Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(49)

I clocked in and put my things away, sighing with happy anticipation of the circulation room, where I’d find stacks of books all ready to find their way back to their home.

I grabbed a cart from the row of empties and wheeled over to fiction.

Mysteries were always fun first thing while I still had energy. I could clear a cart of mystery novels in fifteen minutes flat, even with the bottom shelf of the cart full. Notoriously, the lazy pages would leave the bottom shelf empty, as it was cumbersome to access. But despite my physical difficulty bending over lately, I always loaded the bottom shelf.

I was no louse, pregnant or not.

My cart was half-full when Eagan appeared at my elbow with Stephanie, a shark and long-time pain in my ass who had never truly worked in circulation.

She also happened to be the owner of the ass I’d have to kiss if I wanted that promotion.

I frowned at them. “Can I help you?”

Eagan’s smile was shitty and cruel. “Efficiency check today.”

Stephanie wore a suspicious smile of her own. She held up an RFID wand, which she could scan over every shelf I’d worked to ensure everything was in its correct place and order.

I stifled a groan.

“I’d like you to work in picture books today,” she said, and the urge to throttle her almost overwhelmed me. “I don’t know why you all avoid them so desperately.”

“Because they take hours. You can’t see the spines for the author names, and you could fit two hundred books on a single cart. Why wouldn’t we avoid them?”

She laughed like I was joking. “Eagan took the liberty of loading a cart for you.”

“I know how you like to use all four shelves, Kate.”

My skin crawled. “Katherine,” I corrected, glaring at him.

Ever since he’d heard Theo call me Kate, it was all he called me. After the first time, I’d hidden the extra carts so he’d have to make a hundred trips and carry them all by hand. And judging by his spaghetti arms, I was certain he hadn’t even been able to pick up his precious stamp the next day.

“Whatever,” he said, pushing the cart at me.

“I have three more where that came from, and I expect them all to be shelved by the end of the day. And shelved correctly.”

“I always shelve them correctly,” I snapped, not meaning to, my serenity and plans gone in a poof.

And then it was me who was gone in a poof.

Out of the circulation room I went, scowling and cursing them in my mind. I’d have to watch my back. All it would take was Eagan sneaking behind me to ruin my work, and I’d be in trouble.

If there was one thing I hated in life worse than being wrong, it was getting in trouble. I’d wring his skinny little neck if he messed things up for me.

I grabbed a wand of my own, just in case.

I pulled around a corner, heading for the children’s library, nodding at my colleagues as I passed. And then I saw Rita and froze.

The library patron was hurrying toward me, her silver hair in disarray, her eyes rheumy and a little wild.

“Katherine!” she called, waving like a lunatic. Which I really had the inclination she was. She wore her shirt inside out as always—so the government couldn’t track her T-shirt logos, she’d insisted—and her lime-green Crocs squeaked as she power-walked in my direction.

I glanced over my shoulder where, seconds before, at least three other librarians had been. Now, there was no one. They’d scattered like cockroaches the second they saw her.

Not that I could blame them. I’d have done the same, if given the chance.

It was an unspoken code, a constant game of Not It kicked into motion every time an undesirable approached for help. Like the ones who smelled like a dumpster. Or the ones who made a habit of urinating in chairs rather than getting up to use the restroom. Or the ones who came in weekly to try to sell us magazine subscriptions. Or the guys who masturbated in the stacks.

To be fair, there weren’t too many of those, but there were enough to remember them when you saw them.

“Hi, Rita,” I said wearily. “What can I help you with?”

I knew the answer before she said it.

“I wanted to know the significance of the number seven in the pyramids. You know they were built by aliens, right?”

In a feat of skill, I swallowed my argument and sighed my resignation. “Come with me,” was all I said, turning for a terminal.

It was always an iteration of the same question. Rita came in weekly to delve deeper into the history of the number seven.

For the next hour, I endured an exhaustive overload of Rita filling the air with conspiracy theories while I researched our database and the print materials we had. Our results were a motley of flotsam and jetsam—like that one cubit of ancient Egyptian measure was seven palms—but she seemed satisfied enough by the time we were finished.

She paid me with a handful of warm gummy bears from her pocket, which I tried to refuse.

But Rita would not be denied, and rather than get stuck there any longer, I took the indignity with a, “You’re welcome,” and sent her on her way.

I then washed my hands for two full minutes under nearly scalding water.

Hours passed in blissful silence, and three carts later, I was nearly done and cheerfully smiling. Just a little bit longer, and this day would be done. And at the end of it was Theo.