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My eyes sting. I want to walk under that stone every morning. I can’t do that if I’m working at the other library.

“You are dressed for the county office,” he says.

“I am.”

“Are you going?”

I sit down on the cold step. “Will you sit with me? I want to tell you something.”

“Yes.” He doesn’t complain about the cold as he settles in next to me.

“I’m choosing this town. It thinks I’m a lot, and that’s not going to change. Fran is going to tell me to dial it down for the rest of her life, and I’m going to tell her no. I’m choosing the library, even if nobody pays me to run it. I won’t have a salary in January, and my car has a hundred and ninety thousand miles on it. I know this is a horrible life plan, and I’m choosing it anyway.” I’m getting louder. “I’m choosing story hour. Sadie finally spoke, and I want to be there when she does it again. I’m choosing your stories. We’ve written down fourteen years, and I’m not leaving the other two hundred and eighty-six for someone else.”

He listens with his ears forward.

“And I’m choosing you.” My voice cracks, and I try not to get teary. “You yell turn the page with the kids. When I talked for eleven minutes, you asked what I’d have said in the twelfth. You’ve known me for less than two months, and every day, you’ve asked me for more. Nobody has ever wanted more of me. So I’m staying. In this town, in that library, with you.”

I stop, because I’ve said everything. My glasses come off, and I hold them in my lap. He doesn’t say anything, and I’m glad. I don’t need him to.

I get my phone out and type an email to the county. I read it out loud to him.

I won’t be in to sign. I’m declining the transfer. I have a library.

My hands are steady when I send it. I didn’t expect that.

“We do not go back,” he says. “That is your rule.”

“I made that rule for five-year-olds.”

“It is a good rule.”

His shoulders brush mine. He’s warm, the way he always is. He looks down at me, and his ears go down. “I am going to keep asking for more.”

I laugh, and then I’m crying a little, and I lean into his arm.

Later that night, at nine, I’m at the big oak table in the reading room, counting signatures. The town meeting is tomorrow at seven.

I have the pages of the petition spread out. It’s two hundred and six signatures. That’s a lot for a town this size. But signatures don’t pay a librarian’s salary. Tomorrow I’m going to stand up in this room and say something to the whole town, and I don’t have the first line yet.

Yorrel is sitting across the table from me. He’s been quiet for an hour.

“Stop worrying,” he says.

“I might have missed something.”

He stands up. “It’s time to stop, Paige.”

He’s right. I’ve been ignoring him for an hour, and now he’s standing at the end of my table looking sexy in that too-tight jacket that I love peeling off him. Just like that, I’m done with signatures.

I put the pencil down and take my glasses off. Every time we’ve fucked, I’ve faced away from him or kept my eyes shut, because I was afraid of what I’d feel if I looked. I’m not afraid anymore. I chose him this morning, and tonight I want to see him.

I come around the table and kneel. When I look up at him, his ears go flat.

“Paige—”

“You’ve been listening to me talk for days. Now I’m going to suck your cock, and I can’t talk while I do it. Don’t get used to the quiet.”

He laughs but quickly stops when I open his jeans. He’s hard as I pull his cock out. He fills both my hands, and he’s leaking. I put my mouth over the head of his cock and take him in as far as ambition allows, which isn’t far. I hold him there with my hands grasping the base of his shaft and enjoy listening to him groan.