Sutton
The guy that Lana slept with last night stayed in our apartment overnight which I expected. I could tell last night that he was here because he left his shoes and his shirt in the living room. I had come back way later than Lana did, I stayed out with our friends at the party until three or so in the morning, so they were done doing what they were doing before I got back. At least, I think so.
Let's just say that they were quiet, whatever they were doing.
This morning though, I had to get up kind of early to go to work which is fine for me because I'm not one to get bad hangovers, I just pop some Aspirin in the morning and I'm good to go. This morning is no different.
Wearing denim shorts and a gray shirt with a floral pattern on the sleeves, I grab a pair of gray Toms and slip them on before going out into the kitchen to get some breakfast since I have some time before I have to leave for the library. I grab a lemon yogurt from the fridge and hop onto the counter to sit while I eat it. Sure, we have a dining room table and a couch and a lot of other normal places to sit but I like to sit on the counter and because this is half my apartment, I can do whatever the hell I want.
As I'm eating my yogurt in peace, I hear a door open down the hallway. Our shower has been running for a while (luckily, our shower and toilet are in two separate rooms) so I'm assuming that it's the guy she brought home last night because she always takes long showers and usually when a guy spends the night, they don't hop into the shower first thing.
The tall blonde guy appears around the corner just as I had suspected and when he sees me, he gives me a curious look. Considering his shirt is lying on the ground by the couch, it makes sense that he's shirtless and I must say, my sister did well. He was so sure about which one of us was Lana last night, when we were wearing two separate outfits but now that we've changed, I can tell by the look of panic on his face that he doesn't know if he slept with me or my sister last night.
"Good morning, sailor," I greet him after he doesn't say anything, probably too afraid to ask the question that's running through his mind.
"Good morning," He responds slowly, walking farther into the living room. "Are you-"
"She's in the shower," I interrupt him, hopping off of the counter to throw away my empty yogurt cup and the spoon gets tossed into the sink. "But I made coffee so help yourself."
"Alright. Thanks," He mutters.
"Tell her that I left for work when she gets out," I add before I grab my over the shoulder bag from the coat rack by the door and head out the door.
Our apartment building is just a block away from campus so it's not a far walk to the tall library where I work. It's not the most exciting job in the world but I get to keep to myself, which I like. I'm not really an introverted person but I do like to have some time alone to just think about things. Being with my sister all of the time, we're always getting into situations together and it's all amazing and fun but this time at work is a good time for me to just take a breath and slow down for a bit.
After I clock in, I grab a full cart of books that need reshelved and head to the seventh floor which is usually the floor that I'm reshelving. It's the quiet study floor where people go when they just want absolute silence. There's a group study floor too so if you want to talk to friends or work with your group, you can do that too.
Once I get to the floor, my eyes automatically start searching for the pretty stranger that I've seen up here a lot in the past few weeks. I think that our schedules just align so that he has free time when I'm on my shift so he's always here when I'm here. Sure enough, I see him sitting at a small table near the wall on his laptop. He's pretty tall and handsome, very tan and muscly but not too muscly. Like maybe he played a sport in high school but not anymore and he only works out a few times a week or maybe not even at all, his metabolism is just that great.
Sadly though, I cannot stand here and contemplate how this stranger has acquired the perfect body structure because my cart full of books demands that I go in the opposite direction.
I reshelf the books in the U.S. history section first, making sure to get the books in the exact place that they need to be so that people can easily find them when they look them up. After the history section, I go to the arts section and get those books unloaded too. Along with the silent study areas, this floor holds the book shelves for U.S. history, art, and food. Which, I guess could be considered an art.
That's my favorite section because I like to look at all of the recipes of different foods from around the world in my spare time up here.
As I'm reshelving the foods section, I actually find a book that I haven't seen up here yet. It's an appetizer recipe book which is interesting. We don't get many recipe books, it's mostly special diets like how to deal with a diabetic diet or a diet for autistic children. The books here are usually just for educational purposes so I don't know why they have this recipe book but since there's nobody around, I might as well stop and scan through it.
I find an interesting recipe for homemade potato skins and I start scanning through it just to see what it takes but after I finish reading the prep, somebody steps into the aisle that I'm hiding in.
"Hey," A deep voice greets me and it makes me jump so badly that I squeal and I drop the book. Luckily, the cart stays upright but the book falls on the other side of it so I start to walk around the cart to grab the book that I dropped, trying to ignore my humiliating squeal that everybody on this floor probably heard. But before I get to it, the tall guy that I've basically been stalking for the past few weeks rushes to pick it up for me.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," He apologizes as he hands me the book. I tuck it onto the shelf where it belongs and look up at him. This is the closest I've ever been to him and I can now see that his eyes are absolutely gorgeous.
"It's alright," I mutter softly, trying to stay as quiet as possible considering this is the silent area. "Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah, I can't find the Revolutionary War," He tells me. "I was hoping you could point me in the right direction."
"U.S. history isn't organized by war or era, it's all sorted by author," I instruct him, shelving a few more books to keep myself busy so that I don't get nervous. Usually, I don't get nervous around guys but this one, his eyes are just really intense and I'm losing my train of thought very easily. "So, um, if you don't have a specific book in mind, you can use the online catalog. It's available on any of the desktops."
"Okay, thanks," He says and I don't even have time to utter a 'you're welcome' before he's gone again. Once he's completely gone, I stop shelving books and I give myself a few moments to calm down. I've been wanting to say hi to him but I hadn't had a reason but it finally happened. We actually talked. It was only for a few seconds and it wasn't the most eventful conversation but he noticed me and that's pretty cool.
When I'm finished shelving the entire rack of books, I start cleaning up the books left on tables. There are signs around asking people not to reshelf the books by themselves because they almost always do it wrong so they just leave them on the tables and I go around to reshelf them the right way.
As I'm clearing off what was probably a major study session table with five books from Renaissance art, the handsome stranger reappears in front of me and he's smiling. He has a very pretty smile which is absolutely no shock to me.
"Hey, it's me again," He states in a very quiet voice. Almost so quiet that I have to lean in to hear him talking. "I've got an author now but I'm still clueless."
"Okay, well if you've got the author, I can help," I assure him with a small smile. I practically just drop all of the books back onto the table and start walking with this guy toward the U.S. history section.
"Awesome. It's Murdoch," He says.
I lead him down the aisle of M-P authors. "It should be around here somewhere."
"Who knew gen ed history could be so terrible?" He asks me rhetorically as I keep searching through the M's to find Murdoch. "But the Revolutionary War is really kicking my ass."
"All history is terrible in my opinion," I say in response. I'm working so I know that we can't have a real conversation right now but until I find this Murdoch book, I'm technically doing my job. "I can't remember any of it and with all of the war and inequality, I really don't want to. What's the first name?"
"Jonah," He says but before I start searching for Jonah Murdoch, he makes a kind of gasping sound. "Oh wait, you meant the author. It's Kevin. Kevin Murdoch."
That makes me laugh a little bit and when I turn back to the bookshelf to look for Kevin Murdoch, I also smile to myself because now I know this guy's name. What a day of accomplishments it is for me. After I know the first name, it isn't hard to find the book out of the small row of Murdoch last names so I pluck it off of the shelf and hand it to him.
"Well, here's your Kevin Murdoch book," I say, reading the title of the book, 'The Life of Francis Marion'. "Is there anything else that I can help you find?"
"Nope," He sighs. "That's it. Thanks for your help."
"I'll be here all day," I say jokingly and I mentally wince at how lame I sound. He laughs though, probably for my benefit, and we go our separate ways again. I finish clearing off the tables, putting the books back on their shelves and I can't stop smiling because his name is Jonah and he actually talked to me.
As I leave the floor to go get another rack of books from downstairs, I try to subtly glance over at where Jonah was sitting earlier but both he and his laptop are gone. As if anything would have happened anyway, I just wish that I could have gotten one last glance at the back of his head until I see him again on Tuesday. At least, hopefully, I'll see him on Tuesday. He's been in here every Tuesday for the past few weeks so I'm holding him to that now even though he doesn't even know me.
I can't stop thinking about him for the rest of my shift and I know that's weird but I can't help it. I guess that I'm kind of a hopeless romantic and it's been a while since I've been in a relationship considering my last one ended pretty badly. I haven't given up on romance, I just needed to take a break from it for a while but I think that I'm clearly coming back out of my cocoon.
My shift only lasts for a few hours and I go through all of the motions of putting books back on shelves, helping people navigate the huge library, and other library assistant duties. Once I get back to the apartment, I barely even get the front door open before there's a video camera pointed at my face.
Lana usually always has her video camera glued to her palm so I'm used to walking into that and I'm sure that the broad smile on my face has intrigued her enough to keep filming.
"What's with the grin, Little Tim?" She asks me curiously. The guy from this morning seems to be gone, I don't hear the shower running and he's not in the living room or kitchen.
"I finally talked to him today. It was just to help him find a book but it was still something," I admit to her with that broad grin unable to be knocked off of my face. "And I learned his name. Jonah."
"Like Hill?" She wonders in response.
"Yeah, I guess so," I'm still smiling like an idiot and her camera is still rolling.
"Did you guys get it on in the paleontology section?" She wonders teasingly. I move into the kitchen to grab something to eat before I start doing the homework that was given to me to finish over the weekend. It being Sunday afternoon, I really need to start that stuff.
"No," I sigh. "But we'll get to that." Of course, I'm only joking but it makes my sister laugh.
With a water bottle in my hand, I start walking down the hallway. "Wait, I want to know more!" Lana protests when she realizes that I'm going into my room instead of staying in the living room to give her camera more information.
"I've got homework," I call back to her.
Even as I try to do my homework though, I just absolutely can't stop thinking about Jonah's insanely beautiful blue eyes.