Maybe even more than a little.
I can picture him watching Mia go back to her parents and being torn up about it. It definitely caused the crack in the resentment I have for the guy.
Which means I should stay far away from her.
But instead, completely in character for me, I’m doing the opposite of what I should do. I am walking up the path to the Sapphire Falls community library and planning to go inside and very much see her again.
I pull the door open and stride inside, vowing to just get this over with. I have something to give her, and I need to tell her about her car.
I stop just inside the doors. I think I’ve been in the library maybe twice in my life, and both times were because I had to come. Once for something with school that I don’t remember at all, and once with my mother. That I do remember. My brothers and I had ridden our four-wheelers around the farm, and we were wild and chaotic as usual. Jack had accidentally ridden his too close to the chicken coop and had ended up tipping over, crashing through the fence and into the back of the coop.
I had taken the blame, and when I asked my mom what the big deal was—sincerely, because my mom had built the coop and I knew she could rebuild it because she could build or fix anything—she brought me down to the library and told me to research how to build a chicken coop. Then made me do it. She’d let me borrow her tools, and she paid for the supplies, but I’d have to do it myself.
Jack did end up helping me since the whole thing was actually his fault, but yeah, that was the other time I’d been to the library.
“David? “
I turn at the sound of my name. “Charlie?” I stride toward my brother. “What are you doing here?” And what am I going to tell him I’m doing here?
“Checking out books,” Charlie says with a chuckle.
Right. Of course. That is probably what ninety percent of the people who come in here do. Unless, of course, they’re looking for a Bundt pan. Or a wok. I hide my smile.
“I guess I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
Though now that my surprise at seeing him has passed, I realize Charlie probably comes here a lot. My brother is a huge bookworm and always has been. He’s probably been inside this library hundreds of times. He often came as a kid. “So are you a regular here?” I ask.
“Pretty much. Come in probably once a week,” he says.
“So you know Mia?” I ask.
“Of course. I see her here a lot. But we also…”
Both of my eyebrows arch. “You also what?”
Charlie shakes his head. “Nothing. We exchange book recs. She knows what I like, so she’ll hold new releases for me.”
“And you also…” I trail off. There was more to that and now I need to know. “What were you going to say?”
He peers at me. “What are you doing here?”
I shake my head. “No, not until you tell me what you and Mia do together.”
Is that a stab of jealousy I feel?
Fuck. It is.
My brother knows Mia pretty well. He sees her on a regular basis, and they share something in common that’s important to both of them. Books. Something I’m not that into.
And I don’t like it.
This is definitely a problem.
Charlie looks suspicious. And amused. Those are not good things for your older brother to look.
“Why are you so interested in Mia? “he asks.
“Just tell me if you’re interested in Mia.”
