The Anti-Social Season (First Responders #2)

Chapter Five

Five

“S eriously, I don’t see why the social media manager can’t be a rotating position. I think those of us with greater experience could bring something to bear to the role.” It was Wednesday morning, the library’s monthly communications and marketing meeting, and Mary-Pat was mounting up on her favorite hobbyhorse: trying to unseat Simon from the position he worked so hard to keep.

Giddyap.

In the Casablanca casino set in his mind, Simon placed a bet with himself as to what her next angle of attack would be.

“Some of us have been making library displays very successfully for decades and know all about promoting the library’s services.”

Your winnings, sir . Internally pretending to be shocked, shocked that passive-aggression would go on in a library. He wondered if Thea liked classic movies, then shifted in his chair, resisting the urge to spin his pen over his thumb, his usual fidget mode. Mary-Pat would see that as showing off, and it would somehow be added to her arsenal in her ongoing attack against, well, everyone and everything that wasn’t Mary-Pat. But especially Simon the Younger.

Because Mary-Pat did not see that young people had anything of value to offer. Ever. Young people meant change and change was Bad, end of story. Even if she could train Thea in social media, he could well imagine Mary-Pat’s reaction to the former firefighter. Disaster would be an understatement, and that probationary period she was so worried about would be a real threat.

Simon swallowed. He cared about getting her through that, and not just to prove his own worth in the social media role.

Amy cleared her throat, bringing him back to the moment. “While I appreciate your zeal, the county administration has decided that the social media manager should be a professional position, to keep us more in line with other similarly-sized library systems. We fought a hard enough battle to keep it as an embedded librarian position. County Communications has continually floated the idea that library social media should be covered by a few hours a week of a junior public relations staffer’s time.”

Simon straightened, his pen doing an unconscious flip over his thumb. He hadn’t expected this level of commitment around the job. Turf wars weren’t uncommon in the various echelons of the county’s government and services, so he was hardly surprised, but still.

“That seems like it would be a really bad idea, the Communications thing.” Simon heard himself speak up. Dammit . He almost never said anything in these meetings. His lifetime of keeping his head down to keep out of conflict in his family usually worked well in this setting too. But now, Amy was looking at him and he was committed. “Someone who doesn’t know what the library system is doing from the inside wouldn’t be able to do anything other than reiterate a press release in fewer words on a few different platforms. And if they only had a few hours a week, they couldn’t always be on the ground to cover events like drag queen story hour or author lectures.” He’d personally taken photos just last week of two of these kinds of events and made posts that had gotten some good traction in the community.

Amy looked approvingly at him, and the pen made another nervous circuit of his thumb. To hell with what Mary-Pat might say about that.

“Exactly. And if we pass the role from librarian to librarian on a regular basis, not only will the work be inconsistent, we’re saying we don’t believe this is a professional position. That means the county will snatch it back and we won’t get the community to see the richness of the programs we offer. That means reduced public perception of our mission and support for funding will go down. Which means, of course, funding will go down, and we’re already like every other public library system in the country—always doing more with less. On top of that, Simon’s training the new Emergency Services social media manager, further proving our leadership in this space to more senior administrators. I think what we’re doing is working well, both for now and for the longer haul. Simon, I know you’ve only had one day with her, but how is that training going so far?”

Simon swallowed around the lump in his throat. He hadn’t quite considered how the spotlight on Thea also might have an impact on the library, and like every librarian he knew, he was all too aware of the specter of budget cuts hanging over his profession and career. “Well, like you said, it’s only been one day. But she seems eager to learn, and of course, she knows a lot about emergency services.”

“Good,” Amy said. “Moving on, let’s talk about our post-New Year displays.”

And with that, Simon gladly lapsed back into silence as Mary-Pat began to hold forth.

Thea was unaccountably nervous for her second meeting with Simon.

So, okay, she was accountably nervous. She now knew who she was dealing with: Buttface McKilljoy of the Speech and Debate club, class of 2010. Trouble was, she needed Buttface McKilljoy. So she had to play nice. She was going to literally die trying to get through this probationary period.

Literally. He could figure out whether she meant that as an intensifier or not. Resettling her bag onto her shoulder, she trudged into the building, preparing herself for another run-in with the sour-faced woman she’d dealt with on Monday.

Only to be brought up short by the man himself, standing at the circulation desk, chatting with a woman who had her arms full of books and a lanyard with a tag that read Volunteer. Was he waiting for her? If he was, that seemed almost friendly.

Then he noticed her, looked up and gave her a terse little nod. Okay, then. That was more in character. “Hey,” he said and motioned for her to follow him. As she did, a tendril of mischief began to thread its way through her.

Yeah, he might be Mr. McKilljoy, but what if she could shake him up? Make him laugh? What would that look like?

No. Bad idea. She was on probation in this job and she knew that her sense of humor was definitely of the juvenile, firehouse, toilet variety. She’d gotten away with the knock-knock joke last time, but best not to push her luck. Sighing, she followed him into the small, windowless conference room with the old READ posters and its mismatched chairs around the banged-up table.

When librarians talked about lack of funding, they weren’t kidding.

“What’s the sigh for?” Simon asked.

Oh crap. Had she really been that noisy? “Nothing bad,” she said. “Just didn’t sleep very well last night.” She’d fallen down another yearbook rabbit hole again, this time looking up some of her old classmates on various social media platforms that she’d lost track of.

What? It was job research. She was putting the social in social media.

She settled into a chair and pulled out her laptop. Simon did the same, then shuffled his chair forward and unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling his shirt sleeves back.

After a moment, she realized she’d been focusing on his arms for a ridiculous amount of time and averted her eyes. How did a librarian get such sinewy forearms? And how was that hot? Thea’s former colleagues were objectively sexy. Most of them were even featured in calendars to raise money for charity. They had sinewy forearms. They had a lot of sinew in a lot of places. But they were just...her guys. Thinking about them as hot was just weird.

Shit . Simon was hot. And her coworker, kind of. And somehow, it didn’t feel weird at all.

Why was Thea looking at his arms? Simon examined himself for stains, nicks, anything that would explain this interest she apparently had in his forearms. For crying out loud, he didn’t even have a tattoo. The pen in his hand made a circuit of his thumb.

Thea’s huge brown eyes seemed to get even bigger. “Oh my god. You can do that?”

“What?” Shit. He was not supposed to be falling into her enormous eyes. But he’d felt like he was drowning for a minute.

“That pen thing. I’ve always wanted to be able to do that. It’s on my bucket list right after learning to whistle with two fingers in my mouth.”

Against his will, he was amused. “Whistling with two fingers in your mouth is on your bucket list?”

The crests of her cheeks reddened, and Simon scooted his chair closer to the table, the hard edge pressing into his abdomen. He was not going to pop a boner at work. But just in case, he would keep his pelvis out of her eyesight and make himself as physically uncomfortable as possible. The aging conference room chair didn’t hurt in that regard, at least.

“Well, it isn’t on my list anymore. One of my teammates—my former teammate—” Her face fell at that, then she visibly composed herself. “He taught me,” she finished, those big brown eyes flicking up to meet his gaze, daring him. Or maybe daring herself. It was hard to tell.

Simon wanted to rush into that little breach, that moment of vulnerability. But that dare, he decided, would be unmet.

“Okay.” He held out his hand, pen balanced on his middle finger. “Here’s how you spin the pen.” He demonstrated finding the center of gravity, pushing it slightly off, which finger flicked, which finger got out of the way then caught it as it finished its circuit. She watched with intense concentration, then tried it herself.

The pen bonked to the tabletop. She looked at him, betrayal so evident in her expression that he had to suppress a laugh. “Nobody gets it the first time. It’s like anything else. You have to practice.”

“Hmm.” Her jaw set in determined lines and she tried again, but she wasn’t offsetting the pen far enough. The pen bonked again. He picked it up and placed it, steadying her fingers with his own. Her skin was warm, and her index finger had a long, faded scar. Crap. He was touching her. He swallowed, his throat tight.

“Did you get this fighting a fire?” he asked, pointing at the scar. He should pull away, stop touching her. But if he did it too quickly, would she know he was affected by her? But continuing to touch her wasn’t professional... His brain spun and chattered like a slipping engine belt.

She shook her head, her fingers wrapping around the pen rather than trying to spin it again. Well, she couldn’t try to spin it now. Not with his hand in the way. “No. Firefighters wear gloves, remember? My cousin Luca had a cat. She was really sweet, but something startled her when I picked her up once, and her claw opened my finger right up. I was just a kid.”

He winced and finally pulled his hand away from hers. Could still feel the warm texture of her skin though. “Ow. Stitches?”

“No,” she said again. “Just big Band-Aids and being really awkward doing everything with my left hand while it healed. And I swear that cat was sorry. I went over to visit Luca when it was still healing and she sniffed the bandage like she was examining a kitten. Then she curled up in my lap and purred.”

“Purring is supposed to have healing properties.” Where had he pulled that inanity from? He nearly smacked himself in the forehead from sheer frustration.

She flicked him a startled, curious glance. “Does it?”

“Yeah. Something about the frequency of the vibrations.” Shut up, dork. He cleared his throat, ready to move off purring and pen spinning.

“Maybe I should get a cat, then,” she said.

“Are you injured?”

“No, but I do miss Luca. He was the reason I became a firefighter in the first place. He had to leave the force. He lives in the Midwest now. We don’t talk very much anymore.” Her eyes darted furtively up, meeting his for the barest second, then sliding away. As much as Simon had observed Thea when they were teens, he’d never seen her like this. Unguarded, vulnerable.

And dammit, he might like this side of Thea even more than the brash, bold girl he’d been half in love with at eighteen.

What the hell did she think she was doing, anyway? Baring her soul to the killjoy? But he wasn’t being a killjoy just now. He was being, well, nice. Understanding. Little crinkles around his eyes seemed to indicate he was listening intently.

“It can be hard when family moves away,” he said.

“That’s right. Your parents followed your sister out West.”

He nodded. “Yup. And we don’t have any other family locally. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, they all live in other states.”

She made a face. “That must suck for you for the holidays.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not the most social of people, so big holiday gatherings aren’t really my thing. I do like the preparation though. The decorating, the cooking, the wrapping. Everything but the big, noisy stuff.”

A grin split her face. “I’ll bet you’re good at keeping secrets too.”

He tapped his forehead with the same finger he’d used to steady her hand with the pen. “Like a vault.”

His eyes, big and amber brown, were focused on her, and she felt like they were pulling her toward him. Altogether he was a tether of attraction made up of sinewy forearms, intense looks and a pointless skill that she nevertheless wanted to master for herself.

Then something in his eyes shuttered and she felt like a bucket of icy water had sluiced down her back. He straightened and opened his laptop. “So, I was thinking we’d go over the calendar of events that you prepared. A lot of the stuff we deal with day-to-day is reactive, so it’s best to have as complete a calendar as possible so stuff gets auto-posted when you’re scrambling.”

“Okay, makes sense,” she said, trying to shake the disappointed feeling from moments before.

“But another good habit to get into is to review whatever you’ve got auto-posting at the beginning of every week, if not more often. Because when something bad happens, a lighthearted post might make it look like you’re not reading the room, you know?”

She nodded. “Probably more than most people, I’d think.” She thought about one of the last times she’d answered an emergency call. A condo explosion had left a dozen people suddenly homeless and without essential clothing and other items.

Having a breezy post about a charity fundraising calendar featuring shirtless firefighters coincide with an event like that would definitely look like nobody was reading the room. She made a note to check her auto-posted items daily, not weekly, then looked up and caught him watching her. “What?”

He shook his head. “You just seem different, that’s all.”

“Different from what?”

“Different from how you were when you were seventeen.”

You don’t , she almost said. But that would be a lie. He was controlled now, but he’d been positively rigid as a teenager. Like the type of person who’d never so much as jaywalk, even at two in the morning with no cars in sight. There was something that seemed more nuanced about him now. “Well, I can’t exactly bust out with the fart jokes in this kind of setting, right?”

Truth be told, she was still figuring out what and who she was supposed to be in this new role. Talk about reading the room. But it was just her and Simon and the goddamn READ posters in the room now. Was she supposed to take her new cues entirely from him? It wasn’t like the cast of the Twilight movies all brandishing their favorite novels was going to be any help. There suddenly felt like too much to learn and not enough guidance or help to figure it all out.

Wait. She was in a library for crying out loud. “Um. Maybe you could help me out. I think I need a book.”