By Your Side(47)

“You good?” he asked.

I nodded. We walked through the glass hallway and downstairs to the main library. I checked under the chair first, hoping I didn’t have to ask anyone. They weren’t there. I lingered as I remembered Dax reading in that chair, remembered where we’d shared the sleeping bag right below it. I wondered if Dax was remembering the same thing. We caught each other’s eyes.

“We should go see if there are any apples to steal in the kitchen,” I whispered.

He smiled.

I took a deep breath and walked to the checkout desk. The lady behind it waited for me to speak.

“I left a pair of black boots here. Did they get turned in?”

“Black boots . . .” She searched beneath the counter and came up with my boots, setting them on top.

“So this is what an ankle wedge looks like,” Dax said quietly beside me.

The lady gave me a hard look. “You must be the girl who was stuck here last weekend.”

I wasn’t prepared for her to call me out on it. I nodded.

“Your mom has given us a list of new closing procedures.”

How did I respond to that? Was she mad at me?

“Probably a good thing,” Dax said, swiping my boots and leading us away.

I couldn’t believe my mom had done that. Okay, actually I could believe it. It was in her nature, but I was so embarrassed.

Before we got up the stairs and to the glass hallway again Dax said, “Who cares what she thinks? She’s nobody. Don’t worry about it.”

I don’t know if he thought I couldn’t handle stairs at that moment or what, but he led me to the elevator and pushed the button.

“I don’t care,” I assured him. I really was fine.

The light dinged and the doors opened. We climbed inside. Just as he was about to push the button for the bottom floor, I pushed the one for the top and the doors slid shut.

He was still holding my boots so I took them from him, clutching them to my chest. “Have you ever seen the bell tower?” I asked.

“No. I haven’t.”

“You should.”

Considering it only had to go up two floors, the elevator took forever. When the doors finally opened, we stepped out. I wondered if the door to the tower would still be unlocked or if we’d have to turn around and go back down. I pushed on the bar and it opened with a loud creak. It was dark this time, and I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. The stairs up to the top didn’t look or feel any more sturdy than they had the last time I climbed them. And now, with the two of us on them, I laughed nervously with each step.

We made it to the top and I opened the door. I took in a deep breath of cool air. The wooden owl on the railing looked at us as we both sat down in the small space that overlooked the peaked roofline. We were knee to knee, the space was so small.

“Cool, right?” I turned off the flashlight on my phone, the streetlights outside enough to dimly light the area.

“Yes. I’m surprised I haven’t seen this before. Our stay wasn’t my first stint in the library.”

“You don’t say,” I said, feigning surprise.

He smiled, then looked up. “You rang this bell one night, didn’t you?”

“Nobody heard it.”

“I did. I wasn’t sure what it was.”

“It was me.”

Sitting there, I realized this tower was probably off-limits for guests. If we got caught we’d get in trouble.

“Anyway, I wanted to show you. We should go.”

“Because you’re worried, or because you have somewhere you need to be?”

“The first.”

“You worry too much.”

“I know. It’s kind of my thing.”

My arms rested across my knees, which were pulled up to my chest. He ran a slow finger across my forearm. I closed my eyes, letting all the tension of the day, of coming back to the library, pour out of me.

“I’m trying to manage things. It’s been hard. It will get better when things are back to normal. There’s just a lot of stuff going on right now.”

Dax reached up and held on to the railing behind him, seeming to consider this. “What happened this morning before school?”

I sighed, not wanting to go there. Just the thought of what Dallin had said made me shudder. “Nothing.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

I held up a fist. “I’ll play you for it.”

“Play me for it?”

“Rock, paper, scissors. Winner gets a secret.” I was willing to risk that for the chance at asking him a question. I had a couple I really wanted answered.

He smiled. “Okay.”

“Best two out of three?” I asked.

“Sure.”

He won the first hand with a rock that crushed my scissors. I growled, then got ready again. The second hand I went with paper, and he did a rock again. Now it was a tie. I looked at him. He’d done two rocks in a row. Would he do it a third time? He gave me a calm stare, not giving anything away. Dax was unpredictable, so he’d go with something different. Although, more unpredictable would be if he did the same for a third time.

“One, two, three,” I said and held out a paper. He was holding a rock again. “Ha! I won.”