharice was a recent graduate of Knockemout High School and had been a library summer camp counselor for the last three years.

It was getting hotter by the second, as if I’d relinquished thermostat control to the always cold Barbara during book club.

Fires required fire extinguishers. I embraced the thought with relief. I remembered the big, red one hanging on the wall in the kitchen.