Prose Before Bros

by Smartypants Romance

  “Zelazny, Roger. 1937-1995. Nine Princes in Amber, [1st ed],” the card stated. Then, in red caps over to the left, it said SCIFI, ZEL.

  It was like stepping into a Wayback Machine, Thuy thought, shaking her head as she pushed the drawer back in place. She glanced around, looking for a computer, hoping that the system here was automated and the card catalog was just for show. Not that she needed to look up titles on the computer — she was familiar with enough library cataloging systems, both Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress, that she knew the area she’d need to search — but the thought of being in a library that used only the cards suggested they might not have automated check-out, and that was kind of daunting.

  To her relief, there were three computers, over by one of the walls, next to a few tables. One of the computers had a paper taped to the screen, obviously out of order. The second had a middle-aged man scowling at it. The third was crowded by a number of teenagers who were obviously playing video games, much to the consternation of the man next to them. There was a printed sign on the wall above all the computers:

  The internet is still a net. Don’t get caught up in it.

  She shook her head. While she appreciated the sentiment, and imagined whoever had put it up wanted people reading rather than falling down the latest Youtube rabbit holes, the fact was that the internet was a huge part of people’s lives. When she’d gotten her Masters of Library and Information Science, they’d emphasized that helping people navigate the internet, and getting information in different ways, was crucial to the job.

  She went over to the 630s: Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. She ran her finger along the spines, looking at the titles. Many of the books were old, she noticed — from the forties and fifties. There weren’t any books on permaculture farming, one of Maddy’s favorite topics, but it was a little avant-garde (and a bit hippie-esque) so Thuy wasn’t terribly surprised. She grabbed a book on running a homestead, and another on expenses of the small farmer. There was a book on cattle ranching that looked detailed, so she grabbed that, too. She wished desperately that there was a For Dummies book on the subject, but she guessed in this town, if you were dumb enough to need one of the books, you were probably too dumb to have your own farm.

  Thuy sighed. Then she grabbed another few books, and headed toward the circulation desk.

  As she headed over there, she saw the man at the second computer shove his chair away. “This goddamned machine!” he hissed. The librarian looked over with concern, but was still talking with the other patron. The teens next to him snickered.

  Thuy had worked in libraries too long to simply leave a patron frustrated and cussing. “Anything I can help you with?” she said easily, her voice dropping into the hushed tones she was so used to.

  He looked surprised. He ran a hand through his hair. “This damned thing,” he said in a low voice, gesturing to the screen. “I’m just… well, I’m trying to apply for a truck driving job, and I can’t get the screen to work.”

  She looked over the website. It was set up poorly, she realized, but he was also making things more difficult than they needed to be by minimizing the screen. She clicked the box at the right, expanding it to take up the whole monitor, and increased the font size. “Better?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Okay. Why don’t you tell me what you’re having trouble with?”

  It took about twenty minutes, but with her quicker typing and his renewed enthusiasm, they got his resumé entered and submitted. He looked drained and relieved when they finally closed out the site.

  “Thank you, miss,” he said.

  “No problem. Really,” Thuy said, smiling. And it wasn’t. That was part of why she liked being a librarian: helping people. That, and of course, the books.

  “’Bout time,” one of the teens said, in a low, surly voice.

  The man glared at them. “You watch it,” he warned. “Playing video games. What the hell’s wrong with y’all?”

  They rolled their eyes. Thuy shook her head. Teens, she thought.

  The man walked away, a teen springing into his place. He quickly called up the Epic website, logging into the same video game as the other screen.

  Thuy recognized it immediately. “Fortnite, huh?”

  They all stared at her for a second. “Yeah. What, you play?”

  “Not for a while. RPGs are more my bag,” she admitted. “Just finished Zelda for the Switch. Good times.”

  They looked at her with a new sense of respect. She shot them a small smile.

  “So, you guys come here for video games, huh?”

  “We can only play an hour,” one of the teens, a boy with wheat-colored hair that flopped in his eyes, said woefully. “Then they kick us off. Even if nobody else is using it!”

  “What about on teen night?”

  The kids, two boys and a girl, looked at each other, then rolled their eyes, laughing. “Teen night?” the girl said. She looked like a young proto-Goth, with dyed-dark hair and burgundy lipstick, and heavily kohled eyes. “More like baby night.”

  “They’re mostly middle graders,” the wheat-haired boy clarified. “They do arts and crafts, crap like that, and read little kid books.”

  “What do you guys read?”

  They stared at her, then looked at each other, like no one had ever asked them that. “Uh… I don’t know,” the second boy, a freckle-faced redhead, said with a grimace. “Not really interested in anything.”

  Thuy’s heart broke a little.

  “And it’s not like there’s a huge selection,” the Goth girl said derisively.

  “Where’s the YA section?”

  They all laughed. “There is no YA section,” she said.

  Now Thuy’s heart broke even more. There was a ton of YA literature out there, truly quality diverse reads… adventure and sci-fi/fantasy, issue books, even great manga and graphic novels. “That’s a shame,” she said, and meant it.

  They shrugged. “They were going to shut the library down until a few weeks ago,” Wheat Hair said.

  “Which would have sucked,” Redhead said. “I live outside of town, and my internet sucks.”

  “I know those feels, bro,” Thuy muttered. “Well, I’ll let you get to your gaming.”

  They nodded, friendly now, and went back to teaming up and parachuting down into the battle royale. She smirked, then went up to the circulation desk.

  “I was wondering if I could check these out,” she said, pulling out her wallet. “I don’t have a utility bill or anything, but I’m planning on moving to the area very soon, and I was wondering if I could give you my driver’s license or a credit card number to…”

  “You’re staying with Madison Blount, aren’t you?” the curly-haired woman asked, looking her over.

  Thuy took a little step back, surprised. “Um, yeah.”

  “I’m Naomi Winters.” She held out her hand, and Thuy shook it. “Old Man Blount didn’t use the library very much, but he did have a card. And we all know Maddy, or at least we did until she moved away ten years ago.”

  Naomi’s smile was wide and genuine. Thuy felt some of the tension she hadn’t realized she was holding relax.

  “I’ll just put these on my card,” Naomi said. “They’ll be due in two weeks, but if you need them for longer, we can always renew them. That okay?”

  “That’s fantastic,” Thuy said. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Naomi said. “Jim Thompson’s been struggling with that computer for the better part of an hour, and you helped him when you didn’t have to. And not a lot of people have patience with the kids who come in to play video games,” she admitted. “You’d be a good librarian.”

  Thuy grinned. “I am a librarian, strangely enough.”

  “Well, that explains it!” Naomi said, with a laugh.

  Thuy walked out with an armful of books and a spring in her step. She’d definitely be back, probably within the next week. She wanted to check out the fiction selection.

&
nbsp; As she headed to the parking lot, she saw someone was leaning against the door of her truck. As she got closer, she recognized the black leather jacket, the form-fitting jeans, the boots.

  Drill.

  Her heart gave a little traitorous trill, and she grimaced. The guy had all but called Maddy incompetent and declared the two of them unable to hold onto the farm, and yet her pulse still danced the mambo when she saw him. Stupid good-looking biker. Stupid hormones. She walked over to the truck.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, without preamble.

  He looked at the books she carried, and smirked. “Some things you can’t learn from books.”

  “You know, I have yet to find one thing I couldn’t learn more about,” she said. “That all you’re here for? To make fun of me for researching? Because I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “I saw my Dad’s truck, and figured that Maddy wasn’t driving it,” he said. “Too tall, given her condition. So that left you.”

  “You were looking for me?” She sounded a tiny bit breathless at that, and frowned at herself. “What do you want?”

  “You,” he said.

  Her heart beat like a trip-hammer. “Oh?” she squeaked, then winced.

  “C’mon. We need to talk,” he said. “I’ll buy you a doughnut.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had taken about ten minutes of back-and-forth to convince Thuy to follow him to Daisy’s Nut House.

  “If you’re trying to push me about the farm, it’s not going to work,” she’d said pointedly.

  “I don’t want to upset my sister,” he replied, which was true. That, and he’d figured out that Thuy was the lynchpin to this whole scenario. If Maddy didn’t have Thuy’s help, then Maddy couldn’t keep the farm, and the sale was a done deal.

  Therefore, he just had to persuade Thuy that selling was the right thing to do.

  You could just tell her that the Wraiths are moving in.

  He frowned as he parked his bike outside the Nut House. That would definitely be one approach, he thought ruefully. Maddy might take the threat seriously — or she might just tell him to shove it. Thuy was an unknown quantity: she seemed fearless, not to the point of stupidity, but definitely to the point of recklessness. If she thought she was protecting Maddy…

  His jaw clenched. He didn’t want to put them in that position. And as much as he couldn’t believe it, he didn’t want to see his sister’s face when he said that his biker gang insisted that she sell the property so they could fund their criminal activities. Or that he’d let her come to harm if she didn’t go along with his demands. He’d just have to find another way to persuade them.

  Thuy pulled in, deliberately parking further away. She trotted over, looking over the restaurant. “So, they sell doughnuts here? I wondered.”

  “The best doughnuts,” he said, ushering her inside. “They’re famous around the state.”

  They sat down at a table. She got a raised chocolate glazed, and he got a slice of pecan pie. They both ordered coffee. He watched as she put a bunch of cream and sugar in hers.

  “Want some coffee with your sugar?” he asked indulgently.

  She rolled her eyes. “You should see Vietnamese pour-over coffee. You just get a little cup of it, but you could float your spoon in it, it’s that thick. And it’s served with condensed milk. So good.” She took a sip, testing out the flavor. “This is okay, too.”

  He leaped for his advantage. “Aren’t you going to miss where you come from? California, I mean?” he pressed. “I’m sure you weren’t expecting to move to a tiny town in Tennessee. Is that what you even wanted?”

  The waitress, Rebecca, brought over their doughnut and pie, and Drill nodded. Rebecca looked at him suspiciously, glancing between the two of them, then turned and walked away.

  “Just jumping right into it, are we?” Thuy smiled tightly. “I don’t know that I had a clear idea of what I wanted. I was cruising along, but my life wasn’t exactly exciting. When your sister told me she was pregnant and that she’d kicked her boyfriend off to Australia, it was a no-brainer. Of course I was going to help her. She’s my best friend. My family.” She took a deep breath. “So that’s what I’m doing. Helping her out, however I can.”

  He frowned. She sounded loyal. He valued loyalty: it was why he’d joined the Wraiths.

  “There’s more to farming than she realizes,” he said. “Stuff I don’t think she’s thought of. The costs alone. There’s feed, there’s a lot of electricity, there’s fuel. Vet bills.” He sighed. “And then there’s maintenance. Do either of you know how to fix the side-by-side, if it breaks down? That transmission can be touchy. Do you know how to change the oil on the tractor? How to sharpen the mower? How about tune up the Chevy?”

  She looked miffed, but she also looked thoughtful — and a little nervous.

  Good. He wanted her nervous.

  She took a bite out of the doughnut, avoiding answering his question. Then her whole expression lit up, and her eyes went low lidded.

  “Oh. My. God.” She chewed, then let out a soft sigh. “This is maybe the best doughnut I’ve ever had in my life.”

  He jolted. She sounded and looked like she was talking about sex. There was a little smile playing along her lips, and her tongue reached out slightly as she put the fried dough on her tongue.

  He found himself swallowing hard, imagining what else she could do with that tongue.

  Stay focused. He had a job here. He cleared his throat.

  “Well, ah, it’s a lot of hard work,” he continued, but got the feeling she wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying. Finally, he stopped, staring at her. “Really enjoying that doughnut, huh?”

  “Mmmm.” She looked like she was in heaven.

  “Don’t they have ‘em where you come from?”

  “They have doughnuts in Berkeley,” she said, looking amused. “But not this good. Not by a long shot.” She paused. “Guess that’s just another benefit to staying here.”

  “Tell you what. I can mail you a box once a month if you can convince Maddy to sell.”

  She sighed, her dark eyes zeroing in on his. “I don’t blame you for being pissed. Maddy doesn’t, either. But it’d be really hard for her to afford a farm, even a small one, right now. Even with half the sale of your dad’s property,” she pointed out. “She’s always wanted this — like, always. She’s smart, and she’s thought this through. If she thinks we can pull it off, then I believe her.”

  He sighed. The damned thing was, she was probably right. Maddy had grown up on the farm, same as he had, and they’d both helped their father with farm chores. While Maddy might not be as mechanically minded as he was, she was a whiz when it came to growing plants, just like their father had been. If anybody could make a go of specialty plants and such, it’d be Maddy.

  “Why are you pushing so hard, anyway?” she asked. “Is it because you need the money? Or because you think Maddy’s screwing you over?”

  He stiffened, surprised by the casual way she asked the question. She surveyed him, finishing her doughnut, then sipping coffee like it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be talking like this.

  “I… okay. I was angry,” he admitted. “Pissed, like you said.”

  “Because you weren’t getting your fair share of the farm.”

  He grimaced, trying to figure out a way to explain. “You know how in those comic strips, Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown, and his dumb ass keeps trying to kick it, and she yanks it away at the last second?”

  Thuy’s expression was compassionate. She nodded.

  “I felt like I couldn’t believe my father had left me something — and then Maddy, my little Maddy, had yanked it away at the last second.” He pushed his half-eaten pie away. “I love my sister. You don’t have to believe me, but I do.”

  “Then let her have the farm,” Thuy said softly. “It means so much to her. It’ll be hard, I understand that. No, I do,” she said, when he snorte
d in disbelief. “But she needs this. It’s her lifelong dream. I don’t know when or how she’d get another chance at it.”

  “What’s your dream, Thuy?” he asked. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

  She blinked. Then she bit her full lower lip, looking thoughtful.

  He wanted to bite that lip for her, he realized. There was just something about her that turned his engine over. He wasn’t sure if it were her full lips, those high cheek-bones, or the way her dark eyes snapped. Her expressiveness. Or her fierce loyalty. Maybe it was the whole package. But he was attracted to her in a way that he’d never been to any woman, ever.

  “I want to be part of something meaningful,” Thuy said. “I like helping people. And Maddy has helped me more than I can possibly repay. My dream is helping her the way she’s helped me. I’m right where I want to be, Drill. I hope you can understand and accept that… and stop trying to convince me otherwise.”

  He stared at her. The problem was, as it stood, he couldn’t accept that. He needed them — both of them, he now realized — to be safe.

  But damn, if he didn’t admire her tenacity and drive.

  “See me again,” he heard himself say, his voice gravelly and low. “Not about this. Just go somewhere with me.”

  She tilted her head, looking at him like a surprised bird. “That’s a bad idea,” she said, with a gentle chuckle.

  “Nobody has to know.” Meaning Maddy. Although he certainly wouldn’t tell the Wraiths, either. “Don’t tell me you’re not curious about how it’d be between us.”

  “Ego much?” She grinned.

  He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “You really gonna sit there and tell me you aren’t interested?”

  He heard the tiny gasp in her breathing, saw the way her pulse pounded quickly in the column of her neck. Her pupils dilated, and she wet her mouth reflexively with the pointed tip of her tongue, as she stared at him. His body went taut with desire, starting to harden. He wanted to devour her. But he sat there, waiting.