Free Checking Out Love by R. Cooper Page B

hesitated. The Barrett Library and the university had an arrangement so students and professors could use the small, private library’s resources. Jeremy was allowed to not only check out books here if he needed, but to access the rare books and artifacts in the collection. 
    However, venturing up those stairs was something attempted only by the brave or the desperate. Somewhere in this building, possibly up those very stairs, lurked the Beast, a librarian so notoriously strict—it was rumored—he had gotten more than one disrespectful student banned for life from not only this library, but the university’s as well.
    That shouldn’t have been possible for anything short of sex in the stacks, which, let’s face it, was a far more common occurrence than the university liked to pretend. Jeremy sincerely doubted anyone was permanently banned for it. He found it far more likely the guilty ones who got caught were simply too embarrassed to return.
    Jeremy had personally never fucked anyone in the stacks, not for a lack of trying. The problem with being one of those people fascinated by everything was that he annoyed those humans around him who didn’t think it was fun to learn and question and talk about woolly caterpillars or geographic profiling, or shoes and ships and ceiling wax, whatever. By date three, Jeremy was usually left alone with his running thoughts and his dashed visions of weddings and white picket fences.
    Ah well. He was young. And in the meantime, he had school, and interesting side trips like this one. Jeremy had been meaning to sneak a look at the Beast for over a year now, but between work, his internship, and his studies, hadn’t had the time. He hadn’t needed anything from the Barrett Library either, until yesterday, when his friend had mentioned a diary in the special collection.
    In the nineteenth century, the Mexican general Canales had lived in the area, and his teenage daughter Rosa had kept a diary. At fourteen or fifteen, Rosa had taken an interest in the various languages around her, from Spanish and English to the Cantonese and Pidgin English of the Chinese laborers, even the remaining Native place names, and written them all down. She had also, in between all the usual thoughts of a young girl, created her own language out of them, for a fantastic world she made up. If that was true, that was some Tolkien-level shit and Jeremy needed to see it.
    He could brave the Beast for that, and straightened his glasses at the thought. He slipped on a scarlet beanie as he headed up the stairs, mostly to hide his helmet hair, but the temperature was also cooler inside the old building. The stairs creaked too, despite the carpeting, showing the library’s age.
    He liked that. The history, however domestic and ordinary, of this place. The pride in the history of this place. Like knowing that a young girl had been interested in learning about the languages spoken by the Chinese men who had helped build both this country and this state. She’d found those men worthy of study, worthy of remembrance, and knowing that gave Jeremy a connection to this building too, although his family hadn’t come here until the early twentieth century.
    The second floor was markedly different in attitude from the first. Jeremy considered the open space, the walls that must have been knocked down decades before to leave so much room for the bookshelves and large tables. Sunlight filtered in through blinds on the windows, much like downstairs, although there was a noticeable lack of couches or soft benches. The tables were of dark polished wood, with brass lamps in the center and little cups filled with pencils. The carpet was red and thick enough to dampen the sound of footsteps. No children or teenagers were to be seen.
    The stacks around him seemed to be heavy, leather-bound reference books that couldn’t be left downstairs amid all the families and chaos. Jeremy momentarily forgot his quest for the diary and slipped