Make Me Bad(37)

“I’m fine. I promise.”

He nodded and stood up. His hand got dragged through his hair for the hundredth time since the frisbee smacked into my skull. “Right. Well, I’m only a phone call away if you need something.”

“All right, when my glass of water gets low, I’ll give you a call,” I teased.

He finally cracked a hint of a smile and then bent down to gently brush the side of my forehead. “I’m sorry our picnic ended this way.”

Not sorrier than me.

Sunday, Ben texted me twice, once in the morning—just before my dad noticed my bump and I had to feed him a lie about how I’d tripped at the library—and once at night to check in on me and make sure I hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. He thought I was on my deathbed. From an errant frisbee. My life is just not that interesting, sorry dude.

Back in the library on Monday morning, Mrs. Allen says since I won’t let her call the police (she means an ambulance), she has a great olive oil I can rub on my head to help it heal quicker.

“Do you mean an essential oil?”

“They’re the same, I think. This one’s extra virgin.”

Oh good, extra virgin—just like me.

Then she leaves me alone at my desk with Katy. We just had a new shipment of board books arrive and we’re adding them to the library’s system. Obviously, by that, I mean I’m adding them and Katy is mostly scrolling through Instagram.

She cracks up at something, ignoring me when I ask her to hand me a book.

“Katy.”

Nothing.

I try again. “Katy.”

She groans like I’m a pain in her ass, and I recall the conversation I had with my boss earlier where I tried to insist Katy be fired or moved to a different department far, far away from me. “No can do,” was his response. Apparently, we get a small grant from the city for taking on interns like her and I’m the only dummy willing to put up with her.

She finally reaches for a book and holds it out to me without looking. It’s not even remotely within my reach. I have to stand up and bend over to grab it. When I do, I resist the urge to smack her with it just as her gaze lands on something other than her phone. It’s a first. There’s either a celebrity or a zombie in her line of sight, and I pray it’s the latter. At least then I’d be rid of her.

“Jeez. Who’s the hunk?”

I glance up to see Ben walking into the library. His presence is like a solid punch to the gut. Oof. His suit is black. Oof. His face is sharp and mean-looking and worthy of being carved into stone. Oof.

He spots me right away and his expression eases a bit until he notices the nice bruise on my forehead. His brows tug together again, and I blanch. I should have worn a hat. I tried on a dozen: fedora, beanie, scarf tied around my forehead. In the end, I settled on acceptance. This is me, world, bruise and all.

Katy jumps to her feet and pushes in front of me so she looks like the person on duty behind the desk. Her phone is forgotten on her chair. I’m shocked. I could have sworn it was surgically attached to her hand.

When he steps within earshot, she leans forward, exposing cleavage. “Hi! I’m Katy! How can I help you? Do you need a library card? Schedule of events? We have an adult book club that I know you’d love. A man like you enjoys a good thriller—I can tell.”

Ben frowns at her and doesn’t reply. Then his gaze shifts to me as I step around the desk toward him.

“Katy, go down into the storage room and lock yourself inside.”

“What?”

“I said, go down to the storage room and push the boxes to the side, the ones we need to break down and recycle.”

“But I was going to…”

Her sentence drifts off as she realizes no one is paying attention to her. My head is tilted back so I can look at Ben. He steps toward me and, without a word, holds up his hand. I wince, afraid he’s about to touch my bruise, but he stops short, his fingers a few inches from my forehead, then he lets his hand drop.

Katy stomps off while muttering about a hostile work environment.

“That’s quite the bruise you’ve got there,” he says, sliding one of his hands into his pocket and holding up a grocery bag in the other. “I brought you some stuff.”

I peer inside, a little confused by the contents.

“That’s an ice pack I saw at the grocery store last night,” he explains. “It seems like it might be a little better than the ones the doctor gave you.”

“Oh.”

“And, this…” he says, producing a faded navy baseball hat. “Is my favorite hat. In case you wanted a hat. I don’t know, you don’t need it. The bruise doesn’t detract from—” He shrugs. “Anyway, I thought you might like it.”

I take it from him and stare at it like it’s a foreign object from Mars.

“I know it looks old, but I washed it recently. Well, last month—”

He reaches over to take it back and I yank it away from his grasp, cradling it against my chest. If he wants it, he’s going to have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

His head tips to the side and my eyes narrow teasingly.

His mouth tugs into a smile and I poke him in the chest.

He grabs my hand and holds it for a second, as if to keep it away from him, but it feels more like he’s ensuring I can’t pull it back.