up for you, dear," Marion said with far too much cheer. "No need to hurry." She started to duck around the end of the shelves, then popped back to say, "His name is Reive, by the way!"
Jess was very aware of her cheeks flaming. "I'm sorry about that," she said as soon as Marion was out of earshot. (Which didn't have to be very far, as Marion was hard of hearing.) "It's little old ladies who run the library and, honestly, the entire town. Marion and her friends are the book sale committee and the Friends of the Library and the volunteer coordinators at all our literacy events. They're very nice, but I'm the youngest person at every meeting and I think they've all taken a proprietary interest in my love life." Was she babbling? Oh no. She was definitely babbling.
"Don't worry about it," Reive said, smiling a little. "I have a bunch of older relatives in my family too. They all think they know what's best for me, too."
So he came from a big family. Jess felt a twinge of old pain. She'd always yearned for that sense of belonging, of history—"You're so lucky," she said without thinking.
"Lucky?" he asked, looking surprised.
"You know. To have that. I grew up in foster homes. I don't know if I have any relatives at all."
She clamped her lips shut on the words, but they'd already escaped. What was it about him that made her want to pour out her life story? She couldn't even imagine what he thought of her now.
But his smile was gentle. "Maybe," he said. "I never really thought of it that way. My family's gone through a lot of ... upheaval, lately. I'm a little bit estranged from them right now."
"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up anything painful."
"You didn't." He smiled again, all too briefly. It was a smile she could get lost in. She had to wrench her gaze away.
"Anyway, you're here to see the—"
"Yeah, lead on."
They spoke at the same time, and Jess couldn't help laughing, bringing out Reive's warm smile again. The moment of tension dissipated, and his gold-tinted eyes sparkled.
"It's back here, past the restrooms," she said. "I swear I'm not always this scattered."
It's just that I'm more used to helping 90-year-olds with their taxes than giving book tours to guys who look like you.
This, at least, she managed not to say out loud.
She dug in her skirt pocket for the storeroom keys and unlocked the door. "This is everything that's not currently in circulation," she explained, flicking on the light. "New books that haven't been entered in our computer system yet, damaged books, donations—it's kind of a mess, sorry." The room was crowded with plastic totes and boxes of books, books scattered on the sorting table, shelves packed with books. "And the rest of the gargoyle books are back here. Most of these are items that might not be able to stand up to being regularly handled by patrons. And some are ... well ..."
She pulled out a plastic sleeve with a newspaper inside. It was from the late 1800s, the newspaper so brittle she had to handle the plastic very carefully by the corners to avoid causing any more of it to flake off. HOAX OR MONSTER? TERROR IN PICCADILLY CIRCUS! the headline read.
"Careful," she warned, passing it to Reive. "There's more like that in here, tabloids and the like. I don't know if that's the kind of thing you're looking for."
He tilted it to the light to glance over the article. She couldn't help watching his face, distracted by the intensity of his copper gaze.
"You haven't said what you're researching," she prompted, and somewhere deep in her chest, there was a flicker of hope. He hadn't simply dismissed the article as fiction or sensationalism; he was still reading it, as if he thought he could glean useful information from it. Did he know? Somewhere out there, other people must know. Someone must have the answers she had fruitlessly sought in the books and periodicals she'd gleaned from estate and remainder sales across the country. Maybe he would be the one.
"I was actually hoping that you had some firsthand sources," he said, glancing up at her. "Journals and that kind of thing."
The tentative hope in her chest unfurled a little further. Most people who expressed interest in the gargoyle books were researching school projects or just wanted to look at the books with pictures.