Free Checking Out Love by R. Cooper Page A

orange cat. The cat was studying him… judging him. The cat was right to judge. Jeremy was getting ahead of himself again, big time. The Painted Lady that was the Four Oaks Historical Society—and apparently someone’s home—was so far out of his reach it was laughable. Not to mention he was only visiting the town, not moving here.
    He probably wouldn’t enjoy doing research on that porch on a sunny day, maybe a Sunday, so the library parking lot would be quieter. And living across the street from a quaint café? Who wanted that? They probably had lousy coffee that his imaginary future boyfriend wouldn’t bring him to cheer him on gray days.
    He had other things to think about in any case. Like a thesis and his options after that, and his parents’ despair when he tried to explain his interests to them, again and they finally accepted he was never going into the hard sciences. They were worried about his chances in this economy, and he could admit, computer science or engineering were slightly safer bets for a career.
    Jeremy liked math, he really did. Computers too. Computer languages were like any other system, with rules and limits to determine and bend. But he’d always had this fear if he started staring at numbers, he’d fall in, never to be seen again. They’d find him in a basement apartment, unwashed, hair down to his ass, muttering about Pi and the secrets of the universe.
    Now, this library on the other hand. Not even Jeremy’s tricky, non-linear mind was going to get lost in a sturdy, respectable establishment like this one. Clean red brick and white shutters and green, green ivy at odds with the piles of backpacks out front and the laughing teenagers. Those were the popular kids. Those had not been Jeremy’s people, in his high school days. His people were the kids who actually went inside buildings like this one, and gathered in nerdy circles behind the stacks to play card games about wizards when they told their parents they were studying.
    Ah, his rebellions had always been so beautifully geeky.
    Today, for example. He was supposed to be working on his thesis. Instead he’d heard a rumor and taken off to investigate. In his defense, the rumor was—somewhat—related to his areas of interest, Comp Lit and Linguistics. And playing hooky at a library was hardly even hooky.
    He stuck his helmet into his bag, and unzipped his jacket as he walked up the steps to the entrance. He noticed a plaque—of course there was a plaque—announcing the age of the building and mentioning that library used to be the Barrett Mansion before the family had built a larger house on the other side of town. This building had also survived the 1906 quake intact, the plaque went on, although the original fireplaces had not.
    Smiling faintly, because it was such a ridiculous little footnote to be proud of that it instantly became charming, Jeremy strode inside the building.
    The noise was the first thing that struck him. Everyone was using their proper library hushed voices, but that didn’t matter when there were so many of them. It seemed the Barrett Library was the center of after-school activity in Four Oaks. He paused to note the rooms off to the side, opened up and filled with long tables. The teenagers seemed to be gathered there. The circulation desk was in the center space by the entrance, occupied by two white ladies in their twenties and an overgrown philodendron resting on what looked like an actual lace doily. On his other side, in what had probably been parlors a long time ago, everything was colorful and soft. Much younger children were running amok. Farther ahead, beyond rows of computer stations, he saws stacks of books, probably fiction. Chairs and benches lined the walls, many of them in sunny windows.
    To one side a staircase led to the second floor. The second level contained the Barrett Library’s real claim to fame—the Madeline Canales-Barrett Special Collections Library.
    Nonetheless, Jeremy