11. Josie

11

Josie

T he library—any library—has always been my favorite place. Some of my earliest memories are of curling up on an oversized cushion at the library and losing myself in a book.

I'm trying that trick now, but it isn't working. I should have left half an hour ago, but instead of walking home after my disastrous tutoring session with Van, I grabbed some books off a cart and made my way up to the third floor. I'm in the very best spot—I like to think it's mine alone, but I've seen someone here during every shift I've ever worked. There's a comfy chair and an ottoman, a reading light and even a fake plant. It has "book nook" written all over it, but the coziness does nothing to soothe my nerves.

I wipe my eyes with the damp sleeve of my cardigan. I've wasted more than enough tears on Beckett Vandaele, but my eyes won't stop leaking.

We are over. So over. We barely started, and I was the one to break it off. I never called him, never texted. I let things between us fade into nothingness. That was my choice.

"I'm gonna kick his fucking ass."

I hear Mel before I see her. She hands me the contraband I knew she'd bring along. Food and beverages are forbidden in the stacks, but rules were made to be broken after you see your ex-boyfriend being led off to a den of pleasure by cute sorority girls.

"Thank you," I sniffle. "And don't kick his ass. You'd have to peel two pretty girls off him first."

Mel scoffs. "You think I wouldn't? I just did my nails, Josie, but I will happily pull him out from under a fucking harem to ask him what the hell his problem is."

"He doesn't have a problem. I do. I'm the one who can't get over him, Mel. And how stupid is that. We were together for five minutes. It probably meant nothing to him and?—"

"Bullshit. He was wrecked after you broke up. He asks about you all the time, Josie."

I shake my head. "Well, I can pretty much guarantee he's not talking about me right now. Nope. He's saying filthy things to two girls who wake up looking like Instagram models. How do they even do that? Are they just, like, born with contour lines? And eyelash extensions? I don't get it. But they are magazine-cover perfect, and he is saying the dirtiest things to them, salacious, sultry things."

Mel shoves a snickerdoodle in front of my face. "Stop. Spiraling. I made a judgment call on the cookie. We were out of oatmeal raisin because no one besides you eats warmed-up cardboard. Theo has been made aware of the deficit and assures me he's ordering more as we speak. Well, he was sleeping when I called, but I'll remind him tomorrow."

I eat half my cookie and take a few sips of tea.

Mel takes a bite of her muffin before turning her attention back to me. "So…did the sorority girls interrupt your tutoring session? Because that might be enough to get you out of it. When Will told me you two would be working together, I may have been the teensiest bit excited. I've been rooting for you guys to figure your shit out for years. And I love Van like a brother. But if he's ditching you and his studies to sex it up in some frat house, he deserves to be benched."

My glasses are all fogged up and I know my nose is red. I'm not a pretty crier. "It wasn't like that. We were finished. He was on his way out and met up with some friends, two of whom could not take their eyes or their hands off him. Which is fine. He's free to date. Or not date. Or whatever. But I don't need a front row seat to his mating rituals. So I started to hustle out of here, but I forgot to fill out my time card, so by the time I finished that, I was heading out the door when I heard them giggling and dragging him away to the baseball house. And believe me, he was a willing captive."

Mel's tearing her muffin apart, bite by bite. "Something's not right. That's not the Van I know. I mean, yeah, the guy can party, and he hasn't taken a vow of celibacy or anything, but this seems odd. According to Will, Van's either at the athletic center or he's at the hockey house playing video games."

"Apparently, that's gotten boring, and he needed to spice things up."

"Oh, I'll spice shit up, all right," Mel declares. "You said he went to the baseball house, right?"

"Stop," I tell my best friend. "I already said no to the whole ‘kicking his ass plan'."

Ever the barista, she gathers our trash and throws it in a nearby bin. "So what? I can't just go see the baseball team and have a chat with an old friend?"

I laugh. "No, you definitely cannot."

She folds her arms across her chest. "You're no fun, Josie."

"All right," I concede. "We'll make a deal. You may not kick Van's ass, but you can kick Kyle's. No, that seems harsh. How about this: you can put a shot of espresso in his decaf next time he comes into Drip. How's that?"

Mel's face squinches up. "Kyle? Creepy Kyle? Ugh. He's the worst. He never tips and he always leaves a mess behind. That's never a good sign. And look, I'll gladly add caffeine to his drink or pump it full of way too much sugar free syrup, but why? Don't tell me they're making you tutor him, too? Didn't he graduate?"

"He did, but he's getting his MBA. He stopped by the library tonight and was just being his usual smarmy self. He's harmless, just annoying. He's an unsolicited hugger, and you know how that bugs me."

Mel's nodding her head. "So annoying. You'd think a guy who's smart enough to get a full scholarship to college would be smart enough to read a room and take a hint, but sadly, that is not true."

"Agreed," I say, gathering my stuff. My phone buzzes in my bag, so I grab it and give it a glance. "Crap," I mutter, dropping my bag and sinking back into the chair. I press my brother's name and wait for him to pick up.

"I'm a jerk. I'm sorry," I blurt just as Levi answers.

"It's fine, Josie," he assures me. "I'm just heading to bed, so I wanted to check in before I fell asleep. Hopefully you're at a kegger behaving very responsibly but also having fun. And using protection."

I roll my eyes as Mel laughs beside me. "I'm at the library with Mel. We've had a wild time. We drank hot beverages and ate bakery treats."

I hear Levi chuckle. "I'm beginning to think I did college all wrong. Bakery treats are way better than warm, stale beer."

"No argument here, big brother," I say, grabbing my stuff and motioning for Mel to follow me downstairs.

Levi clears his throat. "Hey, before I let you go, I have a favor to ask. But you can totally say no."

"I won't," I tell him honestly. There's nothing Levi could want that I'd say no to. "What's up?"

"You're coming home Saturday morning, right?"

"Yeah, like always. Do you want me to do a grocery pickup on my way in?"

I can practically hear him smiling. Levi hates going to the grocery store. "Yeah, that'd be great. But is there any chance you could come tomorrow night? And stay through Sunday? I'll be home by dinnertime."

When the kids were really little, I spent nearly every weekend back home. But now that everyone's a little older (and potty-trained), I spend Saturdays helping out before heading back to campus in the evening or early Sunday morning. But I'll never pass up a weekend with my family, especially if Levi has something good planned. "Of course. Are you jetting off on a romantic getaway?" Mel waggles her eyebrows at me, and I hold back a laugh.

"Uh…no, definitely not. And who would I be jetting off with? The only woman I see with regularity is my sixty-year-old therapist and she just had a hip replacement, Josie."

Mel grabs the phone out of my hand and offers her sage wisdom. "Hey, there are other things you can?—"

"Oh my Jesus, please stop talking," Levi begs.

"Fine," we say in unison, laughing.

"Actually…I will be jetting off somewhere, but there's no romance involved. Do you two remember when Cassia stitched my song this summer and said she wanted me to write her next album?"

Mel and I share a look. "Do we remember the number one recording artist in America asking you to come work for her? Yes. Yes, we do, Levi," Mel answers.

"Well, she wasn't joking. She saw the song I posted earlier today and her agent reached out to mine. She wants to fly me to L.A. to work on a few more songs. Her husband is the vice president of Angel Records. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this could be a pretty good thing. She knows I don't have a lot of availability, and I won't make this a regular thing, Josie. But I might need you to cover me for a couple weekends."

I'm practically jumping up and down. Levi is so incredibly talented, and this is the opportunity of a lifetime. He's penned some songs on the charts, but writing an album for Cassia? He can't pass it up.

"Are you crazy? If they want you there for a month, we'll figure it out," I say. And we would. I have no idea how, but I'd come up with a plan. My brother deserves this and I'm not letting anything stand in his way.

"Hell no," he answers, laughing. "I'm having a hard enough time gearing up for two days. A month would do me in. But seriously, Josie, thanks."

"Always," I tell him. "We're in this together."

We hang up and I turn toward Mel. "He's really doing this. They're not going to want to let him go. He's that good."

"I know," she agrees as we walk out the big double doors and into the cool fall night. "And that means you need to stick with your plan, girlie. You're graduating in May with all the degrees. You're going to be the best school librarian the state of Maryland has ever seen. You are going to parent the hell out of those kids while Levi's off making music. And you know how you're going to do it all?"

"With copious amounts of sugar and a steady diet of caffeine?"

She laughs. "Yes. And by tutoring your ex-boyfriend. I know it sucks, but he's your ticket to those magic three credits that will get you everything you want and need. I don't know what he was thinking with that bullshit he pulled tonight, but you need to put it out of your mind. You can't let him get to you, Josie. You have too much riding on this."

Mel's right. I can't lose sight of what I owe Levi and the life I've worked hard for. I give her a smile as we walk toward her car. There's a tacit agreement between us that she'll drop me at my place before heading over to Will's. And if Van comes in at three in the morning smelling of perfume and bodily fluids, I have no doubt she'll make his next trip to Drip a memorable one. He takes his coffee black, but I'm sure Mel will doctor it up with syrupy sweetness. Revenge by beverage is a beautiful thing.