Free Checking Out Love by R. Cooper

 
     
     
    Four Oaks was half an hour from the university by freeway, or twenty or so minutes down a winding hill alongside a nature preserve. Jeremy managed it in about eighteen, taking the turns on his bike in a way that would have panicked his mother. She would have preferred he ride the train rather than use his little motorcycle on crowded freeways or narrow, curvy roads. But the train would have taken too long, and anyway, this was one of his ventures that his mother was never going to find out about.
    He’d been to the town once before for a gathering at a professor’s house. Four Oaks was a suburb, first of the university, then the other nearby colleges. Then, as the rent prices went up in the cities, it felt like everyone had fled to the surrounding areas. He could see why the place had been popular with the professor set for so long though. Four Oaks was laid out in neat lines. Near the center an old clock tower stood guard in the town square, and every little avenue and boulevard he noted along the main road had lots of Victorian-style buildings and cute shops, in addition to the necessary coffee house chains.
    He wasn’t totally out of place on his royal blue, rust-spotted bike, but he did slow down to a safe speed limit as he took in the amount of kids and teenagers running around with restless energy. They were spending more on sugary iced coffees than he probably spent on food every month, but such was the glamorous life of a grad student.
    The kids were also, by and large, heading in the same direction he was. He stopped at a traffic light and considered this ominous sign. He ought to make certain his directions were correct, but forgot all about consulting his phone when he looked over and realized that had to be his target in front of him.
    By target, he meant his destination. Obviously. Jeremy wasn’t out to get the magnificent red brick building taking up the next block. Obviously not. He didn’t have the money to buy a library, especially not a large one, in a historic building, in an upper middle, mostly white, class suburb likes this.
    But if he could have figured out a way to buy this one, he would have considered it.
    He’d heard things about the private library in Four Oaks, but seeing it was something else. Impressed despite himself, he took off when the light turned green, and followed the stream of cars pulling around the block to the space behind the library. The tiny, cramped parking lot had clearly not been part of the original building plan. Probably because the building itself was from the nineteenth century. No one parked in the street however; everyone was trying to avoid the parking meters.
    Some ventured across the street to a café, also overflowing with teens and pre-teens. Others left to circle the block. Jeremy parked at the edge of the lot, in a corner where no car would have fit, near—but not in front of—a No Parking sign.
    Beyond the sign, under a willow tree, he saw a short path that led to a building nearly as intriguing as the library: a small, tucked away Painted Lady. The classic red brick of the library would have overshadowed the house if not for the pinks, blues, and mint greens of the scrollwork along the doors and windows, and the absolute sea of flowers on either side of the path.
    Jeremy blinked, just a little bit in love already although he’d been raised in a city apartment and would probably die in one. A wooden sign hanging from the railing along the porch read Four Oaks Historical Society and instructed those interested to contact the library information desk if they needed to make an appointment. The quirky, asymmetrical Victorian had been restored and repainted some time recently, but he’d bet those windows were the original single-paned glass, or something close. He’d freeze on winter nights, he decided, but sighed happily when he saw the tall column of the chimney.
    Then he noticed the rocking chair on the porch, complete with a long-haired