Working in the library had never been a part of Paul's master grad school plan. He was a chemist through and through. At the beginning of the fall semester he was gathering materials for the class he taught and he saw her. She was tiny, and cute, and very librarian-y. The day they met she was wearing a black pencil skirt and a pale pink blouse with puffy sleeves and an argyle patterned black and pink and white sweater vest layered over top. He had immediately wanted to set down the stack of journals he'd been gathering and take off her glasses to see what her face looked like without the rhinestone studded cat-eyed rims. He saw her name was "Brynn" because of the name tag attached to the sweater vest. He turned the name over and over again in his mind.
The library was small and not very well used except by chemistry students and professors on weekends and evenings. During the day it was nearly silent. He realized she was looking at him and that he had been staring. He panicked, looking all around for something else to focus on. His eyes landed on a "help wanted" sign behind her and in a moment of impulse and relief went up to her and asked for an application. True, he was a graduate assistant and had a scholarship, but he could always use a little extra income, and working with all the books and journals he so loved was a giant perk. Plus, there was Brynn. Brynn handed him an application from a stack on the desk and asked him if he had any library experience. "No" he admitted awkwardly, but then brightened "but I am a chemist. That has to be useful, right?" She smiled brilliantly at him and told him to bring back the application to her when he was finished. He took it to his carrel along with the stack of Analytical Chemistry and Pure and Applied Chemistry journals. All the time he was filling out the application he kept thinking of her pale skin with just a smattering of freckles...he thought about her classy brass nametag perched just above her small but perfect breast, "Brynn." He thought about how good that name would be to whisper in bed with her perched at the top of his cock, about to slide herself down him. He couldn't even look at her when he turned in the application and checked out some books. He was gone.
He got the job and then suddenly Brynn was in charge of training him. He was spending hours talking to her and letting her tell him what to do. That whole week went quickly and was filled with easy camaraderie of two people who saw eye to eye on a number of things. Not the least of which was the fact that they were attracted to each other. The branch library coordinator, Von, had been skeptical about hiring Paul. But, the head science librarian and Brynn had ganged up saying that the library already had enough librarians and needed more chemists working there. Brynn getting her masters of library science and had no real interest in chemistry. The chem. library gig was just something to add to her resume when she graduated and started looking for "a real job." The head librarian was knowledgeable about chemistry research and resources but was spread thin between all of the small science libraries on campus. Paul was suddenly invaluable in helping her order books and journals and databases and his input was often needed on the most mundane of things.
After a few weeks it became obvious Paul was now the golden boy. Brynn started to get a little pissed. Sure Paul had subject knowledge, but she was the one who had been doing the more true information management tasks. And she should be the one doing the more specialized projects, creating bibliographies, arranging the books, organizing the web site, but suddenly she was finding herself with much more "busy work" and much less real work to do. So she silently fumed and shelved books, shifted collections from one area to another, and shelf read.
Paul didn't know what had happened exactly but suddenly Brynn didn't talk to him anymore. Initially when they'd been training she'd been really inviting and warm. She'd even asked him to come out sometime with her friends to a weekly bar gathering, but he'd been too nervous to actually show. But, now she was cold. And in some ways that made her sexier. When he asked her a question she gave him short quiet barks of answers. And so he imagined her telling him to touch her there--no! there! lighter!-- rather than telling him that he had to fill out the forms in triplicate and then walking away quickly. He was a little disgusted with himself that he fantasized about her so much. There was something about her that screamed SEX! to him. But, he knew that she was someone he could talk to and everything she said was extremely intelligent. He still felt pangs over focusing so much on his physical attraction to her.
He watched her when she was busy, trying to catch her off guard in the stacks and ask her what was wrong. But Sher, the head science librarian, was constantly pestering him when he was working. Even if she was in another branch library she would call and email him all during his shift. She always wanted to know his opinion on everything. He really only worked at the library an hour or two every day so since training ended his time with Brynn was just too short. Then came the day he was in the library studying until it closed. He was only a week or two away from his qualifying exams and needed to get his shit together. Brynn came by to remind him that the library hours were over.
On a whim, hoping he could get back into her good graces he asked her if he could help out with the closing duties. She smiled her first real smile at him in weeks and nodded. He'd shooed out the students who didn't want to leave. They were the ones like him who were also facing major life changing exams and needed all the library time they could get. Then he locked the door and flicked all the light switches to off and said, "Brynn, can we talk?" It took all his courage to say just those words, but now that he was going he didn't even wait for her response. He rushed forward with, "I want you." Then he saw her shocked face, and said "I mean, I want us to be okay. I don't know what is going on but I don't want a part of it. I liked it much better when you would talk to me." Only the way he said all this involved a lot of stammering and blushing and looking at his feet.
Brynn had been standing behind the circulation desk when he made his "I want you" declaration. As he talked she came out from behind it and stood in front of him for a second looking up, way up, considering his serious gray eyes. "I'm sorry. You're right. What happens with Sher and me isn't your fault," she said. And then, because it felt right and because she wanted to she leaned up into him. He leaned down and he put his arms around her and he kissed her. Then he backed away, ran his hand through his shaggy dark hair and started to stammer...again... She had figured out by then that he'd be the nervous sort, the kind that never makes a first move. Her attraction to him had made him taking over so much of her job even harder on her. She knew now, just by looking at him, he had no idea that she didn't normally spend two or more hours a day on stuff that the undergraduate workers could do in their sleep. He didn't know he was stealing her job and possibly hurting her career. It would be up to her to deal with Sher's shrinking her responsibilities...later.
