Love for the Librarian

Of course I was right, I didn’t sleep a wink. I just tossed and turned. When I got up at five, not even attempting to sleep any more I took a shower and started trying to make myself as presentable as possible. I picked a yellow dress with a wide black belt. My classic looking heels. I dry my hair and put it up in a ponytail. By the time I am done with all that Grace is up and I help her get all pretty too. She picks out a yellow dress like mommy’s. She wants to be pretty to see Aunt Polly. She has no idea that she is meeting her daddy today. She puts on some black flats and I put her hair in a ponytail too. She likes to dress like mommy. She even had Aunt Katelyn buy her a bunch of dresses like mine. Of course she bought her more than what I had. I swear she spoils my daughter too much.

When we get to the library, Aunt Polly meets us at the door. “There is my beautiful niece that I have only seen in pictures. You are way more pretty than your pictures. Come give Aunt Polly a hug.”

Grace runs into her arms. When she pulls back she says, “I am pretty like mommy. I want to be just like her. I just don’t have her pretty hair.”

I chuckle a little, “No, bug. Your hair is even prettier.”

She doesn’t even respond to that. She looks at Aunt Polly. “Mommy said that you have lots of books that you want to show me. Can I see them now?”

“Oh, a girl after my own heart. Of course you can. Riley, your mom is going to show you what we want you to do today and then I heard that Katelyn is going to take this beautiful girl to the park, I think I will join them.” She takes Grace’s hand and leads her over to the children’s section. I can see the big smile on my little girl’s face. I hope nothing today will make it go away.

I head to the office and see my mom with some papers. “Oh, good. So what we need you to do today is to hang this banner over the front desk.” She points to a rolled up banner in the corner. “We are going to let you take over in the next few days. I know you know mostly everything. Plus I am sure you learned some things in that school of yours that is going to make you update as much as possible. We are leaving it in your capable hands.”

“I do have some ideas. I am glad that you are leaving this to me. I also have some of that money that I owe you for your help while I was in school. I left it back at the house for you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have plenty of money. You keep it. Put it in a college fund for Grace. Or Riley, depending on how things work out. Hell, both.” She gives me a laugh. “We aren’t going to be gone long, so just run things and hang the banner. The ladder is in the supply closet. I am sure you remember where it is.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“It hasn’t been that long mom.” I roll my eyes at her. “I will do that after Katelyn gets here. It should be soon she wanted to beat the kids to the park.”

I leave my mom in the office and head to the front to see if Katelyn is here yet. She of course is waiting for me there. She is early as always. “Hey, you look hot. Dylan is going to lose it.”

“Yeah, I know that. I just hope it is in a good way.” I smile sadly at her.

This makes her come up to me and put her hands on my shoulders, “It is time Riley, you have to do this. I swear if I hear Kevin bitch about this one more time I am going to kill him. Then I will be a widow before I am even married.”

I laugh, “So you decided to marry him?” I smirk at her.

“Yeah, I figured I made him suffer enough.” She gives me a smirk of her own. “Plus he wouldn’t shut up about it.” She rolls her eyes. “I love it though. The last four years have felt like the longest date of my life.”

“It is about time.” I poke her belly. “Grace is over in the kids section with Aunt Polly. I think she just found her heaven.”

“Oh, good Lord I need to get her outside before she is as pale as you.” She pokes me back then heads to the children’s section.

A few minutes later my little bug is running at me. “Aunt Katelyn says we are going to the park.” She gives me a big smile.

“Yep, you have fun with your aunts and I will see you in a little bit ok?”

She makes a little pouty face. “You aren’t coming?”

“No, mommy has to do some work but I will be here when you get back. I will take you somewhere after that.”

“Ok mommy.” Her smile returns. I know she likes to hang out with mommy, but today I have to talk to her daddy.

Katelyn and Aunt Polly collect Grace and head out, heading towards the park. After a few minutes my mom comes out of the office, “I have some errands to run. I will be back later.” She doesn’t even wait for my answer and leaves without a look back. I think everyone is giving me the space I need to do this.

I collect up the ladder and set it up to put the banner up. By the time I get to the second half of the banner the door dings open. I see him before he really sees me. I can’t believe how good looking he is. Head down the ladder and give him a smile. I hope I seem happy to see him. I know he may not stick around for very long.

“Were you just on a ladder?” He pointed at the ladder.

“Yes,”

“In a dress.” He points at my dress.

“Yes, Actually I know what you are thinking. I have on shorts underneath. Where I come from, if you don’t you are showing the whole world your underwear because boys think it’s funny to go flippin’ up girls skirts.” I chuckle at my own joke.

“Are you wearing heels?” He looks at my feet.

“Yes,”

“On a ladder.” He looks confused at the ladder again.

“Is something getting lost in translation here? Yes.”

“Heels on a ladder don’t seem very safe.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Ok can we get off my clothes. Was there something that you needed?” I try to be serious with him.

“That just doesn’t seem very safe.” He tries to stay stern.

“You should have seen me last week. I didn’t wear any shoes. I’m a risk taker. Could’ve dropped a book on my toe. I wasn’t aware that there was a fashion safety police. Do you write tickets or is this just a warning?” I joke some more. He can’t take it any more. He smiles at me and then pulls me into a rug.

“I missed you. God it feels so good to have you in my arms again. You look really good.” He pushes me back so he can see my face.

“Hey, Dylan. I missed you too. I have something that I really need to tell you.” As if the universe is against me. The door dings again and my little angel runs up to me.

“Mommy.” She hugs onto my leg. Then she spots Dylan with his arms around me. “Who is this mommy?”

Dylan is shocked. He keeps looking back and forth between Grace and me. His jaw hanging open. “This is mommy’s friend. You can call him Mr. Matthews for now.”

She gets a big smile on her face. I guess she has some wild thoughts going on right now. This girl really is too smart for her own good. Katelyn comes running into the library now. “Sorry, she runs fast. I was trying to go slow but she was adamant about seeing you.” She sees Dylan. “Hey, Dylan. How you been?”

He finally finds his words. “I have been better. Can you take this lovely little girl to the children’s section so I can talk with her mommy for just a minute.” He tries to sound calm but I know he is ready to explode. His arm is still around my waist and it is not the relaxed squeeze that it was before. I nod to Katelyn to let her know it is ok.

After Katelyn and Grace disappear, Dylan drags me to the office. As soon as the door closes he turns on me.

“Riley, who is her father?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I shrug. I know he knows the answer. If he wants to play dumb then so will I.

“Bullshit. Are you telling me that it doesn’t matter that that little girl is mine?” His scowl is almost hot. If it wasn’t directed at me I would be so turned on right now. However since it is turned on me it is a little scary.

“I told you then I wasn’t expecting anything from you. You told me I was just a tool. Why the hell would I tell you about a child that resulted from your little tryst with me? You didn’t care about me so what did it matter to you if we had a daughter.” I can’t help but scold back. I mean he is laying all this on me. True it was my choice to keep it from him, but at the time I had my reasons.

“I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Not one of you people told me. It has been four years, I missed so much and I didn’t even get a choice in the matter. If the shoe was on the other foot would you have wanted to know. Besides, what happened between you and me was different. I told you that in the end I fell for you. I felt bad about what happened. You never even really gave me a chance to talk to you about it. You kicked me out of your life and by extension my daughters. For Christ’s sake she doesn’t even know she has a dad. You had no right to do this Riley.”

“I know, but I made my choice to make sure that you were not hindered in your life. I didn’t want to be something holding you back. Your life would have changed if you found out about Grace.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me? I had a right to know.” He is calming but still upset.

“I know you did. I told them not to tell you. Believe me they all wanted to tell you. I made them swear not to. I wanted you to live free of me. I came back now because I wanted to see if you wanted this. I am not expecting anything from you. I just wanted you to know. Guilt is something that I can’t continue to live with.”

“Was there someone else?”

“No,” I looked at him shocked.

“So she doesn’t have some guy out there who she wants to be her daddy. What about that Alex guy?”

“No, I haven’t been with anyone since you. Does that make you happy? Pathetic nerd girl never moved on.” Now I am pissed. He thinks I would do that.

“How about a pathetic jock who was jealous every time I saw on your news feed how happy you were with your sunshine?” He smirks at me.

I laugh, I mean a full belly laugh. “Who do you think sunshine is?”

I can see realization clicking on his face. “Grace is sunshine.”

“Yeah, genius. I didn’t post pictures of her because I didn’t want you to see things about her. I just didn’t want you to have to deal with all this. I am sorry. I know I was wrong. I just honestly thought I was doing the right thing. Besides how would all of those girlfriends have felt knowing that you had a kid out there somewhere. It was bad enough that you had one at home.”

“What are you talking about?” He looks at me like I have lost my mind.

“Do you think you were the only one trolling social media? I saw the girls.”

He shrugs. “They never lasted long. I was always comparing them to the girl that got away.”

“Brittney.”

“No, You.” He laughs.

“I find that hard to believe.”

He turns serious again. “That is because you never thought that I really wanted you. You were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. When I told you about my original plan, you took it and ran off with it. You never let me tell you that I had fallen in love with you. But this Riley, I don’t know if I can forgive you. You took my choice away, I missed four years of my daughter’s life that I can’t get back. How am I supposed to explain to her where I was?”

“I will, it was my choice. I won’t say anything until you are ready though. I want you to want her. I don’t want her to feel rejected. I felt so abandoned by my parents. I don’t want her to feel like that.”

“Of course I want her. I am pissed that you kept her from me. Just tell me what to do to get my daughter in my life.”

“Come to the library tomorrow afternoon. She will know who you are then.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the zip drive that we made up of Grace’s important moments. “We put this together for you. It is her most important moments. We didn’t want you to totally miss out.”

He takes it from my hand. “You and I are not done discussing this. I feel betrayed and you are going to find a way to fix it for our daughters sake.” He storms out and then he tries to compose himself when he sees Katelyn and Grace sitting at the desk up front.

He goes up to Katelyn, gives her a knowing look. “You should have told me.”

She whispers, “I know.” She doesn’t look him in the eye. Suddenly I realized how bad it was.

Dylan leans down and talks to Grace. “It was nice to meet you Grace. I hope to see you again soon.”

“It was nice to meet you too Mr. Matthews.” She extends her hand for him to shake, like she has been taught. He shakes it.

Then he turns and glares at me. “Mr. Matthews.”