Libby the Librarian: A Rom Com Novella (6 page)

“What are you doing?”

“Sitting down.”

“Why?”

“I prefer not to eat standing up.”

“I mean, why can’t you sit over there?”
I pointed at the other side of the booth.

“I c
ould, if you’d prefer to save aversion therapy for when we get back to your house.”

I did not, so I shut up.

“Just don’t forget who you’re sitting next to and grope me under the table,” I said.

“I never grope people under the table—“ He grinned. “Well, rarely. I’ll amend that statement: I’ve never groped anyone under the table when you were also present.”

“Yes, you have,” I insisted. “I’ve seen you. Hundreds of times.”

“I guess our definitions of groping are wildly divergent.”

I felt his hand on my leg. I was glad I wasn’t wearing shorts. Starting at my knee and using just his fingertips, he ran his fingers up my inner thigh. He stopped a few inches shy of—well, you get the picture—and put his hand back on the table.

“Now would you call that groping?” He asked.

I looked straight ahead and concentrated on licking down my cone in a perfectly symmetrical manner. I could feel Adam staring at me, but I refused to acknowledge him. Right after that, he realized that his cone was melting and running down his arm. He didn’t mention the words Aversion Therapy again for the rest of the evening.

The next week was busy. I was going away on vacation the following week, to visit my cousin Tabitha in Tampa. This meant I needed to get ahead on my research requests before I left. Dr. Maxwell is adamant that no scholarly endeavors are ever impeded by what he likes to refer to as our “personal lives.” It appears that Dr. Maxwell does not have a personal life and begrudges any members of his staff having one, either.

Adam fell back into his
old habit of dropping into my office every other day. He was almost as excited about me getting a vacation as I was. He was convinced that I was going to have a hot fling, while I was gone. Did I have a decent swimsuit? He wanted to know. By decent, he, of course, meant indecent. I did not, but I wasn’t about to take him along swimsuit shopping, so I made up a leopard print bikini. That may have been overdoing it. He had it coming to him, though. At this rate, he’d soon be picking out my underwear and that was certainly
not
going to happen.  

I was leaving early Sunday morning. Saturday afternoon, as I was finishing up my packing, Adam called. Could he come over?

“Since when do you ask permission to come over?”

“
Since you told me to.”

“I’ve been telling you that for years. You’re just now listening
?”

He sighed dramatically at the end of the line. “Can I come over or not? I have a present for you.”

Adam loves giving presents. It’s one of his better qualities. I don’t think he’s had a girlfriend who lasted more than six months who didn’t leave the relationship in possession of some very nice jewelry.

He must have
already been halfway over by the time he called, because he showed up five minutes later.

He handed me a shirt box. I opened it. There was a bright red bikini inside.

“The leopard print sounded a little slutty,” he said. “I want you to attract a better class of man.”

I hit him with the empty box.

“You do realize that I made up the leopard print bikini.”

“Yes.
I didn’t believe you for a second. You’d never own a leopard print bikini. I’ll bet you I can describe your real suit, sight unseen.”

“I bet you can’t.”

“What do you bet?”

“A hundred dollars.”

“I already have a hundred dollars. What do I want with another hundred?”

“Fine. What do you want to bet?”

“If I can describe your old suit correctly, you have to model your new one for me.”

“And if you get it wrong?”

“I’ll model your old suit.”

He’d stretch it out. That was OK. I didn’t like my old suit much anyway.

“Shake on it,” I said.

“
Parameters?”

“
You must accurately identify at least four attributes of the old suit correctly.”

“Deal!”

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

“It’s black.”

That wasn’t much of a challenge. 85% of women’s bathing suits are black.

“It has straps.”

“That’s a copout.”

“It is not a copout. I’ve seen strapless suits. They’re a real thing.”

Strapless suits are a real thing. I let it go.

“It has that gathery stuff on the front. You know, like there was a lot of extra material and then they ran a seam across it.”

“It’s called ruching—“ I couldn’t believe I knew that. “And yes. That is also correct.”

“One more—“

I was getting worried. I was certain that I had not attained the high level of personal maintenance necessary to appear in a bikini on short notice.  Shasta had given me long and detailed instructions on waxing, but I hadn’t worked up the nerve to try it. I had been saving the dreaded procedure for later in the evening. If I couldn’t work up the nerve, plan B was to wear shorts over my suit the whole week.

“
Your old suit has a skirt on it.”

Thank
Mother of Pearl!
That was wrong.

“What do you think I am? An eighty-year-old?”

“No skirt, then?”

“Certainly not.”

I retrieved the old suit from my bedroom. I hadn’t yet decided whether I was going to hold him to his end of the bet, but Adam took it right out of my hand.

“Th
is’ll look sensational on me—“ Adam said. “Black is definitely my color.”

Then he started stripping down, right there in my living room.

“Don’t you want to go in the bathroom or something?”

“No. What I
will
be wearing is going a lot more embarrassing then what I
won’t
be wearing.”

I’ve always known Adam is pretty casual about nudity, but I’ve never seen him
completely naked. Surely, I wasn’t about to.

“Please, tell me you’re planning on leaving your underwear on. I might want to wear that suit again
, someday.”

Adam looked slightly
miffed. I don’t think he ever intended to strip down to his bare bones, but I think me acting like I didn’t want him to bruised his ego a little. I tried not to look at him until he had my old suit on. I was hoping the ridiculousness of his costume would make up for the beautifulness of his body and the two would cancel each other out. Besides, once he got it on, I was supposed to stare. 

He did look pretty funny. It wasn’t hard to laugh, which is what he expected. Adam started dancing around in a comically suggestive manner
, and once I got started laughing, I couldn’t stop. That got him going, and pretty soon we were both reduced to tears, and my side hurt.

“Stop!” I said. I was sitting on the floor now, rocking back and forth. Adam stopped dancing around and
sat down beside me.

He wiped his eyes.

“I’m going to miss you,” he said.

“I’m only going to be gone a week. We go for weeks
, sometimes, without seeing each other.”

Not very often, though.

“I know. But even when I don’t see you, I know you’re right here and I can see you whenever I want to.”

That
’s true. He does get to see me whenever he wants, wherever he wants, why ever he wants. Maybe, that isn’t the healthiest thing in the world. Things are fine when he has a girlfriend. I don’t expect him to be constantly available to me. But if I had a boyfriend, things would have to change.

Adam took off my old
swimsuit and put his clothes back on. He flopped on my couch and turned on the TV.

“I have to finish packing,” I said. Hint. Hint.

“I know. I thought I’d keep you company. I’m not bothering you, am I?”

He was bothering me. But not the way he meant. I loved seeing him stretched out on my couch
like he belonged there. That’s the thing about Adam. Being with him is even better than being alone. I like being alone. I need to be alone, sometimes. The fact that he can replace being alone, that being with him is even better than being alone; that scares me a little. My head said, “send him home,” but my heart was doing the talking.

“Sure. You can stay.”

He stayed all night. That wasn’t the plan. At least it wasn’t my plan.

While I finished packing, Adam watched some stupid movie with a lot of
yelling and explosions and finished off a six pack of the beer he keeps in my refrigerator.  I hate beer.

“You
counting on me driving you home?” I asked. It wouldn’t be the first time.

By the time I’d finished packing, Adam had fallen asleep on the couch. At least he looked asleep. I prodded him in the side with my foot.

“Wake up!”

He opened one eye.

“I’ll drive you home.”

“What about my car?”

“What about your car?”

“You’re leaving early in the morning, right?”

I was.

“So who’s going to come get me to pick up my car, if I leave it here?”

“You have other friends.”

He d
oes have other friends, but when it comes to asking for favors I’m usually the one who gets picked on.

“I’ll just stay. I can sleep on the couch. I’ll even take you to the airport in the morning.”

That was tempting. Then I wouldn’t have to pay for parking.

“And pick me up?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t even know when I’m coming back.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll make it work.”

“It would be
a lot simpler if you’d just make retrieving your car in the morning work.”

“How
complicated is it just to let me sleep on your couch?”

When he put it that way, driving him all the way across town at midnight did seem silly.

I got him a blanket.

“I could just sleep in your bed
,” said Adam. He was still stretched out on my couch, looking adorably rumpled. 

“
You could, but I’m not sleeping on the couch,” I said.

“I wasn’t suggesting that you sleep on the couch.”

“What were you suggesting?”

“We could both sleep in your bed.”

“Isn’t that crossing some sort of line?”

“Maybe. Or you could just think of it as aversion therapy.”

I’d been hoping he’d decided to let this aversion therapy obsession drop.

“It’s my bed. I think I’m the one entitled to decide who sleeps in it.”

He was slightly drunk. That probably accounts for what he did next, because I’m pretty sure he never would have had the nerve to do it stone-cold sober. He got up off the couch.

“Come on,” he said and dragged me after him into the bedroom.

“I left the living room light on.”

“If I let you go
turn it off, you’re not coming back, are you?” Adam asked.

Probably. Definitely. Not.

“Your silence speaks volumes.”

Adam
gets a little pompous when he’s had a few.

I hadn’t gotten undressed and—considering present developments—I wasn’t planning on it, so I climbed into bed
with all my clothes on and switched the lamp off. After he fell asleep, I’d roll him off the bed. He could spend the night on the floor. If that didn’t work, I’d retreat to the couch.  

In the end, I did neither. As soon as he got into bed, Adam rolled over and wrapped his arms around me.

“Really?” I said, trying to sound prickly and not-at-all rattled. I don’t think I succeeded on either count.

“I just want to cuddle.”

That made him sound like a 6-year-old girl.

“Who calls this cuddling?”

“What do you call it?”

“Inappropriate.”

He’d already switched the other lamp off. I turned to face him, but I couldn’t see his expression in the dark. 

He was using one hand—the one attached to the arm that wasn’t ready to restrain me from bolting—to caress my face.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Doesn’t it feel good?”

It did feel good. Frig’n fantastic was what it felt like.

“Turn over,” Adam said. “I’ll give you a back rub.”

That sounded innocent enough. At least that’s what I told myself. I turned over. It started out all right. He propped himself up on one elbow and used his free hand to rub my back. It felt good, but I could handle it.

Then I felt him tugging at the bottom of my t-shirt and felt his hand on my bare back. It was more stroking than rubbing now and instead of sticking to my back, he was running his hand up and down my sides.
Pretty soon I realized that I was letting him stroke the sides of my breasts through my bra.

“Let me touch you,” he said. His voice sounded high and weird.

“You are touching me,” I answered. My voice sounded even higher and weirder.

“You know what I mean.”

I did, but I didn’t answer.

“Just through you clothes. I won’t even kiss you.”

He seemed to think that pleasuring me through my clothes was less intimate than kissing.

“I want to do that for you. I mean how long has it been since you—“

A very long time.

I heard a voice that sounded like mine say, OK. Adam flipped me over. I waited. Nothing happened. Maybe he’d come to his senses or was waiting for me to come to mine. Then I felt his hand
.

It was embarrassing, how quickly I came.
A little pressure—even through my jeans—and I was done. Adam kept going and it happened all over again. I wanted to reciprocate, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead, he rolled me over on my side, pulled me close and fell asleep, one of his hands cupping my left breast. It took me forever to fall asleep. My whole body was buzzing. Full-on sex had never felt this good. The experience definitely had me rethinking my scorn of friends with benefits.