Page 27 of The Librarian’s Familiar

After helping out a couple of patrons, who arrived just before closing, choose something from the new selection of books, he locked up and left. It was a fifteen-minute walk to his place, which was lovely this time of year, even though he still needed a coat because to him it was cold. The sky was an endless twilight dotted with stars and quite pretty. It was hard to understand that this was as warm as it was going to get and that weather-wise, it was all downhill into freezing darkness. So while he’d been warned and he understood in theory, he was not looking forward to the reality, or the cold, and snow, and ice.

His place was warm inside, but that was about the only thing it had going for it. He hung up his jacket and took off his boots, leaving them by the door and making his way through to the kitchen before turning on the light, and placing his plastic lunch tub in the sink to be washed later.

For several seconds, he stood there staring at the fridge, knowing that he needed to make dinner but finding no inspiration or will to do so. He opened the pantry door, hoping to feel more motivated.

He should’ve saved the leftovers for dinner instead of eating them for lunch, but it had seemed like a good idea this morning. His gaze flicked from the pantry to the fridge and back again. There was no lack of food but it was all ingredients, and he really couldn’t be fucked. Which meant if he wanted to eat, he needed to put his boots and coat back on, which was equally unappealing.

“Ugh…” He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and twisted the cap of the bottle. He didn’t want to go out any more than he wanted to cook, but he couldn’t summon food to his house the way he could in the city.

That was a third option: drink beer and eat toast. While the beer was a good option, it was rapidly going to become a bad one if he kept drinking without eating.

The first one went down too easy as he failed to come up with anything more exciting than toast or porridge. Given that he’d eaten porridge for breakfast, he didn’t want to eat that again.

If he went back to town, there was a diner and a bar. He’d eaten at both, and they were fine. He sighed, acknowledging that his magic wanted a little chaos, to be able to spill drinks and tangle laces.

Fine—the bar it was. Decent steak, and a pretty good chicken burger. Next week, he’d plan better so that he wasn’t finishing work on a Saturday night and needing to cook. The other nights of the week it wasn’t so bad, but on a Saturday it just felt mean.

With a sigh, he tossed the bottle in the trash, walked back to the front door to put on his boots and coat, and headed out into the night that was no darker than it had been when he’d walked in. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked back into town, glad that it wasn’t very far, but then he was sure the Coven didn’t want their agent walking miles every day. There was a quad bike parked out the back that he’d ridden on a couple of times to get the feel for it, but he needed more practice.

Another thing for his to-do list.

He heard the music from the bar before he saw the entrance. Light spilled out onto the road, and people stood on the footpath talking and drinking. He was sure there were liquor licensing laws, but who was going to come all the way out here to check when there were never any complaints?

No one wanted the only bar in town shut down.

He nodded at the locals and went inside. It was still early for dinner, but there were a few people eating; everyone else seemed to be having drinks and watching whatever game was on TV. Had they watched all of August’s games?

They must have; he was the biggest star this town had ever produced. They must be proud of him, even the fox shifters. For half a second, he debated where to sit—the bar, a booth, or one of the small tables?

He opted for a small table, mostly because he expected more groups to arrive for dinner and the bar would get busy. He’d barely sat before a menu was placed in front of him.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” The waitress asked.

“Yeah, the mid-strength on tap.” It tasted fine, not that he was a beer snob, but since he’d already had one and hadn’t eaten, he didn’t want to start knocking them back. Not only that, getting drunk was a sure way for his magic to get a little out of hand, and no one needed that.

“Okay.” She smiled at him in a way that suggested she hadn’t heard anything about his preferences. “I’ll be back in a few to take your order.”

“Thanks.” He scanned the menu, already knowing that he was choosing between the steak and the burger. He should probably try the fish, as it was local. Maybe even polar bear caught.

Take a chance or stick with something he knew?

He was here for three years, and he couldn’t eat the same two things for his entire stay.

The waitress returned with his beer and took his order of fish and chips with the side salad and the tartare sauce. Then he waited and people-watched. The first time he’d gone to the bar, he was sure everyone had been assessing him, and not in a standoffish way. No, they’d come up and talked to him, asked him why he was in town and how long he was going to be there. They wanted his life story condensed into a ten-minute chat while they determined if he was going to fit in.

He seemed to have passed because he’d encountered no resistance.

Three dark-haired, big guys walked in. Even if he hadn’t felt their energy, he’d have decided they were bears, of the shifting kind. One turned and glanced his way. August.

Charlie swallowed, smiled, and picked up his beer glass.

August caught up with his friends. They sat in a booth on the other side. But August sat on the end facing him. Was that deliberate?

Or was he reading too much into it?

Possibly a mix of both.

He sipped his beer and fucked around on his phone so he didn’t accidentally make eye contact. It was easy to pretend to be super busy; no one knew what he did anyway. When they heard librarian, they assumed he spent all day shelving books and helping people check them out.