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Jack hadn’t meant to leave his napkin, scribbled with his unfinished lecture notes on special relativity, within a library book he borrowed—except he ended up doing just that.
When he comes back for it the next day, he’s confused to see an extra line at the bottom, in cursive and hard to read, and not his.
Hard time following, do better, -E :)
His eyebrows knit together as he reads the note. Then again. And again, and again, until his eyes begin to sting from staring at blue ink on the dull brown of a McDonald’s napkin for too long.
Then he notices another scribble, in dried ink blot from the mysterious person’s fountain pen, staining the relativistic addition of velocities equation he wrote.
Sorry! My pen’s been leaking like crazy lately.
Another note.
One eyebrow tugs up in amusement as he reads over the apology. His eyes trace the elegant cursive of each letter, mind noting even how the tail of the y loops before ending.
But then he snaps out of it.
He must be crazy.
His first semester as a physics professor starts in three days, and he only has a third of the lecture slides prepared for the course—he hasn’t even started on a syllabus yet!
He doesn’t have time for this—he’s about two years too old to be ogling over some random stranger’s notes on his notes.
Groaning as he sets the napkin down and takes out his phone to take a picture of it. However, when he’s done, instead of tossing it away like his subconscious was telling him to, he stuffs the napkin in his beat-up messenger bag instead. He goes to the shelf to pick up another textbook to reference his lecture notes from.
Five hours later, he manages to complete another quarter of the term’s lecture slides. Preparing a new slide deck and tabs for another lesson of slides, a light cough interrupts the flow state he mentally worked so hard to get into.
“Excuse me, sir.”
He turns to the eloquent voice, only to find that its owner—a pretty girl in a light blue cardigan and a braid over one shoulder and thick-rimmed glasses over bright blue eyes—is hovering over him.
“Yes?” His breath catches in his throat, preparing himself for the words that would come out of her delicate lips.
“I’m afraid the library is closing soon,” she explains. “And that we must ask you to leave.”
Her words stunned him into silence, because whatever sentences his mind was preparing for, it certainly wasn’t that.
He lets out a long, tired sigh and curses his idiotic brain for baiting him into thinking that the pretty woman was going to ask for his number or something… far more humiliating.
“Hello?”
“Ah, right,” he hastily gets up and shuts his laptop. “I—I’ve had a long day, you see.” He shoves papers and binders into his bag. “So I apologize that I’m a little mentally behind today.”
“Sir—”
She brings out a sleeved hand to stop him in his movements.
“Yes?” He looks back at her at a speed that must not have been good for his neck.
“I’m afraid you have to check that book out.”
He looks down at the book he was formerly in the middle of tossing mindlessly into his messenger bag.
“Oh my god,” he exclaims. His neck and ears start to heat up. “I’m so sorry, I—”
“You’re good,” she gives him a small smile, before turning to leave. “I can help you with it, just meet me at the front desk whenever you're ready.”
He forces a smile at her generosity. “Right, yes.” Then, “Thank you.”
“Yeah, anytime.”
He doesn’t go to the library again after that. At least not until he needs another textbook to reference.
The next time he comes to his university’s library, he doesn’t see her at the front desk, something he can’t help but sigh in relief at.
He takes his usual path to the physics bookshelf and takes his usual seat when he finds the textbook he’s looking for.
Today is syllabus day—it had to be, because tomorrow is the first day of the semester, in other words, syllabus day. And he’d be a fool to show up to syllabus day without a syllabus. Jackson Overland was used to making a fool of himself—his best friend Bunny would always remind him of that terrible truth—but tomorrow was not the day, especially not in front of his students and on his first day of teaching, ever.
Tomorrow, Professor Overland could not afford to fuck up, no matter how privy he is to the act of fucking up.
An hour later, he’s still stuck on the Overview section of his syllabus. So he gives up and sends Tooth an email, asking for a copy of hers—even though she taught organic chemistry, a subject that had very little to do with special relativity.
But point one is better than point zero.
Three hours later, he’s once again reached flow state in his familiar spot in the library.
“Ahem.” The same voice interrupts the clicking clacking of his fingers on the keyboard.
He looks up to the same girl he saw last time, but his reasoning finds him again, so he’s less bothered—thank god for that.
“Is it closing time?”
She nods, smiles even, then, “Glad you’re aware.”
Before she can turn around and remind the next person who’s overstaying their time, he calls out after her, “I’m going to need help checking out another book today.”
And when she turns around, her light hair flutters behind her, “Sure,” she smiles at him again. “Just bring it up to the front desk and I’ll be right there.”
He waits where she tells him to for approximately six minutes before she comes out from the shelves and walks behind the counter.
It didn’t feel like six minutes to him though.
“Find everything you need alright?”
He nods, “I really only go to one bookshelf every time I come here.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
He looks at her, really, looks at her. And smiles at her confession, “Really now?”
She shrugs, “What can I say? I’m a chronic people watcher. It’s one of the few things I can do without getting in trouble while I’m on shift. You’d be surprised how few people we get who are actually here to look for books.”
“Yeah, the internet is a lot more convenient for things like this, especially at a library with mostly only textbooks and dictionaries.”
“Well, convenience is overrated. I’d rather let the world drown in uncomfortable inefficiencies.” She hands him back his textbook at the end of her sentence.
“You’d be the only one,” and he takes it from her hands, a little slow and a little regretful that he even has to.
“I’ll see you next time?”
“Sure,” he answers, even though he knows that there really wouldn’t be a next time—at least not under the same circumstances.
The truth is, he was done with everything he needed the library for.
Yet he somehow shows up the next day, after his afternoon lectures anyway.
When he sits down at his usual table, she sits across from him this time.
“I’m not on shift right now,” she explains as if he was about to ask.
(He was.)
“Are you a student here?”
He asks her the question even though he feels some type of way at the possibility—even though he’s realistically only a couple years older than his students, it would still be really… weird.
“I’m in my last year of my PhD.”
“Oh? For what?”
“Law.”
“Impressive.”
He watches her take notes—not on a fancy tablet like everyone else, but in a leather notebook. And then he sees it: a blue-inked fountain pen.
Piquing his interest, he tries for a glimpse of her handwriting; more specifically, he looks for her y’s.
And when he sees the confirmation of what he already might have unconsciously suspected, she interrupts his thoughts.
“What’s so interesting about my writing?” There’s a teasing look in her smile and a glint in her eyes as if she’s already in on the secret he was about to get in on too.
It’s what encouraged him to ask the question he’s about to ask—because anything, anyone, else and he might have been labeled crazy.
“Do you remember leaving a note on a McDonald’s napkin?”
Yup, he wouldn’t blame her if she thought him insane.
But a knowing smile from her calms his beating heart when she nods and, “Yes, I think I remember coming across some lecture notes in one of the misplaced books on the shelves.”
“I’m actually a professor here—except it’s my first year. Your note actually helped me revise my slides,” he tells her.
“I’m glad they did. Physics is a difficult subject to teach.”
He shrugs, trying for nonchalance when he’s always been bashful with compliments. “Oh please, but law is much cooler.”
“I’m glad you think so. The first day is already kicking my ass.”
“I should let you get back to your studies.”
“It’s alright, I don’t mind.” She stops him before his hand could even touch the lid of his laptop. “I don’t mind if you also do some work here, I mean.”
He chokes on nothing, “S-Sure.”
He notices that she wraps up her work thirty minutes before closing time. She’s all packed up and ready to leave fifteen minutes earlier than the posted closing hour.
Jack’s left no choice but to do the same.
He walks her out the door, engaging in idle chit-chat, but when they say their goodbyes and she’s already halfway down the street opposite of where he’s supposed to be going, he chases and calls after her.
Because he realizes he doesn’t even know her name.