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Nat sighed when Felix pushed the book back in front of her. She wanted to encourage his reading, and she was proud of him for voluntarily picking up a book, but this was the third time in the past 15 minutes he had interrupted her own reading to ask her to explain a word.
“That one is clearly made up right?” He asked.
“I believe it’s Latin, actually.”
Felix groaned once again, and pulled the book away from Nat. He wasn’t even a quarter of the way into this book and he was helplessly lost. He cocked his head, wondering why she liked it so much. He didn’t understand a word of it. Of course, he only understood about three quarters of what came out of Riley’s mouth. She liked to talk about these obscure scientific facts, or once she had tried explaining how one of the machines in her lab worked. Frankly, Felix didn’t care much, he just liked listening to her talk.
More than just listening to her talk, he liked listening to her talk about things she enjoyed. He liked the way it made her grey eyes sparkle. Unfortunately, she rarely spoke of things that made her that happy, and she smiled even less.
Which was why, Felix was currently spending his weekend huddled up in Nat’s library trying to decipher a book that was apparently mixing languages. As he once again fought the urge to chuck the book across the room and do something fun instead, Felix recalled the glimmer in Riley’s eyes when she had offhandedly mentioned the book one afternoon when they were all waiting for a meeting to start.
Felix once again tried to focus on the book, but found himself growing frustrated fairly easily.
“No one’s forcing you to read that you know,” Nat told him, clearly tired of him distracting her.
“I know. It’s just… Why do you think she likes it so much?”
“She who?” Nat asked, confused.
“Riley. She said it was her favorite.”
“I haven’t actually read it myself, but if her taste is anything like Areylia’s, I'm sure it's good.”
“Since when do you think Areylia has good taste in anything?”
“I’ve always thought she had good taste,” Nat defended. “We went furniture shopping just last week, and had a delightful conversation about Shakespere while we were out.”
“At least this isn’t as bad as Shakespere,” Felix consoled himself.
The door to the library opened loudly as two laughing detectives staggered in, and if Felix needed any more proof of who had just entered the library, The way Nat perked instead of being bothered by yet another introduction would have been it.
“Hey, Gorgeous,” Lukas greeted, planting a kiss on his girlfriend’s temple. Areylia followed him in, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, why don’t I get a kiss?” Felix protested.
Lukas glanced at his friend with a wicked grin before moving forward to plant a surprise kiss on Felix’s cheek. He leaned back with a smirk as Nat frowned at him. He patted her on the shoulder, leaning close to her ear.
“We wouldn’t want Felix to feel left out after all. I mean he might start to suspect I have a favorite.” Nat rolled her eyes at Lukas’s fake whisper.
Felix wiped off the side of his face with an exaggerated look of disgust, and wiped it off on his sleeve. “You can have your cooties back.”
Areylia laughed. “I haven’t heard the word ‘cooties’ since elementary school. Where’d you hear it?”
Lukas placed one of his hands on his chest, his other arm wrapped around Nat. “I take full responsibility for Felix’s expanded vocabulary.”
“I’m assuming you guys came in here for a reason?” Nat asked.
“Yeah. Lukas is going through withdrawals,” Areylia snickered, pointedly looking at her brother’s arm.
“Actually, one of our books went missing and Areylia seems to think it may have ended up in your library.”
“Why would any of Areylia’s books be here?” Felix asked.
“I like to read, and it’s quiet in here, sue me.” Areylia placed a hand on her hip, posture full of the same sass coming out of her mouth. “Besides, Nat and I talk about books all the time, sometimes I lend her some.”
Lukas leans over the book, Felix had been attempting to read all afternoon. “Isn’t this the one you were looking for?”
Felix immediately grabbed it, “You can’t take it back yet! I need it for uhh… research!”
“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing real in there. It’s fiction.”
“What book is it anyway?” Nat asked.
“Order of the Phoenix I believe,” Lukas said before turning his gaze back to Felix. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Harry Potter fan. First time reading them?”
“Yeah,” He agreed, slightly sheepish. “It’s super confusing though. Nothing gets explained, and characters just show up with no introduction.”
“What’d you think of the others? I don’t think this one is any more confusing than they are?”
“Wait! There’s others?”
“Felix, you do realize this is a series right?” Areylia asked, sharing a glance with her brother. “This one is book 5.”
“No wonder it’s so confusing!” Felix exclaimed.
“Why are you trying to read it anyway? You hate reading?” Lukas asked, scrunching his nose.
“And why did you have to steal my copy to do it?”
“I didn’t mean to take your copy, it was just lying around the library. I assumed it was Nat’s, and I wanted to read it because Riley said it was her favorite.”
“She says it’s her favorite, but really she just likes Luna,” Lukas told him.
“Hey, Luna’s great!”
“I’m still not entirely sure who that is,” Felix supplied before the siblings started arguing again.
“In any case, Felix, we should start you off with the first one.” Areylia walked out of the library after announcing, “I’ll be right back.”
She came back a moment later with a different book. “Try this one. It’ll probably make a lot more sense, but if you hate it, don’t force yourself through it. She’ll understand.”
Felix was about to respond when he heard another set of footsteps approaching. Footsteps with a cadence he had memorized. The footsteps were accompanied by his favorite sounding heartbeat, and a familiar breathing pattern.
“Why is everyone having a party in the library?” Riley poked her head out from around a bookshelf. “Are you stealing Nat’s books again?”
There was more ambiguity about who she was addressing with that last question than there should be. Based on her glare, Felix assumed she was referencing the time Lukas had started taking random books, and leaving notes in their place as a way of getting Nat to spend some time with him.
“I put them all back,” he grumbled in response.
“Well, Adam wants to see everyone in the common room, so we should probably go.” Her gaze flickered over everyone as they got ready to go to the meeting, but stopped when she noticed the book on the table.
Her eyes lit up and her lips slowly spread into a small smile. Felix grinned in response. Completely worth it, he decided. Every movement of struggling through that book was worth the half smile she was giving him.
“You’re reading Harry Potter, Felix?”
“Well, trying to.”
“You’ll have to let me know what you think,” She told him, her smiling disappearing. “After the meeting, of course.”
Then she turned and walked out of the room, heading in the direction of the meeting where she would once again be wearing her stoic mask, but for one moment, however small, Felix had made her smile.
He grabbed the other book Areylia had brought him, and followed Riley out of the room. He would spend as long as necessary reading this book, if it would make her smile like that again.