A/N: Sorry to start another story on you, guys, but this was a request from a friend of mine. This is for you, Angel. Enjoy :)-DL
Chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Check It Out
Chapter 1
A child ran up to the desk with an armload of books, followed by his watchful mother. He had to stretch up to set the pile on the desk, chirping happily: "I wants to check these out, pwease!"
The head librarian, Jeremiah Porter, pulled the stack of books toward himself. "I'll need your library card," he told the boy coolly.
"Here it is," the mother handed over a child's library card to him.
He began to check the books out using a scanner, while the boy started to jump up and down a little in impatience. Jeremiah lifted a single brow at this behavior, his lips turning down in the slightest of frowns. The mother touched her son's shoulder. "Calm down, Davey. He'll be done in a second," she said soothingly.
The boy stopped jumping, though he continued to squirm a bit. Jeremiah finished checking the books out, then put them in a bag and handed it to the boy. "Here you are. These are due back in six weeks."
"K! Thanks!" the boy cried.
Many people would have smiled at this bright reply, but the head librarian merely nodded austerely. The mother took her son's hand and led the excited child away, leaving Jeremiah standing behind the desk alone. He returned to the book cataloguing that he'd been doing before the child had run up to the desk, working methodically through a stack of returns.
The Downsville Library was a stately brick building that had once been someone's home, but had been donated to the town eighty years ago. Jeremiah Porter had been the head librarian there for six years now. His title wasn't that impressive, since except for one assistant he was actually the ONLY librarian. The library wasn't big enough to warrant paying the salary for another librarian, and besides Jeremiah was so efficient that he did most of the work necessary by himself. He was well-respected in the town...though, frankly, not very well-liked.
It was his personality that the townspeople disliked. He never smiled, and was often impatient or downright cold when he spoke to the people who came into the library. He was fussy, and he hated people who sloppily re-shelved books in the wrong places, or just tossed them down anywhere willy-nilly. And if someone accidentally damaged a book...Oh, Lord, there was hell to pay. Jeremiah was very protective of the books in his library, and woe betide the person who hurt one of his children.
The gossipy women of the town agreed that one of his biggest problems was the fact that he had no wife or girlfriend. In other words, he wasn't getting any...and hadn't been for the entire six years that he'd worked as the head librarian. Some of them had considered trying to set him up with single women, but none of them had the courage to approach him and broach the subject. His face and manner were just too forbidding. They all lost their nerve on their way up to the front desk.
Jeremiah himself seemed to have no problem with his perpetually single state. If he was ever bored or lonely or sexually frustrated, he never showed it. He seemed content to just go to work and then go home, and to live a regimented and monkish life. It seemed that things were destined to go in in an eternal status quo, and that nothing would ever change in Jeremiah's life...
A loud, lively sound made Jeremiah look up with a forbidding frown. He rose to his feet, walking toward the back of the library where the 'children's corner' was, with its colorful mats and scattering of toys and stacks of children's books readily at hand. Here was where the sound seemed to be originating from, laughter and loud cries and chattering. Jeremiah swung around a corner, his brows drawing down as he marched toward the children's corner. Someone was about to feel his wrath, causing such a racket in his library!
He saw that at least half-a-dozen children were gathered around the single overstuffed chair in the children's corner, where a man was sitting reading a book aloud. He was acting out scenes from it exuberantly, waving his hands in the air and making faces to entertain the giggling children. They seemed riveted by his act. Jeremiah scowled faintly as he approached. Who was this? He'd never seen this person in his library before.
"And the ogre came out from under the bridge," the man was saying in a low, ominous voice, twisting his face into a monstrous contortion. The children were hanging on his every word, their eyes wide.
Jeremiah spoke up. "Can I help you?" he asked coldly, directing a draconian stare at the man sitting in the chair.
The kids turned to see who'd spoken, and all of them moved back uneasily when they saw the head librarian. Most of the children in town were afraid of Jeremiah, because he could be so mean to them when they came in to get books. The man in the chair, however, merely laid his finger down on the page he'd been reading and grinned up at Jeremiah fearlessly. "I don't think so," he replied merrily. "I'm doing pretty good all by myself, entertaining the kids," he beamed a wide small at the circle of children, who relaxed a bit.
"Do you think you might entertain them a bit more quietly? We do have rules," Jeremiah said, indicating a 'please be quiet' sign hanging on the wall.
"Oh. Sorry. Were we being loud?" the stranger said, laying a finger against his smiling lips. "We could try to be quieter, right, kids?"
A low murmur swept through the watching children. The man in the chair grinned. "See? We'll be good from now on, we promise," he winked audaciously up at Jeremiah Porter, whose own lips had gone a bit thin.
"Please follow the rules, or I will have to ask you to leave," he snapped.
A nod. "I'll do that. I just want to finish this book, then we'll scatter," the man was still smiling, seemingly completely oblivious of Jeremiah's disapproval.
Flummoxed, he merely nodded and turned away. Behind his back, he could hear the man start reading again, though his voice was lower and he distinctly heard him saying: "Shh!" to the kids so they wouldn't be so loud. But he still sounded happy, laughter in his voice. Clearly he didn't care about the solemn atmosphere in the library.
Jeremiah returned to the front desk, still frowning a bit. He wondered who that audacious stranger was who'd invaded his library and had taken over the children's corner without his permission. He'd never seen that person before in his life. He'd have remembered the man if he'd ever seen him before - his face had been oval-shaped, with clear pale skin and a nose that some people might have classified as 'button' or 'cute'. Amber curls had spilled over his forehead in a riotous splendor, as though he ran his fingers through them often. His eyes had been bright and direct, laughter dancing in the brown depths. The lips that had smiled up at Jeremiah had been pink and rather full, his teeth white as he'd grinned in delight. Yes, definitely a face he would have remembered if he'd seen it before this...
Jeremiah sat down in his chair, and frowned at the pile of returns waiting to be checked in. His fingers drummed lightly on the edge of the desk. Why did he feel rather out-of-sorts all of a sudden? Well, aside from the disruption to the quiet that normally reigned in his library, that is...he firmed his resolve and returned to his cataloguing, although he kept an ear tuned toward the children's corner. If any more loud noises erupted there, he'd eject that stranger without a second thought.
But the man seemed to have toned it down. He only heard a low murmur from that direction, instead of near-yelling. And after a bit, a stream of kids darted out the front door, waving and calling out to the man who'd been reading to them. He was standing near the stacks, waving back and smiling at the departing kids. Then he turned toward the front desk, his brown eyes agleam with an interested and rather wicked light. He strolled up to it, nodding at Jeremiah. "This is a nice library you have here," he commented.
"Thank you," Jeremiah replied coldly.
"I'm new in town," the stranger went on. "I'm taking over Dean Sheffield's law practice now that he's retiring. I'm his nephew," he explained, ignoring the fact that Jeremiah wasn't showing any interest in what he was saying whatsoever. "He called me up and asked me to move here when I graduated from law school. My name's Bailey Sheffield," he said, thrusting out a hand.
Jeremiah did not take it. After a moment, Bailey Sheffield shrugged and stuck it in one of his pockets instead. "I was taking a stroll around town, to get to know the place, when I saw your beautiful library. I just had to come in and see what was what. I hope you don't mind that I read to the kids. I like kids," he said happily.
Jeremiah sighed. "I don't mind that you wish to read to the children," he said austerely. "As long as you can control the volume of your voice, and keep the children from getting out of control, of course."
"Of course," Bailey Sheffield said, his lips twitching. "If that's the case, you don't mind if I volunteer to have a Reading Hour here at the library every day? My practice isn't what I'd call hopping," he went on with a slight grin. "Until I build it up, I have plenty of time to come in every day and read to the kiddies."
Jeremiah wasn't happy with this proposal, but he couldn't think of any objections. What was the Children's Corner for, after all? "Very well," he said, his voice flat.
Bailey Sheffield's lips were quivering violently. "Cool," he said. "I'll come every day at three o'clock, after the kiddies get out of school. Just think! You and I might become friends, working so close together every day!"
Jeremiah looked down his nose at this now not-quite-a-stranger, showing what he thought of this statement. "As you say," he replied, his voice scathing.
Bailey Sheffield nodded. "And," he said, lowering his voice and leaning over the desk a little, "You can show me all of the good places that a gay guy can hang out at around here. Right?"
Jeremiah sat bolt upright, frowning awfully. "I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped, his eyes dark with anger.
The other man laughed outright at his words, and the anger on his face. "Sure you don't," he said with a wink. "Please, you can't fool me. I've got the best gaydar ever; I know a brother-in-arms when I see one. And a sexy one at that, underneath that uptight exterior. I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart," he waggled his fingers at a shocked Jeremiah, and kissed the air in his direction before strolling away out the front door.
Left behind in the peace and quiet he'd craved, Jeremiah Porter stood very still behind the front desk and stared at nothing. The man's mocking last words rang in his ears as his fingers curled into fists on the wood of the desk. He'd thought - that no one would ever know. That here, in this town, he could hide his nature and forget the unnatural urges that plagued him. Celibacy, living alone, never dating - none of those things was a hardship for him. Those things he could handle, far better than he could who and what he actually was. To be so suddenly and shockingly stripped of his defenses! What was he going to do?
Go to Next Chapter
Chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Check It Out
Chapter 1
A child ran up to the desk with an armload of books, followed by his watchful mother. He had to stretch up to set the pile on the desk, chirping happily: "I wants to check these out, pwease!"
The head librarian, Jeremiah Porter, pulled the stack of books toward himself. "I'll need your library card," he told the boy coolly.
"Here it is," the mother handed over a child's library card to him.
He began to check the books out using a scanner, while the boy started to jump up and down a little in impatience. Jeremiah lifted a single brow at this behavior, his lips turning down in the slightest of frowns. The mother touched her son's shoulder. "Calm down, Davey. He'll be done in a second," she said soothingly.
The boy stopped jumping, though he continued to squirm a bit. Jeremiah finished checking the books out, then put them in a bag and handed it to the boy. "Here you are. These are due back in six weeks."
"K! Thanks!" the boy cried.
Many people would have smiled at this bright reply, but the head librarian merely nodded austerely. The mother took her son's hand and led the excited child away, leaving Jeremiah standing behind the desk alone. He returned to the book cataloguing that he'd been doing before the child had run up to the desk, working methodically through a stack of returns.
The Downsville Library was a stately brick building that had once been someone's home, but had been donated to the town eighty years ago. Jeremiah Porter had been the head librarian there for six years now. His title wasn't that impressive, since except for one assistant he was actually the ONLY librarian. The library wasn't big enough to warrant paying the salary for another librarian, and besides Jeremiah was so efficient that he did most of the work necessary by himself. He was well-respected in the town...though, frankly, not very well-liked.
It was his personality that the townspeople disliked. He never smiled, and was often impatient or downright cold when he spoke to the people who came into the library. He was fussy, and he hated people who sloppily re-shelved books in the wrong places, or just tossed them down anywhere willy-nilly. And if someone accidentally damaged a book...Oh, Lord, there was hell to pay. Jeremiah was very protective of the books in his library, and woe betide the person who hurt one of his children.
The gossipy women of the town agreed that one of his biggest problems was the fact that he had no wife or girlfriend. In other words, he wasn't getting any...and hadn't been for the entire six years that he'd worked as the head librarian. Some of them had considered trying to set him up with single women, but none of them had the courage to approach him and broach the subject. His face and manner were just too forbidding. They all lost their nerve on their way up to the front desk.
Jeremiah himself seemed to have no problem with his perpetually single state. If he was ever bored or lonely or sexually frustrated, he never showed it. He seemed content to just go to work and then go home, and to live a regimented and monkish life. It seemed that things were destined to go in in an eternal status quo, and that nothing would ever change in Jeremiah's life...
A loud, lively sound made Jeremiah look up with a forbidding frown. He rose to his feet, walking toward the back of the library where the 'children's corner' was, with its colorful mats and scattering of toys and stacks of children's books readily at hand. Here was where the sound seemed to be originating from, laughter and loud cries and chattering. Jeremiah swung around a corner, his brows drawing down as he marched toward the children's corner. Someone was about to feel his wrath, causing such a racket in his library!
He saw that at least half-a-dozen children were gathered around the single overstuffed chair in the children's corner, where a man was sitting reading a book aloud. He was acting out scenes from it exuberantly, waving his hands in the air and making faces to entertain the giggling children. They seemed riveted by his act. Jeremiah scowled faintly as he approached. Who was this? He'd never seen this person in his library before.
"And the ogre came out from under the bridge," the man was saying in a low, ominous voice, twisting his face into a monstrous contortion. The children were hanging on his every word, their eyes wide.
Jeremiah spoke up. "Can I help you?" he asked coldly, directing a draconian stare at the man sitting in the chair.
The kids turned to see who'd spoken, and all of them moved back uneasily when they saw the head librarian. Most of the children in town were afraid of Jeremiah, because he could be so mean to them when they came in to get books. The man in the chair, however, merely laid his finger down on the page he'd been reading and grinned up at Jeremiah fearlessly. "I don't think so," he replied merrily. "I'm doing pretty good all by myself, entertaining the kids," he beamed a wide small at the circle of children, who relaxed a bit.
"Do you think you might entertain them a bit more quietly? We do have rules," Jeremiah said, indicating a 'please be quiet' sign hanging on the wall.
"Oh. Sorry. Were we being loud?" the stranger said, laying a finger against his smiling lips. "We could try to be quieter, right, kids?"
A low murmur swept through the watching children. The man in the chair grinned. "See? We'll be good from now on, we promise," he winked audaciously up at Jeremiah Porter, whose own lips had gone a bit thin.
"Please follow the rules, or I will have to ask you to leave," he snapped.
A nod. "I'll do that. I just want to finish this book, then we'll scatter," the man was still smiling, seemingly completely oblivious of Jeremiah's disapproval.
Flummoxed, he merely nodded and turned away. Behind his back, he could hear the man start reading again, though his voice was lower and he distinctly heard him saying: "Shh!" to the kids so they wouldn't be so loud. But he still sounded happy, laughter in his voice. Clearly he didn't care about the solemn atmosphere in the library.
Jeremiah returned to the front desk, still frowning a bit. He wondered who that audacious stranger was who'd invaded his library and had taken over the children's corner without his permission. He'd never seen that person before in his life. He'd have remembered the man if he'd ever seen him before - his face had been oval-shaped, with clear pale skin and a nose that some people might have classified as 'button' or 'cute'. Amber curls had spilled over his forehead in a riotous splendor, as though he ran his fingers through them often. His eyes had been bright and direct, laughter dancing in the brown depths. The lips that had smiled up at Jeremiah had been pink and rather full, his teeth white as he'd grinned in delight. Yes, definitely a face he would have remembered if he'd seen it before this...
Jeremiah sat down in his chair, and frowned at the pile of returns waiting to be checked in. His fingers drummed lightly on the edge of the desk. Why did he feel rather out-of-sorts all of a sudden? Well, aside from the disruption to the quiet that normally reigned in his library, that is...he firmed his resolve and returned to his cataloguing, although he kept an ear tuned toward the children's corner. If any more loud noises erupted there, he'd eject that stranger without a second thought.
But the man seemed to have toned it down. He only heard a low murmur from that direction, instead of near-yelling. And after a bit, a stream of kids darted out the front door, waving and calling out to the man who'd been reading to them. He was standing near the stacks, waving back and smiling at the departing kids. Then he turned toward the front desk, his brown eyes agleam with an interested and rather wicked light. He strolled up to it, nodding at Jeremiah. "This is a nice library you have here," he commented.
"Thank you," Jeremiah replied coldly.
"I'm new in town," the stranger went on. "I'm taking over Dean Sheffield's law practice now that he's retiring. I'm his nephew," he explained, ignoring the fact that Jeremiah wasn't showing any interest in what he was saying whatsoever. "He called me up and asked me to move here when I graduated from law school. My name's Bailey Sheffield," he said, thrusting out a hand.
Jeremiah did not take it. After a moment, Bailey Sheffield shrugged and stuck it in one of his pockets instead. "I was taking a stroll around town, to get to know the place, when I saw your beautiful library. I just had to come in and see what was what. I hope you don't mind that I read to the kids. I like kids," he said happily.
Jeremiah sighed. "I don't mind that you wish to read to the children," he said austerely. "As long as you can control the volume of your voice, and keep the children from getting out of control, of course."
"Of course," Bailey Sheffield said, his lips twitching. "If that's the case, you don't mind if I volunteer to have a Reading Hour here at the library every day? My practice isn't what I'd call hopping," he went on with a slight grin. "Until I build it up, I have plenty of time to come in every day and read to the kiddies."
Jeremiah wasn't happy with this proposal, but he couldn't think of any objections. What was the Children's Corner for, after all? "Very well," he said, his voice flat.
Bailey Sheffield's lips were quivering violently. "Cool," he said. "I'll come every day at three o'clock, after the kiddies get out of school. Just think! You and I might become friends, working so close together every day!"
Jeremiah looked down his nose at this now not-quite-a-stranger, showing what he thought of this statement. "As you say," he replied, his voice scathing.
Bailey Sheffield nodded. "And," he said, lowering his voice and leaning over the desk a little, "You can show me all of the good places that a gay guy can hang out at around here. Right?"
Jeremiah sat bolt upright, frowning awfully. "I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped, his eyes dark with anger.
The other man laughed outright at his words, and the anger on his face. "Sure you don't," he said with a wink. "Please, you can't fool me. I've got the best gaydar ever; I know a brother-in-arms when I see one. And a sexy one at that, underneath that uptight exterior. I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart," he waggled his fingers at a shocked Jeremiah, and kissed the air in his direction before strolling away out the front door.
Left behind in the peace and quiet he'd craved, Jeremiah Porter stood very still behind the front desk and stared at nothing. The man's mocking last words rang in his ears as his fingers curled into fists on the wood of the desk. He'd thought - that no one would ever know. That here, in this town, he could hide his nature and forget the unnatural urges that plagued him. Celibacy, living alone, never dating - none of those things was a hardship for him. Those things he could handle, far better than he could who and what he actually was. To be so suddenly and shockingly stripped of his defenses! What was he going to do?
Go to Next Chapter