Junior Librarian, General Services
Butler County Library District — Ashville Public Library
From: Jo Rainier
To: Felix Navarro
Date: Saturday, May 11, 2024, 9:44 A.M.
Subject: RE: Advertising for MnM
Oh god, you want me to show up somewhere at 9pm? A college bar on a Saturday night, no less?? I’m almost 35, dude.
(I’m in.)
Jo
6
Felix stood outside Stan’s, rocking from foot to foot, doing his best not to obsessively check the time on his phone. He raked his fingers through his hair, damp at the roots from his shower.
After work, he’d spent time boxing in the basement, trying to get out his… energy before meeting up with Jo. Unfortunately, he was still sore and had to take his workout easier than he’d planned. So he’d taken matters into his own hands (so to speak) in the shower, struggling to keep his mind blank. Getting off to thoughts of Jo felt wrong, but, in the end, it was a losing battle. He came, hard and loud, when an image sprang to mind of her eyes behind glasses beaded with water droplets. In the reading room the previous night, it had taken almost ten minutes before she thought to wipe the rain off those fucking glasses. He’d been distracted the entire time, wanting to take them off her, clean them for her, hand them back, and watch her bite her lip and smile and say thank you. Felix didn’t quite know how to feel about that urge, but his dick was apparently into it.
“Hey there!”
Felix turned toward her voice. She was dressed much like she had been the night they met. Instead of leggings, Jo wore black, high-waisted skinny jeans that emphasized her ample hips. Her cropped T-shirt was pale pink with a faded screen print of a cat napping on a stack of books. And, of course, there was that denim jacket that Felix was starting to associate with her as closely as her smile, her eyes, her sense of humor. Jo’s hair was down and curled, and she was wearing her glasses.
“Hi,” he said. Fuck, did his voice crack? Did she hear it? Get it together, man. This is not a date. You are friends. You are not that douchebag who can’t tell the difference.
“You look nice,” Jo said. “I’ve never seen you outside of work clothes.”
“Oh, thanks,” Felix said, running a hand self-consciously down his torso. He’d kept it simple with dark wash jeans, a plain black T-shirt, and a maroon zip-up hoodie with the Rutgers “R” embroidered on the chest. Hardly “nice” clothes, but he appreciated her kindness anyway. “You too. Cat person?”
She glanced down at her shirt. “Yeah. Library user, MnM player, cat person. I’m a triple threat.”
Felix laughed and gestured toward the door. “Do you have any?” he asked while the bouncer carded them.
“Two—nope, I have one cat. Merry.”
“I’m sorry, did you lose one?”
The bouncer waved them in. A blast of electronic music rattled Felix’s eardrums as he followed Jo inside.
“Kind of?” Jo shouted, leaning closer to be heard. “I… I broke up with someone before I moved here. He kept our other cat.”
“That’s rough.”
Jo shrugged.
“Let me guess,” Felix said. “Is the other cat Pippin?”
She rocked onto her back foot and looked up at him, impressed. “You said you don’t read fantasy!”
“But I do watch Oscar-winning movies on occasion.” They squeezed up to the bar between two groups of tipsy twenty-somethings. Felix bent closer to Jo’s ear. She smelled like something fruity, something just shy of cloying, a scent that plummeted right into the depths of him. “Was I right?”
“Yeah,” she said, flashing him a quick smile. “I miss him. The cat, not the guy.”
Felix nodded, unsure how to follow up that comment. A bartender, a white guy with a shaved head and two full sleeves of tattoos, made eye contact with him and gave a “be right there” nod.
“Are we drinking?” Jo asked. “I don’t really know your plan. I’m following your lead here.”
“I’ll probably get a beer or cider or something. I planned to talk to the manager about advertising here.”
“On a Saturday night?” Jo scoffed, waving broadly at the packed bar. “Good luck. You should have come at, like, five o’clock.”
She had a point.
“Well, fuck.”
Jo spun to face him, and her hair hit his arm. When he glanced down toward the unexpected touch, he spotted a flash of midriff between her cropped shirt and jeans. Fuck. Fuck. A sliver of skin should not be that successful in undoing him. He really needed to get out more.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
Before he could respond, the bartender appeared, leaning on the bar with his tattooed arms spread in a wide V. “What’ll it be, folks?”
