Libby the Librarian: A Rom Com Novella (5 page)

I didn’t see Adam again
until the following Friday evening. He hadn’t dropped by my office all week, but I chalked that up to it being between terms, and he probably wasn’t even coming in to work every day. 

I had decided that I needed to do something to kick-start the whole Shasta/Adam reunification
scheme, so I’d invited Shasta and Brad over for dinner Friday night. I doubt if Brad was enthusiastic about coming, but when I called up Shasta, she said, of course. She’d love to.

Adam said he was free for dinner, but when I told him that Shasta and Brad would be there
, too, he didn’t seem quite as excited about it as I’d expected. Maybe, it bothered him to see Shasta and Brad together. That was probably a good thing. Jealousy is an excellent motivator.

I decided to make pilaf and baked
salmon, which are two of the few dishes I can manage reliably. Adam insisted on coming over early. He doesn’t trust me in the kitchen. I can’t entirely blame him, considering how often he’s witnessed the scale of the kitchen disasters I am capable of precipitating.

He arrived with two bottles of wine and an unsolicited dessert.

“I made dessert, already. Flan. I have it setting up in the freezer,” I said.

“Frozen flan?”

“I waited too long to start it, so I put it in there to make it set up faster.”

Adam opened up my freezer and pulled out the tray of custard cups.

“It’s frozen.”

“
It’ll be alright when it thaws out.”

“I doubt it.” Adam tapped the surface of the frozen flan.

“What did you bring?”

“Pavlova.”

I love Pavlova. Adam makes it for me every year for my birthday.

“I don’t need a mother-in-law, you know,” I said. “I have you.”

“What do I have to do with mother-in-laws?”

“I mean, where do you get off, bringing dessert just because you ‘kn
ow,’ I’m going to ruin mine?”

“You did ruin yours.”

“Yes, I know. But I resent you being so sure that I would.”

Shasta and Brad arrived in the middle of our Pavlova
polemic, so we never got to finish it.

My
salmon turned out perfectly and the pilaf was pretty good by the time Adam got finished doctoring it up with the contents of my spice cabinet, which he restocks himself from time to time.  

I was determined to get Brad to talk. He ha
s yet to say three words to me, so I asked him how his job was going. He’s a mechanical engineer, according to Shasta.

“Fine,” he said.

I don’t know what Shasta sees in him. I’m the last person in the world who should be criticizing other people for being reticent to talk about their personal lives, but Brad takes reserve to extremes.

I cleared the plates
, and Adam brought out the Pavlova from the kitchen. He set it down next to the forks and saucers in the middle of the table.

“Dig in,” I said.

Adam was still standing behind me. I sat down. Shasta started dishing up the Pavlova and passing around the plates.

Adam put his hands on my shoulders and started making little circles on my neck with his thumbs. I fel
t myself go instantly red. I shrugged my shoulders a little, but he ignored my nonverbal order to cease and desist.

Shasta and Brad didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. They sat calmly eating their Pavlova.

“This is delicious,” Shasta said. “You really made this from scratch?”

“Yes. It’s pretty easy to make.”

Adam is forever describing things as, “easy to make,” a statement he always follows up with the list of 32 separate ingredients and 15 steps necessary to make those “easy” recipes.     

“Really? How do you make it?”

Adam started telling her. He’d left my neck—finally—and
had pulled up a chair so close it was bumping into mine. He started running one hand up and down my spine while he talked. Every once in a while, I’d make another attempt to subtly shrug him off, and he’d pretend not to notice.           

Shasta and Brad didn’t stay as long as I’d expected
. Adam stayed behind to help me with the dishes.

“How was your week?” he asked.

He doesn’t usually bother with small talk.

“Fine.” Then I realized I was doing the exact same thing I’d mentally criticized Brad for, so I added. “Really good, actually!”

“Oh, did you meet someone?”

“I met a lot of people. New people come
through my office all the time.”

“You know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do know what you mean. And no, I did not.”

“That’s probably a good thing. I don’t think you are ready to meet anyone.”

“I don’t know why you persist in taking such an active interest in my love-life.”

“If I don’t take an active interest in your love-life, who else
will?”

He had a point there. We’ve been friends for years, and although I go out on dates—half of which are Adam’s idea—
they never end up amounting to much.

Adam put the last dish into the dishwasher, poured in the soap and started it up.

I was wiping down the table. He came and took the dishrag out of my hand.

“Ready?” he said.

“For what?”

“More aversion therapy
.”

“Is this really necessary?”

It is true. I don’t like random people touching me, but I’m beginning to think this current skittishness has a lot more to do with my reaction to Adam in particular. I couldn’t very well explain that, though, without getting us into some very weird territory. 

“Maybe not enjoying being touched is a good thing,” I countered. “Lots of men would appreciate not being expected to
stick around after sex.”

“You
’re looking for the kind of man who kicks you out of bed right after sex?”

I d
on’t think so, but it has been so long since I’ve had a man in my bed, period, that who knows what I want these days.

“Close your eyes.”

We were still standing in the kitchen. I just looked at Adam. He was standing on the other side of the table. I kept my eyes firmly open.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said.

He didn’t. I was quite certain of that.

Adam continued.
“How many men have I set you up with over, say, the last year?”

“
I don’t know. Ten. Fifteen.”

“They can’t all have been duds, can they?”

“None of them liked me.”

“I think quite of few of them would have liked you just fine, if you’d betrayed the slightest bit of interest in them.”

I noticed that someone had dropped a bit of salmon on the floor under the table. I got down on the floor to get it. When I stood up, Adam was standing right in front of me. I backed up and bumped into the table.

“I have a theory about you,” Adam said. He wasn’t touching me, but
I still seemed to be having trouble breathing. “I think whoever manages to finally break through your initial wall of resistance is going to find you to be—“ He stopped. I thought he wasn’t ever going to finish that sentence, but he finally did. “I guess the word I’m looking for is—responsive.”

He left right after that,
thank sweet Aphrodite. By the time I shut the door behind him, I was feeling so responsive that I spent the next half an hour lying on the couch with frozen flan on my forehead in hopes of freezing out the lurid figments of my imagination.
 

Saturday morning I got up
and took every pair of kakis and every button-down I owned and put them in a big garbage bag. Then I drove to the nearest charity shop and donated them.  I was immediately sorry, but it was too embarrassing to ask for them all back, so instead I went home and ate up the rest of the Pavlova.

I usually use Saturday to get all the things done that I’d rather put off, that way I can enjoy Sunday. Friday night—during the frozen flan incident—I’d realized it was time to defrost my freezer
. I found the ice chest and emptied everything out. Then I waited for the ice to melt.

While I was waiting
, my phone rang—I didn’t recognize the number.

“
Remember me? Tom. From The Presidio.”

I did remember him. I was shocked he’d called.

Did I want to go out for coffee? He asked.

No, I did not.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m free this evening.”

I met Tom at a coffee shop down
-town. It was excruciating. Even worse than the blind dates Adam sets me up with.

I tried to be warm and engaging. I
encouraged him to talk about himself. I laughed at his jokes, even though they were completely devoid of originality.

“Let’s do this again, sometime,” he said.

“I’d love to.”

I’m pretty sure neither of us meant a word we said.

I was just getting back in my car when I got a text from Adam.

U HOME?

NO

COME HOME

WHY?

He didn’t answer, but when I pulled into my driveway
I understood why. He was sitting on my front step waiting for me.

“You know, I never just show up at your house like this.”

He ignored my scolding.

“You look terrific
,” he said.

I did. Despite the fact I was wearing those horrible ninth-grade glasses. I was starting to see it, now. Not that it mattered too much, one way or another.

“I was out having coffee with Bar Guy.”

“Who?”

“You know, Bar Guy. The one you made me talk to.”

“I thought you were going to fake-number him.”

“Well, I didn’t. I panicked and gave him my real number by accident.”

I thought he might
admonish me for that, but he didn’t.

“How did it go?”

“I tried really hard to like him.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t.”

“That’s OK. I didn’t like the looks of him
, either.”

I unlocked my door and went inside. Adam followed me without being invited.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“We’re friends,” Adam said. “Do I have to have a reason?”

The friends part is starting to feel a little blurry, at least as far as I’m concerned. I imagine, to him, I’m just what I have always been: a goofy woman he is terribly fond of who needs his assistance in order to function as a normal human being—in other words—a project. My theory is that he’s between girlfriends and has way too much time on his hands. Maybe it’s time I encouraged him to take up woodworking or reading to the blind.

I was wearing a new pair of skinny jeans and one of the silk blouses that Shasta had picked out for me.

“Do you always wear those buttoned up like that?” Adam asked.

“That’s what buttons are for.”

“I’ll admit it has a certain appeal,” Adam said. “Whenever I see buttons, all I can think of is unbuttoning them.”

I didn’t like where this was going. I mean I did like it, but it wasn’t—

“I just think you might consider—“ He was actually attempting to undo my top button.

“Excuse me,” I said, pulling away. “You can’t just go around undressing people.”

“It wouldn’t be something I hadn’t done before.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“Fine. Do it yourself. Just a couple of buttons. See how it feels.”

I felt like a fool making a huge deal over a couple of buttons, so I undid the top two. That wasn’t too radical.

“One more,” Adam said.

“Really?”

I undid one more. He looked at the front of my blouse as if he were hanging a picture and hadn’t decided if it was level. He came closer and spread open my collar. His knuckles grazed my skin.

“That’s better.”

For whom? If Adam had any idea what effect he was having on me, he’d be mortified.

“You want to go out for ice cream?” Adam asked.

“You’ve been sitting on my front steps, waiting who knows how long, just so you won’t have to get ice cream on your own?”

Adam never goes anywhere on his own. He doesn’t go out to eat alone. He doesn’t go to movies alone. He won’t even go shopping alone. Maybe I should turn the tables on him and make
him into my project. I’ll call it the Make-Adam-Independent Project. No body-contact necessary.

We went for ice cream. I wanted to button my shirt back up, but couldn’t think of a way to do it so Adam wouldn’t notice. I didn’t want him to know it was bothering me.

We sat in a booth at the ice cream place. Usually, when we go out somewhere—if it’s just the two of us—we sit across from each other. This time, Adam slid into the bench beside me.