Chapter Text
mila’s good favor lasted about two minutes. then she was sprinting down the sidewalk, squealing for joy as she waved the lollipop paige had given her in the air, smug as a fuckin bug in a rug.
“mila!” paige yelled, jogging after her. “you’re going to get kidnapped! or hit by a bike! or die!”
she reached down with both hands, trying to grab the little girl by her waist to hoist her in the air where she’d be safe from certain death, but mila twisted out of her reach like a slippery worm.
“no!” she squealed, running on her tiny legs even faster.
it was a genuine safety concern, considering they were walking right next to a relatively busy avenue with enough cars to make paige’s pulse jump. what if there was a high schooler in one of those cars? just one brief second of forgetting the difference between the road and the sidewalk and bam. mila would never be seen again.
“i hate teenagers,” paige muttered, putting some real pep into her step until she caught up to the three year old.
she grabbed mila’s shoulder to still her and knelt down before her. mila wriggled around, trying to free her shoulder from paige’s adult-strength grip.
“mila,” paige said, putting as much seriousness into her voice as she could. “you can’t run away from me like that. it’s dangerous. we’re walking next to a busy street. you can either hold my hand, or i can carry—”
mila broke free with a yelp of triumph and sprinted further down the sidewalk.
by the time they made it to the library, paige’s chest was battered and bruised from being kicked relentlessly. mila, draped over paige’s shoulder with a single arm to hold her in place, had calmed down only after paige had emptied all five lollipops out of her pockets and given them to her. as they walked through the double glass doors of the fanciest public library paige had ever seen in her life, mila was cheerfully alternating between licking her fistfuls of lollipops.
when they made it to the kid’s section of the library, paige finally set her down. mila, temporarily placated, stood calmly still, licking happily away at her candy.
paige knelt down in front of her again. “okay, mila,” she said. “we’re here. your mom said you can get five books. why don’t you—”
a cheer erupted from behind the bookshelves. curious, paige stood to look over them.
a group of young children were gathered in a circle on a rug in front of a small, child-sized couch. their parents sat behind them or at nearby tables. on the couch sat—with no exaggeration—the most beautiful woman paige had ever seen.
“hi, friends,” she said with a radiant smile. and, wow. that was the most beautiful voice paige had ever heard.
she felt her heart begin to thump in her chest.
the woman held up a small, square book with two cartoon dogs on it. “today we’re going to read a bluey book called ‘bob bilby.’” the children sitting around her cheered again.
paige, remembering that she was in the middle of babysitting, looked down to find an empty space where mila had once stood. “fuck,” she hissed and then looked up to make eye contact with an elderly woman glaring at her and putting her hands over her presumed grandchild’s ears. “ah, sorry, um,” paige said and then fled.
mila was easy to spot, considering she was running at what must’ve been eight miles an hour toward the read-aloud circle.
“oh—no—mila!” paige whisper-yelled, jogging over to try and snatch her up.
she was too late. the woman was reading, “like most bilbies, i’m not much of a talker,” when mila barrelled over another small child and landed in a heap in the middle of the reading circle. a gasp erupted from everyone in the room.
paige froze in place right behind one of the parents in the reading circle, squeezing her eyes shut in embarrassment.
mila seemed unhurt, leaving her lollipops on the rug and pushing herself up to standing with both hands.
“are you okay?” the librarian asked, putting the book down beside her and kneeling down on the rug, hands extended toward the two children involved in the collision.
the small child who’d been the victim of mila’s attack started crying, face as red as a tomato. his father rushed over from one of the nearby tables to soothe him.
“i’m so sorry,” paige said. she didn’t blame the child and father when they ignored her.
when she looked over to mila to scold her, her heart dropped at the sight of mila climbing into the hot librarian’s lap and offering her a rug-fiber-covered lollipop.
the librarian laughed. “thank you, sweetheart, but this is dirty! we should throw these lollipops away. they’re not safe to eat anymore.”
to paige’s complete and utter surprise, mila didn’t put up a fight. “okay,” she said, and then she gathered all the dirty, fuzzy lollipops up in her little hands. then she turned to paige and held them up at her. “throw them away,” she demanded.
paige gawked (how could a nice woman like phee have given birth to such a menace?) and then gulped as she realized the pretty librarian had noticed her existence for the first time.
“uh, mila,” paige said. “let’s go throw them away together. you need to get out of the nice lady’s lap. she’s in the middle of reading a book.”
the other children in the reading circle were chattering amongst themselves and their parents as they waited for the read-aloud to continue. some of the parents were watching paige and mila with thinly veiled impatience. paige’s cheeks burned, and she gestured frantically for mila to stand.
“come on,” she said desperately.
mila shook her head. “no,” she snapped. she thrust the sticky mess of lollipops out at paige again. “you throw them.”
paige pursed her lips and glanced panickedly back at the librarian. she was watching paige with slightly raised eyebrows and the hint of a smile. paige huffed in defeat. “fine,” she muttered, taking the lollipops from mila and storming away to find a trash can.
by the time she came back, the beautiful librarian was back on the couch, this time with mila situated on her lap as she read the tiny book. “at bingo’s house,” she was reading, her words slow with crisp enunciation, “i show her family my book.”
paige hovered outside the reading circle for a few awkward moments, unsure of where she should sit. the thought fluttered through her mind that she should ask the librarian if she could join mila on her lap.
face burning, paige folded all six feet of her body into a seat on the floor behind a pair of identical twin toddler girls.
paige could not for the life of her follow the plot of the book. it didn’t help that she was not looking at the pages at all or listening to the words the librarian was saying. her gaze swept over the woman’s face—her kind eyes, her dimples, her plush lips—to her hair, swept quickly into a low ponytail. then down her jawline to her neck. her collarbone, or what little was visible beneath her navy blue polo. paige had never seen a woman make such a boring shirt look so good.
mila was having fun too, at least, taking full advantage of her lap-seat-privilege by reaching over to try and turn the pages way too early and giggling when the librarian patiently lowered her little hand with a smile and a gentle, “not yet, honey.”
paige’s face was burning up. when would it be her turn to be called honey?? children were an overprivileged population, in paige’s opinion.
soon enough, the librarian was reading, “i’m not much of a talker. the end!” and closing the book. the children and parents gave her a polite little round of applause as she placed the book down beside her. she had that soft smile on again and was letting the children sitting nearest to her give their reviews of the book.
upon realizing she was the only adult who had yet to stand up, paige pushed herself up and shuffled through the sprawling horde of children over to the librarian to collect her little troublemaker. as she approached, the librarian looked up.
“hey,” she said with a smile. then she looked down at mila, patting her side to get her attention. “sweetheart, your mom is here,” she said.
paige blanched. “oh, no,” she stammered. “i’m not her mom. i’m just babysitting for my friend.”
mila nodded. “auntie paige is not my mom,” she confirmed. “my mom is pretty.”
paige frowned at the implication that she wasn’t pretty, but it was quickly broken at the sound of the librarian’s giggle. god, her laugh was pretty.
“i see,” she said, lifting mila off her lap and putting her down on the floor.
“noooooo,” mila whined, turning around and leaning her whole front over onto the librarian’s lap. “i wanna stay with youuu,” she said, looking up at the woman with her big, sappy puppy-dog eyes. paige slumped, unimpressed. that manipulative kid.
“c’mon, mila,” she said, pulling gently at her shoulder. “the nice lady is at work. let’s get out of her hair.”
mila flicked a glare up at her. “do you have candy?” she asked.
“do i—no!” paige said. “you ate all five of my lollipops on the way here, remember?”
mila continued to glare at her, unanswering.
paige sighed. “mila, come on. let’s go pick out some books for you to check out, okay?”
the librarian smiled and rubbed mila’s back. “do you wanna see our other bluey books, mila?” she asked.
mila looked up at her, face bright. “yes!” she said.
so paige ended up following the two of them to the other side of the children’s section, where mila got the librarian to read the titles of every single bluey book they had, plucking the ones she was interested from the woman’s hands and clutching the growing stack of books to her chest. paige felt a little out of her depth and severely lacking in her duties as a babysitter.
“okay, mila, that’s five,” she said after about ten minutes of this. “let’s go check them out.”
the librarian turned to mila from where she was crouching on the floor. “do you know how to scan the books?” she asked.
paige, once again, third wheeled her own babysitting gig as the librarian guided mila through scanning her own library books. she let mila do every step of the process on her own, even though it took about seven million times as long for her to do than it would’ve for paige to. paige was painfully torn between feeling like a deeply inadequate adult and melting in admiration for how good the librarian was with kids.
finally, mila had successfully scanned and checked out each one of her little cardboard bluey books. paige held open the tote bag phee had given her, and mila gingerly placed each one of her books in one at a time.
“you’re good with her,” the librarian said softly.
paige blinked. “me?”
the librarian smiled, amused by paige’s surprise. “yeah,” she said. “auntie paige.”
paige blinked even more.
the librarian laughed. how was paige doing this? she wasn’t even trying.
“your face is funny,” the pretty librarian said. her smile was radiant. paige was gay.
“uh,” she said. “thanks.”
mila tugged on the hem of paige’s shirt. “we go now, auntie paige,” she said.
paige glanced down at her, mind lagging a couple seconds. “uh. right. we have to go.” she looked up at the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen and prepared herself to say goodbye forever. “thanks for your help,” she said.
the librarian smiled kindly. “it’s my job,” she said. then she looked down at mila. “and she’s adorable.”
paige huffed a quiet laugh. “you were a good sport about it,” she said.
mila tugged on paige’s shirt again, impatient. “we go now!” she demanded.
paige looked down at her and sighed. “okay, okay,” she said, slipping the tote bag over her shoulder. she reached down to grab mila’s hand and turned to start walking out of the library. “thanks again,” she called to the librarian.
“bye!” the woman replied.
paige and mila made it about 10 feet out of the library before paige stopped. mila kept going a few steps until she felt the resistance of paige’s hand and looked back.
then, without giving herself enough time to change her mind, paige reached down, scooped mila up into her arms, and turned back around.
the librarian was in the middle of walking over to her desk when paige jogged up to her, mila bouncing lightly in her arms.
“i just,” paige panted. fuck. she should’ve planned what she was going to say. “i didn’t get your name,” she landed on.
the librarian was looking at her with raised eyebrows and slightly parted lips. “oh,” she said. “it’s azzi.”
paige nodded. “azzi. that’s pretty.”
azzi smiled, still clearly a little bewildered that paige had run back into the library just for that.
“cool,” paige said, unsure of what to do next. “well. see ya.” she turned on her heel to leave, face so on fire she was worried it might melt off.
“i get off at 5!” azzi called after her.
paige’s heart leapt into her throat. no way this was her luck today.
she turned halfway around to give azzi the biggest, chillest, most nonchalant grin she could muster. “sounds good. i’ll see you then.”
azzi gave her a different kind of smile, lips pushed together and the apples of her cheeks a little redder. “okay,” she said.
paige turned back around and left the building before she did something stupid like burst into a fit of giggles.
when they were back on the sidewalk, mila piped up. “auntie paige,” she said. “can you put me down now?”