Chapter 4: The Library Steps

On Monday at noon the library steps were crowded with people eating lunch in their coats.

Colin was waiting at the bottom with two coffees.

Rhys sat on the stone railing halfway up, his phone on his knee, looking at nothing.

"Morning, beautiful," Colin said, and handed me a coffee.

It was cinnamon, which I hate, and I had told him that at the diner.

"Thanks," I said, and drank some.

He took my free hand and walked me up the steps slowly, so everybody could see us.

At the third step from the top he stopped and turned me toward him.

His eyes went to Rhys, then to my mouth, and I watched him lean in.

I had spent three years imagining his face this close.

I put my coffee down on the stone.

Then I took two fistfuls of his camel coat and kissed him first.

I kissed him hard and long, with my back arched against the cold railing and a whole quad watching, and he made a noise of pure surprise.

Somebody whistled.

When I let go, Colin's hands were still in the air where I had left them.

"Rhys," I said, without looking away from Colin. "Did you get it?"

"I got it," Rhys said. His voice was rough.

"Send it to me."

My phone buzzed in my pocket a second later.

"I have class," I told Colin, and I picked up my coffee and walked into the library.

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