Page 32 of Sexting the Pakhan

Both options piss me off.

I close the book and glance toward the security camera above the reference desk. That’s what I need now. Footage from this morning. Whoever took the book. Whoever put it back. If the camera caught their face, this becomes simple. The problem is getting the footage without turning the whole library into a scene.

Then I hear the cart stop. I look up.

Zoya Hart stands at the end of the aisle with one hand on a cart of returns and the other around a stack of books pressed to her chest. For a second, she just looks at me.

She doesn’t hide it quickly enough.

Her eyes widen a little. Her mouth parts, then closes. Pink moves up her throat and into her cheeks before she looks away, then back again as if she’s annoyed with herself for looking away at all.

She’s nervous.

Not afraid. Not yet. Just nervous in that soft, obvious way people get when they like someone and hate that it shows.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hello.”

Her eyes drop to the book in my hand. “You’re here.”

“I am.”

“It’s Tuesday.”

I look at her.

She realizes what she said and immediately tightens her grip on the books. “I mean, you usually come on Thursdays.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Do I?”

Her blush gets worse. “Yes.”

“You noticed.”

“I work here,” she says quickly. “I notice regular patrons.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“You’re saying that like it isn’t.”

“I’m saying it like I’m interested.”

That shuts her up for a second.

Good.

I shouldn’t enjoy it. I do anyway.

Zoya Hart is not the kind of woman who belongs near men like me. She has dark hair pinned up messily, a soft cardigan, a skirt that follows the round shape of her hips, and a face that gives away too much. She looks like she spends her days helping people find books and apologizing when they bump into her.

She also looks at me like she has imagined things she would die before saying out loud.

That thought brings last night back into my head before I can stop it.

The stranger. The phone. Her breathless little replies. The way she went from awkward to filthy once she trusted the dark enough.

I still don’t know her name. I don’t know her face. But I remember every pause in that conversation, every line where she got braver, every answer that made my hand tighten around my phone.