Baited by Love novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Revision One

Lars's POV

Betsy held the phone out to me in the dark, and I read her father's text twice.

"Do you want to go?" I asked.

"He said not to bring a sandwich."

"That isn't what I asked."

She looked at the screen for a long time.

"Yes," she said. "And I'm going to bring one anyway."

I did not argue, and I went to the library, because a plan was the only gift I had.

The library laminator was a gray machine the size of a toaster, and the librarian in the cardigan guarded it like a gate.

"Name?" she said.

"Lars Ashdown. I need one card laminated."

She looked at the index card in my hand.

"No food, no beverages, no sandwiches," she said, without reading it. "The far stairs are to your left."

"It isn't about the stairs."

"Everything is about the stairs, Mr. Ashdown." She took the card and fed it into the machine. "Hot side or cool?"

It came out warm.

I stood there holding it, and it still smelled faintly of plastic.

BETSY BRIGHTWELL: SERVICE SPECIFICATIONS. REVISION ONE.

Water: any.

Sandwich: any shape.

Coffee: oat milk, no lid.

Everything else: ask her.

"That's the least helpful specification I have ever seen," said a voice behind me.

It was the man in the bow tie.

Eleven other men stood behind him in a ragged line, still holding their crumpled pages.

"We're a committee," said the rugby captain, kindly. "We'd like to serve her. We thought you might have a ledger."

"I don't."

"A list of what she likes."

"She likes to be asked."

The bow tie man frowned. "Asked what?"

"Anything. And then she likes it if you take the answer."

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