Checking Out Love by R. Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

Jeremy having this conversation with him. “I thought you were…” he began, then tightened his mouth and frowned in earnest. “My family’s library is not be sullied.”
    Sullied . Jeremy let his bag hit the floor. “Oh my God,” he exhaled in wonder. Benj had thought about him, had hopes about him. He needed more. “It’s a great library, but it’s not the Library of Alexandria, dude.”
    “Dude,” Benj repeated, nose wrinkled in disgust. His fierce glare fixed Jeremy to the spot, not that Jeremy was going anywhere. “He could have damaged the journal. Who knows what else he might have done if I hadn’t been there, all for the sake of his terrible airport fiction.”
    He was such a fucking beast. Jeremy lost his breath. “I bet his book isn’t that bad,” he tried anyway. He’d never had to work to piss someone off before. This was new. A good new.
    Benj gave him a stare of total disbelief and then came forward. He held up his fingers to illustrate his points. “His mysteries are easily solvable if you pay attention. He uses historical facts to add depth to his shallow plots, and to make his readers feel smarter. It’s a cheap trick worthy of a Nicholas Cage movie. His characters are all boring, mediocre, middle-aged white men, who turn out to be the only ones in the whole world who can solve the mysteries. The women resemble no women I know. He overuses the word “nape” and for some reason it drives me up a wall.” Jeremy almost smiled at that one, but Benj wasn’t done. “And once you know the twist at the end, the mystery itself is meretricious.”
    “Dude.” Jeremy licked his mouth when Benj stopped a foot or two from him. “Did you use ‘meretricious’ in a sentence? Is this Sherlock Holmes?”
    “You keep calling me dude .” Benj leveled an even more displeased stare at him.
    Jeremy leaned against the stacks. “Guess I missed the part where you introduced yourself as Leland Barrett, IV.” He tilted his head up and waited.
    That stopped him. Benj went still, which was not what Jeremy wanted.
    Benjamin, or Leland, dropped his gaze to the floor, then raised his head. “My name is Leland Benjamin Barrett. With so many Lelands in one family, everyone has called me Benjamin, or Benj, since I was a kid.” He darted a look at Jeremy that Jeremy didn’t understand. “You didn’t know the first time. You kept referring to me as a monster.” He talked over the small, stupid noise Jeremy made in a not-quite apology. “Then I thought you’d figured it out. I thought you didn’t mind. You bought me coffee.”
    He wasn’t pleading, exactly, but his hush was no longer angry.
    Jeremy answered him, just as softly. “This place is amazing, you know. I meant that.”
    Benj gave him a more direct stare. “You said—”
    “I said it wasn’t an ancient famed library.” Jeremy waved his hands. “It’s not. But it’s still amazing. I would have come back here even if I hadn’t been fascinated by the librarian.”
    Benj huffed a breath, then crossed his arms. “I don’t understand you,” he declared at last, sounding disgruntled about it.
    “That happens a lot with me,” Jeremy agreed sympathetically.
    Benj lifted his head and narrowed his eyes. He seemed angry again. “This isn’t a joke.”
    Jeremy lifted both of his eyebrows. “I never said it was. I can relay our whole conversation back to you though, if you want.”
    “Why are you so smart?” Benj startled him by dragging his hands through his hair. He seemed genuinely upset about how quick Jeremy was, and Jeremy felt his heart sink a little.
    He tried to keep his tone light anyway. “Don’t ask me. It’s the bane of my existence.”
    When he shrugged, Benj grew louder. “Don’t say that. It’s a gift!” he insisted, almost growling. Jeremy watched him, bemused and aroused and generally hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food. Benjamin was kind of strangely hilarious and incredibly sexy at the same time.
    “I