The Anti-Social Season (First Responders #2)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Twenty-Three

“M mm. Thea, I’ve missed this deliciousness,” Sean said thickly through a bite of pizzelle .

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Felix rolled his eyes and then laughed as his friend reached out to swat him on the arm. They were sitting at Thea’s kitchen island with coffee and cookies, festive music still burbling from her little speaker. The guys had declared that she’d bought too many strings of lights for a tree of Noel’s size, so they took it upon themselves to string the excess over the top of one of her bookcase bedroom walls.

It was really festive, even with poor Noel sitting dark in front of his window. Sorry, dude. You’re going to have to wait a while for your full dress-up. At least it had a nice stand full of fresh water and was emitting a lovely, soft, piney scent. She couldn’t suppress a little wiggle at the thought of Simon’s reaction to it.

“So, tell us about your new job,” Felix said, picking up his cup and leaning forward to waggle his eyebrows at her. “Or the new coworker, if you prefer.”

Sean was sitting between them, otherwise she’d also try to smack him. Instead, she decided to shock them both by being demure and professional.

“He’s not my coworker anymore. If he ever was, really. But I learned a lot. I’ve put together a schedule for posting stuff over the next month or so. I did a menorah safety video with Larry Cohen. I’ve also tried to get ahead of next winter and talked to some people about making sure I’m putting out more stuff that’s useful for people who celebrate Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa and other holidays.” Just enumerating that list made her realize how much she’d accomplished in a few short weeks. Pride overtook the worry about probation for the first time since she’d begun.

Sean nodded. “Eva plans her semesters around students’ holidays too. The university doesn’t officially recognize them, but she knows it’s important so she builds flexibility into the school year.”

“I knew I liked her.” Thea nodded. “Anyway, I’ve also made a couple of home safety videos, and I’m going to be going to Station 31 after Christmas to do a video on how they respond in icy or snowy weather conditions...” She waited a beat, looking at her friends with what she hoped was utter innocence.

Sean, who had a cookie raised halfway to his lips, dropped it back to his plate. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?”

Felix leaned forward to peer around Sean’s bulky shoulder. “Have you forgotten us already ? That stings, man.”

Sean, living up to his human golden retriever reputation, gave her actual puppy-dog eyes. “Seriously. Where’s the loyalty, Thea?”

“I can’t play favorites, guys. You know that. I work for the whole county now.” She waited another long beat while they looked at her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She started laughing, then the realization that she’d been messing with them dawning on their faces made her laugh even harder until she could hardly breathe. Her guys were still her guys. She had a new job she genuinely loved and she still had her two best friends from the squad. That fear that she might lose Felix and Sean in the process of finding her way in this new gig had come to nothing.

“So you’re not featuring our biggest charity fundraising rivals before us,” Felix said with an expression she couldn’t read. It wasn’t bad, but he also wasn’t laughing. Neither was Sean.

“Did you guys seriously think I would do that?” she asked, her laughter drying up. “I know I haven’t been around, but I haven’t turned into a different person entirely. I’ll probably have to feature all the stations, but I wouldn’t put them before you guys.”

“So when are you going to come back and do something with the old squad? We’ve missed you,” Sean said.

Thea bit her lip. Okay, the guys had a point. “I’m sorry. I just... I didn’t think you’d...” She didn’t want to say be hurt because that wasn’t their vibe. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Sean grasped her arm, squeezed. “It’s okay. We’re all going to change, you know?”

“Speaking of which,” Felix said, grinning now in earnest as they turned to look at him. “Kevin and I are going to get married.” He threw his arms in front of his face as Thea yipped and Sean roared. “Enough, guys! We don’t have a date set or anything. But yeah. We’re going to make it official.”

“Finally,” Sean and Thea said in unison.

And then, at last, they all laughed together.

“So,” Chloe said, draping one arm dramatically over Simon’s cubicle wall on Monday morning, striking a pose and affecting a husky voice. “Tell me about your girlfriend .”

“Keep it down,” Simon said, his eyes darting to see if Mary-Pat was anywhere in the vicinity.

Chloe waved a careless hand. “The Wicked Witch of the East isn’t on the schedule until our meeting after lunch. A fact I’m sure Amy is regretting to this moment. Poor dear. It’s her one day a week to take the afternoon and evening shift. However will she cope?” Chloe struck another dramatic pose, this time with the back of her hand to her forehead. Collapsing back into her usual posture, she grimaced. “Come on. I’ve got roaming reference in five minutes. Give me some details .”

“How do you know it wasn’t a disaster?” Simon asked.

“Because you look too disgustingly pleased with yourself for words,” Chloe promptly replied.

That brought him up short. He’d never been accused of having a face that was easy to read. “Seriously?”

Her expression went sincere. “Seriously. I’ve never seen you look so happy. And I’m happy for you, dude.”

“Considering my sister is constantly trying to make my life a misery these days, that comes as something of a surprise,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger.

“What the hell did she do now?”

He sighed. “Just her usual out of whack expectations whacking into my life. She seems to think I could have just jetted out whenever and take as much time as I want over the holidays. Then she got my mother wound up and...”

Chloe’s eyes went wide. “The audacity.”

He gave a little nod. “And with that, your reference patrons await, my friend. I’ll be taking over the desk right behind you.”

Chloe glanced at her phone with a muttered, “Oh shit,” and darted off without another word.

“Peace at last,” he muttered as he dropped into his chair and powered on his computer. After checking his email, he reviewed the library’s social media accounts. Thea’s holiday appliances video was already posted with some sassy copy. He rubbed his jaw as he watched it for the second time.

The library approves of appliance safety. Fire isn’t good for books either , he responded from the library’s account. That wasn’t exactly characteristic of his usual social media work, which tended to be more factual, and he continued rubbing his chin, wondering whether or not he should let it stand or delete it.

Heck with it. He did a quick scan of his email, then checked his scheduled posts for today and was reminded that he and Chloe were doing virtual readers’ advisory. Something to look forward to over the lunch hour.

A notification popped up on his screen. The Emergency Services social media account replied: What about romance novels? Aren’t those kind of hot? Followed by a few flame emojis. Cheeky Thea. He smiled, but decided to leave the decision about whether or not to reply for later. He’d never used the library account to interact with anyone other than patrons in the past, but maybe he should reach out to other library accounts to see if they could do something collaborative. Maybe extend the readers’ advisory feature to be a more regional thing, rather than just something they each did with their patron groups.

Wow, that sounded like an idea Thea would have, not him. He was supposed to be teaching her and here she was inspiring him. Very cool. He liked the fact that they could both support each other and grow. The equality of it appealed to his rational nature.

Suppressing the smile that thoughts of Thea gave him, he pocketed his phone and headed out to back Chloe up on the reference desk.

What about romance novels? Aren’t those kind of hot? Thea stared at her own message as the replies and quotes started to rack up. Eek. She hadn’t meant to start anything, just to share a little joke.

Well. People were apparently enjoying the joke, at least according to the early responses.

OMG, so cute. The fire department is flirting with the library!

I spy a social media romance brewing. Is the librarian going to take off her glasses for the hot fireman?

Okay, that was annoying. “Gender essentialist much, @Aubrey245?” she muttered at the screen. She scanned a few more of the messages, mostly people amused or charmed by the two-message exchange. It seemed that only one person found it distasteful. @MaryPat4Books had written, This looks like a misuse of county resources to me.

Well. She seemed fun.

Meanwhile, Simon hadn’t responded. Leave it be , she told herself sternly. He had a job to do, same as her. Which reminded her that she had some statistics to gather. The thought of what those numbers might mean made her guts freeze, but she opened up a new window and started to pull the analytics from various platforms. Little by little, her shoulders eased from their tense hunch. It was early, but the trends in engagement and follower counts were ticking in the right direction since she’d taken over. Line goes up and to the right. Good.

It was only a few weeks, but it was something. She closed out of the spreadsheet and glanced around her tidy little house. Everything was ready for Simon’s arrival. Boxes of lights and ornaments were near the little tree. There were ingredients to make fresh pasta in the kitchen. She’d even snagged a bottle of prosecco for them to enjoy while they worked.

Now the evening just had to hurry up and get here.

“Come on,” Chloe said to Simon as they closed out their social media readers’ advisory hour. “One more meeting and then you can start your minuscule holiday with your family.” They trooped into the conference room, and Simon felt a little pang. He’d spent a lot of time with Thea here, but now she was fully launched and wouldn’t be back in this room again.

On the other hand, when he did see her, they didn’t have to talk about work. He didn’t have to mentor her or pretend his feelings were nonexistent in the pursuit of a professional facade. Seating himself at the table, he found Mary-Pat was directly across from him. And she was glaring at him.

Great. What had he supposedly done now?

Amy entered then, closing the door behind her and sitting at the head of the table. “I won’t keep you all for long. I just wanted to go over the final year-end numbers for all of our programs before I send them up to the director. I would like to congratulate everyone on doing a really excellent job this year. Engagement is up significantly, due in large part to the social media campaigns that have given our marketing greater reach. So, thank you, Simon, for a job well done.”

There was light applause from everyone but Mary-Pat, who continued to glower. When it died down, she took a deep breath and said, “If everyone is just going to ignore how unprofessional he was this morning, I am not.”

Simon’s face, which was already hot from the recognition, now blazed with embarrassment and confusion.

“What are you referring to?” Amy said, her expression carefully neutral.

Mary-Pat, her lips a tight line, whipped the cover off her iPad and tapped at it, then handed it to Amy, pointing at the screen. “He’s been using the library’s resources to flirt , it appears.”

Amy frowned at the screen and tapped it. Then she shot an inscrutable look at Simon. “I don’t see anyone flirting here. I see two social media managers having a fun interchange that got a whole bunch of positive responses.”

Mary-Pat pointed at the screen, her lips thinning, eyes snapping in annoyance. “Amy, you were the one who talked about making the social media position a professional one. This is not professional behavior. Besides, I know they met at her home when he was doing her so-called training.” Jesus, had Mary-Pat actually been spying on him? His gut froze even as he reminded himself he hadn’t done anything wrong. But he knew all too well from dealing with his sister that being innocent didn’t mean he wouldn’t get pilloried. He swallowed around a lump in his throat.

Sighing as if she had a headache, Amy said tightly, “First of all, Simon’s whereabouts are none of your business. Nor is his personal life. Second of all, professional social media doesn’t have to be serious all the time. In fact, it shouldn’t be, otherwise there would be minimal engagement with it. We try to have fun events that engage the community, and we try to make our social media presence equally fun and engaging. This is a perfectly professional use of our social media accounts, and if you have any other complaints, I encourage you to come privately to me, and not blindside your colleague in public. Now. Let’s look at the year-end numbers.”

“Breathe,” Chloe whispered in Simon’s ear as the meeting moved forward and his body tried to catch up to the fact that he wasn’t about to be reprimanded or worse. “Amy finally dropped a house on her.”