"Rise and shine!"
"Mmm… no." I duck back under the covers that were rudely pulled off of me.
"Get up." Ashley's way of waking me up is being overly sticky. "I'm leaving in half an hour and if you don't wake up now, you'll be late for work." And annoyingly poking me, "Hey, Kat, get up."
"Shut up, Ashley." I peek over the top of my blankets, my eyes squinting through the daylight to glare at her.
"You know, there have been a series of weird findings recently. Thanks to you, my vocabulary of high-grade expletives has seen immense growth overnight. You came back very late, the early riser you is still sloshing around in bed and…" she gives a dramatic pause, "I don't think either of us owns a navy blue suit, so what's this that I found in the laundry?" Little shit sounds smug as fuck. "Who's the guy? Give me the details! Come on, wake up!"
She gets under the cover and drags me to sit up straight, as I try and fail to discourage her by throwing all my body weight onto her.
A few minutes later I'm on my couch, my eyes digging holes into the steaming cup of coffee in my hands.
"So, what's his name? What does he do? Where did you meet this mystery guy who has managed to pique your Majesty's interest?" She's not gonna let it go.
"Ash." I Give her another one of my early-morning-bad-mood dirty looks paired with a suffering sigh. "I've seen him a few times in the library. He's not a permanent member, I think he's Mrs. Harper's colleague" I am still grumbling initially but soon realize that thinking of pretty things can vastly improve your bad mood. I give another loud sigh at the thought. If this keeps up, I'm gonna get wrinkles due to all the sighing, "Girl, he's so beautiful, it's infuriating." I look at her helplessly.
"So? When do I get to meet him? You got a pic at least?" Then her eyes turn sharp. "He better not be an idiotic jerk like the last guy."
"Hey, Sam wasn't all that bad." I busy myself with blowing on my coffee to cool it and refuse to look at her. "And I don't have a pic."
She dramatically rolls her eyes before looking at her watch and getting up. "I have put the clothes into the washing machine, made the breakfast, the dishes are in the sink, you only have to wash them, oh and I watered the plants. If your guy can't take better care of you than I do, what's the point of keeping him around?" She flippantly adds in, "And your precious blue coat is not in there with the other clothes. I thought you'd want to attend to it personally." She catches the pillow I chuck at her and cutely bats her eyes, "Catch you later, darling. I want more details in the evening. Bye!" And then she's out the door.
"And sorry about yesterday! But at least you got a hottie out of it!" A faint yell from outside brings a smile to my face. I get up and make my way to the laundry room to hand-clean the coat. Wouldn't wanna ruin it in the machine.
It is 11 by the time I reach the library. It opens at 10, but I wasn't on the early morning duty today. Lizzy Evans, a petite 25-year-old part-time worker who joined last month, is responsible for opening up the library as there's usually less rush then, and also because she has evening classes at SRI. She is doing some research project about electromagnetic fields under another professor who is a frequent visitor at the library, Professor M. Agrawal. He is a stern but very considerate guy. After he found out Lizzy had some economic issues, he brought it up with Cassandra, the lady who manages the library and his good friend. Cassandra then assigned her the morning shift. She usually stays till 2.
It's getting colder and colder as we approach November, and by the evening it starts lightly snowing. I am glad I had the foresight to keep an extra umbrella at the library. The day goes by slowly and uneventfully, and the next two days are the same.
It's Saturday, and I have washed and ironed the blue coat, which was now sitting in a neat little package back at home. Since I don't want to return it empty-handed, I am thinking of baking some cookies tomorrow to go with it. I wonder how I should return it. Sending it off with Mrs. Harper or Lizzy would be rude, and I don't know his schedule to know when he'll be available. I'll just text him and ask him tomorrow.
Around three, it already looked like today was going to be a particularly bad weather day. Since it started snowing, Cassandra had told me to lock up and go home by 9 pm. Well, I better get this done quickly. I had chosen the topic, "Are environmental concerns being addressed thoroughly and effectively, and are the efforts making a real difference on the global scale?" for my creative writing essay. Not a very original idea, but I was sure I could work something out.
I was too immersed in it and didn't note the time till it was already close to 9. Getting up, I started doing my everyday checks around the library. The back door, the windows, all lights and fans, and… wait, is there someone still in here?
I look at the tables in the physics section and start walking carefully towards what looks like a slumped-up human. The silhouette is that of a big man.
"Excuse me? Hello?" I call out loudly so that whoever it is will move and give me some idea of who it could be. "Hello? Sir, it's time to close the library. You should leave."
There's no movement from the table. I hesitate and glance at the CCTV pointing towards this part of the library. Well, if I die, then at least there will be a record of it. I walk closer to make out whether it's someone I know. And when I am close enough to make out his face, I let out a gasp and hurry over.
"Mr. Jenkins! Hey, Mr. Jenkins, wake up!" How did I miss him coming in?
The dude is out cold with his head on top of his folded hands. When he doesn't wake up after a few tries, I shake his shoulder to hear him groggily mumble something. His woolen sweater is a bit damp. Was he walking around in the snow like this?
"Zeff, wake up, please. You're scaring me. What the hell!" I try patting his cheek and find out he's burning up. Ahh fuck.
I go back and get my water bottle and handkerchief. Coming back, I manage to get him to sit up and sprinkle a few drops onto his upturned face. That finally works out as he flinches and blinks his eyes open, looking completely disoriented. "Thank the fucking Gods! Are you okay?" I hand over the handkerchief.
He looks at it confusedly for a while before looking up at me, still looking disoriented, probably because his glasses are on the table to the side. Then I see recognition flash in his eyes, "Ah, Cathy." He takes the handkerchief to wipe his face. "Sorry. Don't know when I dozed off." His voice sounds horse.
I am bewildered by his calm tone. "What do you mean, dozed off? Do you know you have a high fever? You weren't waking up. I was about to call an ambulance!" I look accusingly at his chest, "And why the hell are your clothes damp? Were you going around walking in the snow like that? It's not thick enough to keep you warm. Do you not have an umbrella?"
The corners of his eyes are red, and his cheek and nose are unnaturally flushed. "I lent it to a student." He picks up his glasses and puts them on, still looking out of it. "It's alright, I'm just tired." He looks around and realizes how empty it is, "Is it closing time? I'm sorry, I didn't notice." He goes to get up but stumbles and I hurriedly catch his arm to stabilize him as he stands there with his eyes shut to let the vertigo pass.
"What about wearing some warmer clothes?" I frown.
"I had a deadline to catch up, so I have been working very late for the last week," He starts talking as we walk towards the front desk, me still holding his arm. "I stayed at the teachers' office for that time. Don't have many warm clothes stocked up there."
Is he working so late? I knew SRI had a few rooms on campus for professors who preferred staying there for work, but how busy was he that he didn't have time to stock up winter clothes? Wait, didn't he drive me home just a few days ago? What about then? "What about when you drove me home?"
He looks away sheepishly. "I went straight back to my lab after. I had to make records of an ongoing time-sensitive experiment."
I look at him, completely baffled, "Why the hell would you waste so much time driving me around if you had important work to do?!" And as I had his coat that day, he probably didn't bother putting on anything warmer later. "Did you at least change into something warmer than your dress shirt?"
"I… forgot." His face flushes even more, and I can't find it in me to appreciate it when I am too busy trying to keep myself from getting pissed off by his complete lack of self-preservation.
"I am driving you home. I guess you have your car?" I snatch my umbrella from under the table and level him with a look, daring him to question me.
He very obediently nods.
We lock up the library and before we step out into the snow, I take off my scarf and hand it over. He tries to refuse it but another sharp glare from me and he quietly takes it and wraps it around his neck with a murmured thanks. We walk to his car under the same umbrella and I stuff him into the passenger seat before getting into the driver's seat myself.
"Where to?" He gives me his address, coughing a bit and I hand over my water bottle. He drowns out the entire thing as I set the temperature in the car to warm and start driving.