Ben
Wow. Okay, so Hannah’s cute. Gorgeous might be the right word. Normally, I’d roll my eyes at someone who says they’ve never read a book they weren’t assigned in school, but she was so eager that it was kind of…charming.
I’m still watching her leave, still off-kilter from the whole encounter when the bell over the front door rings and in comes another customer. Except it’s not just any customer. It’s Alex.
Alex and I have been dancing around each other for nearly a year now, ever since she started working at the coffee place across the street. I keep thinking it’s inevitable that we’ll end up together, but months have gone by and we’re still not.
“Hey, Ben!” she says as she crosses to the register.
I straighten and smile. Alex always looks pretty without even trying. Her long, dark brown hair is up in a ponytail, she’s barely wearing any makeup, and she looks great. She sets a coffee cup in front of me.
“A bribe,” she says. “I need you to dig The Pelican Brief out of this mess for me. I know you’ve got a copy somewhere.”
I wince internally. Grisham? Really? Okay, so maybe we don’t like the same books, but I’m not going to give her grief about her love of lurid legal dramas. Everybody’s got a guilty pleasure.
“You didn’t have to do that. It’s my job to find books for people.”
“Yeah, yeah, but us customer service drones have to take care of each other, right? God knows nobody else will.” Alex is a senior, like me, but unlike me, she hates her job at Coffee Oasis. “Rough day at the Oasis?”
“Looks like you had your hands full yourself with that wide-eyed kid I saw leaving.”
For some odd reason, that makes me bristle slightly. “Nah, she was all right. I liked her.” That’s a pretty tepid description considering how much fun I had while she was here. Picking out that book for her was the most enjoyable thing I’ve done all week.
“Well, lucky you. You would not believe this woman who came in this morning.” She props an elbow onto the counter and angles her long, lithe body to the side, settling in to vent about her day. We do this a lot. “So there are a dozen people in line because, hello, it’s a Saturday. She takes ten minutes to read the menu and asks all these ridiculous questions before she finally orders four salted caramel lattes. The line is out the door by the time I finish making them, and then she flips out because I didn’t use soymilk she didn’t ask for. Ugh. I can’t wait until I’m through law school, and I never have to wait on anyone again.”
Alex and I are friends partly because we’re both students, working part-time jobs on this same commercial strip, and partly because we’re both going to law school next year. Maybe. Alex is seriously gung-ho about it. Me? Not so much. I envy her certainty. I wish I could want it the way she does.
She’s beautiful, smart, and acing all her pre-law classes. My dad would die of happiness if I brought Alex home to meet the family; she’s everything they’d ever want for me. I do genuinely like her, but every time I try to work up the nerve to ask her out, the words get stuck in my throat. For all the time we’ve spent swapping stories from retail hell, I can’t tell if she sees me as anything more than a friend. I think she does, but it’s been nearly a year, and I’m still not sure what I want from Alex.
“Wow, sounds like a nightmare.”
“You have no idea. So, you think you can find the book before my break is over?”
“You seriously underestimate my skills, Alex.” I slide out from behind the register. “It just so happens I know exactly where your book is.”
She laughs and follows me back into the stacks. Sure enough, the copy of The Pelican Brief is right where I expected to find it.
“You’re like the book savant, Ben.”
I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, but I decide to take it as one. “This place only looks like chaos. I’ve got it all up here.” I tap my temple.
“That skill will serve you well in law school.”
I scowl. “Right. Law school.”
“How much do I owe you?” she asks, not noticing my grimace.
I wave her off. “Consider it a trade. I was coming over for a coffee later anyway.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thanks!”
I leave Alex browsing through the rest of the Grishams and head back to the register, surreptitiously watching her while I work. She’s hot by anyone’s estimation. Smart, ambitious, and we’ve got the law school thing in common— This should be a no-brainer. So why am I still stalling?
“Ben, did you catalog this one yet?” Adele’s voice startles me out of my Alex fixation.
“That’s supposed to be in modern philosophy.”
Adele smiles and shakes her head. “You’ve got every book in this store in that head of yours. Who needs a computer when we’ve got you here?”
“Not every book. Not when Ralph keeps dragging more in every day.”
Ah, Ralph, the owner of Prometheus Books. As fearless a leader as he is an old grump.
Ralph loves books, but he doesn’t like dealing with customers. Or people in general. So he works a couple hours in the morning, when almost no one comes in, and then he takes off and goes scrounging for more inventory, even though we’re out of space. I work when I’m not in class, and Adele, Elliot, and me—mainly Adele and me—actually run the place.
Adele hesitates. “How do you think she’ll enjoy her book?”
“She loves those law dramas. She’ll probably like that one, too.”
“Not Alex. The other girl. The wet one.”
The wet one? My heart skips a beat as I put two and two together. “Oh, you mean non-reader Hannah.” That’s a good question— Will she even read The Book Thief I gave her? Will she ever turn back up and tell me what she thought of it? She was freaking adorable when I gave it to her… I hope she keeps her promise.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I say. “She said she’d come back and tell me about it.”
Adele glances at Alex and smiles a little. “Maybe.” Then she drifts off into the stacks with her book.
Alex lingers for a while longer, long enough for the coffee she brought me to get cold. Finally, she heads back toward the door.
“Break’s over.” She sighs. “Back to the grindstone.”
I smile in sympathy, but it’s different for me. The truth is, I’d probably be hanging out in Prometheus all weekend even if I didn’t work here. “Hang in there. Try not to kill anyone.”
“No promises.” She winks. “Have a good weekend.”
The weekend— Here’s my opening. If I’m ever going to man up and ask her out, this would be the perfect time. I could ask her about her weekend plans, suggest we do something together. But when I open my mouth, my throat closes up, and I make a strangled little sound instead of actual words.
Jesus, I’m hopeless. I try again, but Alex is nearly out the door, so I end up just waving with my mouth half open. Brilliant. A year of this and I still can’t manage to get it done. I drop my head down onto my arms and groan. Hell, I couldn’t even manage to flirt with Hannah, who didn’t even make me nervous.
My future’s basically been planned out for me, and while my dad hasn’t been so old-fashioned as to pick out my girlfriend for me, I have to admit, she’s perfect for the job. So why am I hesitating? What’s wrong with me? And why am I thinking about that girl Hannah when I just let the perfect girl walk away from me yet again?
Chapter Three
Hannah
A good student would go back to the library and study for chem, but I don’t. I go straight back to my dorm, lie on my bed, and read. I leave the lights off, reading by the soft glow of the twinkle lights strung over my bed, getting lost in the German village in the book.
Hours later, the door opens and the overhead light flips on, making me startle and blink. I feel like I’ve been in a cave for years.
Jasmine stands just inside the door, staring at me. On your
average Saturday in the dorms, everyone shuffles around in tank tops and pajama pants, hair in uncombed, messy ponytails. Not Jasmine. Her brown skin glows against her yellow sundress, and her strappy wedge sandals make her legs look crazy long. Perfect, as always.
I have no idea where she’s been all day. She always has these incredible plans, like a celebrity slumming it in disguise as a college student. Was she ever disappointed she got paired with a quiet chemistry major for a roommate? She never acts like it, even though we’re from separate planets.
“Sorry, were you sleeping?”
Rubbing my eyes, I sit up. “No, reading. Wow, I lost track of time.”
“Reading? Is that what you’re doing to avoid chem now?”
My stomach churns— My test is wadded up and waiting for me at the bottom of my backpack. But I can’t think about that yet. I’m not ready to face it again.
“No, I just got this book today downtown, and I got really caught up in it.”
“At World of Books?” she asks, referring to the monster chain bookstore near campus.
“No, Prometheus Books. It’s all used stuff. Do you know it?”
Jasmine wrinkles her nose. “What were you doing in that place?”
“I got caught in the rain. But it’s cool inside. The staff is really helpful and friendly.” My gaze drops to my quilt, and I’m working the edge of my paperback, hoping I’m not blushing. My pale skin is a dead giveaway when I’m embarrassed about something.
“Oh, the staff is really helpful, huh?” Jasmine laughs, totally on to me.
My face goes hot. Shit. I’m totally blushing. “Okay, there was a guy.”
“A guy.”
“A cute guy.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Jasmine drops her oversized bag onto her desk chair and flops onto her bed, facing me. “Describe the cute guy, please.”
“I don’t know. Bookish. Kind of geeky. Tall, dark hair. Glasses.”
“Glasses? Lord, cute boys in glasses are my kryptonite.” Jasmine sighs.
“I know, right? The glasses actually made him cuter. I don’t get it.”
“Glasses are magic.”
“Seriously.”
“So did you talk to this cute boy in glasses or did you just check him out from behind a stack of books?”
Ugh. It’s embarrassing how accurately Jasmine is describing my modus operandi. I mean, I’m not completely socially dysfunctional. I dated a few boys in high school. Okay, I dated two boys in high school who I met through science camp. I’ve never just randomly met a guy on the street. Or in a bookstore. But at least I did decently well this time. I think.
“No, we talked. His name is Ben. He picked out this book for me.”
“Ah, so you dropped everything to read it.”
“It’s a good book.”
Jasmine holds up her hands. “Hey, who can resist a cute boy in glasses? I’d have done the same.” She hesitates. “What about your chem test?”
I groan and flop back onto my bed. “Don’t remind me.”
“Have you told your dad?”
My eyes widen. “No! Absolutely not.”
“Maybe you should,” Jasmine says gently. “He’s a chemist, Hannah. I’m sure he’s been there.”
I cover my face with my hands. “No, he’d never understand how I could bomb so badly on my very first test. I don’t want to disappoint him.”
“I’m sure you’re just adjusting and—”
“I know… He warned me about all that before I came. I’ve been a big fish in a small pond all my life, and now I’m the little fish. I’m not the teacher’s darling anymore. I know.”
What I don’t say is that my dad wouldn’t be mad. Mad would be manageable. He’d be sad. Disappointed. Worried. And that’s so much worse. We lost my mom to cancer when I was ten, so my dad and I are really close. But even more than that: Dad and I are so alike, and science is the biggest thing we have in common. We’ve been doing experiments together since I was four. Science is us. It’s the language we speak to each other.
How can I tell him that the first time I tackled it alone, I failed? It’s like I failed him, too. I’ve failed us. I can’t tell him— I won’t tell him. I just have to fix this. Maybe college has thrown me more than I expected, but I’m ready for this. I’ve spent my whole life preparing for this moment. I just need to regroup and try again.
Tomorrow. I’ll try again tomorrow. But tonight I’m going to read The Book Thief.
Jasmine sighs. “If you’re sure.”
“Yeah, I was just having an off day or something. My first college test. I’m sure I’ll be okay next time.”
“Sure you will. Did you eat yet?”
Eat? I’ve done nothing for hours and hours but read, lost in Liesel’s world as it falls apart. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and now that she mentions it— “I’m starving.”
“Come on, then.” Jasmine grabs my hand. “Your book boy will still like you if you take a break for dinner.”
I laugh and follow her out of our room and down to the dining hall. But I stay up until four in the morning that night, reading Ben’s book.
Chapter Four
Ben
“Jesus, what did Elliot do in here?” I’m trying to make sense of this inventory entry, and I just can’t. Nothing in the computer adds up.
“Don’t ask me.” Adele brushes past the register with another stack of books. “I don’t understand any of that.”
Elliot works two afternoons a week, barely part-time. He should not have access to the inventory database, because all he does is fuck stuff up. I’ve tried explaining this to Ralph, but he doesn’t get it. Frankly, Ralph shouldn’t have access to the database, either— He’s even more hopeless than Elliot. But thankfully, Ralph is a technophobe and rarely logs on, so it’s not a problem.
Elliot, meanwhile, spends his shifts dicking around on Facebook, then feels obliged to hop over into the inventory and do stuff, so it looks like he’s been busy. All he does is make more work for me, and it’s not like I’m some genius at this stuff. Words are my comfort zone, not databases.
“Hey!”
I look up so quickly I practically give myself whiplash. It’s a girl’s voice—my heart beats a mile a minute—but it’s not Alex. It’s cute non-reader Hannah.
She’s smiling ear to ear as she leans forward on the counter, and I’m smiling, too. I don’t know why I’m smiling. I probably look like an idiot. Shit. Say something. Say something smart.
“Oh, hey. You came back,” I manage. I think I sound normal. God, what’s wrong with me today?
She bounces on her toes and grins. It’s fucking adorable. “You told me to.”
I chuckle. “I know. Did you read it?”
Her big doll eyes widen. She bites her bottom lip and nods— And then she starts crying. Well, not like weeping or anything, but her eyes well up and tears catch in her crazy-long lashes. She looks like Bambi standing there, all teary and blinking. I have this insane impulse to run my thumbs under her eyes to wipe the tears away.
“It was…amazing.” She swipes at her cheeks and cradles the book against her chest. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying. I thought I got it all out of my system when I was reading, but I guess not.”
I smile. “So I take it that means you liked it?”
Her breath comes out in a long, wavering sigh. “Liked it? That feels so small for how I felt when I finished. It was beautiful, and horrible, and I loved it, and couldn’t bear to keep reading and…yeah. A book really can be all that stuff at once. You were right.”
I’m grinning at her by the end of her little speech. When she showed up here last week, she’d never read a book for fun. Now she’s having this emotional breakdown about one. I did that. I gave her that experience, and it feels amazing.
I wave my hand at the room around her. “And you’re just getting started.”
She smiles back. “I feel just like Liesel. Actually, I feel awful. She fought for every word sh
e could get her hands on, and here I am surrounded by all this, and I didn’t even care.”
“You’re a college kid from Ohio, not an orphan in Nazi Germany. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“Still, it feels entitled. I can’t believe I took all this for granted.” Her conviction kills me, like she’s determined to read as much as she can because Liesel couldn’t. My fellow lit majors can get so caught up in their heads when they talk about books, trying to one-up each other with cleverness or cynicism. Few are this genuine, this un-ironic, this purely enthusiastic. And none of them are this cute. Hell, she’s making me want to read The Book Thief all over again.
“Okay, fine,” I say. “You’re everything that’s wrong with today’s youth because you don’t read.”
“I didn’t read. Now I do. So what should I read next?”
“That’s as big a question as what to read first. Come to the back. This will take some time.” I hop out from behind the counter and lead her toward fiction in the back of the store. I’m buzzing with anticipation— Doing this last week was so fun, and now I get to do it again.
My head spins with all the classics she should read. I mean, if we’re just talking about the western canon we could be here all day, but that might be overload. She should probably stick to contemporary for now, and even then, nothing too out there. I’m not going to dump Finnegan’s Wake in her lap just yet. Baby steps.
“Hey, Adele,” I call out as we go. “Keep an eye on the register, okay?”
“Got it.” Her disembodied voice floats back from somewhere in the store.
“Does she own Prometheus?” Hannah whispers.
“Adele? No, she just works here. Maybe. Well, I’m not exactly sure of her employment status. She might be paid. Or maybe she’s just sleeping with the owner, Ralph. I’ve never asked. She’s just here all the time.”
“Like you.”
“Yeah, but I’m paid, at least nominally, and definitely not sleeping with Ralph.”
Hannah laughs. She looks so serious, but her laugh transforms her face. Her eyes light up, and she glows with it.
“Are you a student?” she asks.
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