Page 12 of Summer Reading

I watched as he lifted the glass to his lips, which were puckered ever so slightly. I glanced away. Staring is rude, you know, and I imagined that ogling a librarian was even worse than that. Sort of like checking out a nun. I picked up my own glass and took another sip. The hint of vanilla was subtle, but it mellowed the tartness of the lemon perfectly. I really thought I had a winner here.

“This is good,” Ben said. He glanced at me and nodded. “Really good.”

“Not too girlie?” I asked. “I don’t want to be reinventing the appletini.”

He laughed. “It’s not as macho as a scotch neat, but the lemon provides a nice punch. So I’d say it’s no more girlie than a mojito. It’s the name that’ll clinch it. You need a very gender-neutral name.”

“I was thinking of calling it Liquid Sunshine,” I said. I frowned. “That will never fly with the XY chromosomal set.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. ‘You need something more manly, like Scorched Earth.”

“Sounds delicious,” I said. “I’m imagining subtle notes of ash.”

“And dirt,” he added with a laugh. It was a good laugh.

We sipped our drinks and watched the world go by for a moment. Mr. Dutton had finished his lawn and put his mower away. The silence should have been awkward since I really didn’t know hot librarian guy at all, but surprisingly, it felt comfortable having him sit here. I glanced at him, and he seemed perfectly at ease, relaxed in his chair, his glass held loosely in one hand. It belatedly occurred to me that despite his easygoing manner, this obviously wasn’t a social visit, and he probably had a reason for dropping by.

“I’m guessing you aren’t here just to be my cocktail taste tester,” I said.

He grimaced. “Sadly, no. I’m here to see how Tyler is doing.”

“Doing?” I repeated. I had a sudden feeling of foreboding. Had I messed up this teen-watching thing already? We were only a day in. “As far as I know, he’s okay. I mean I’m watching him for the next six weeks since our parents, well, our dad and his mom, I have a different mom, are away in Europe. We’re actually half siblings.”

Ben blinked. I knew I was talking too fast and info dumping all over him—he probably heard the beep of a truck backing up over my words—but I couldn’t seem to stop the insipid chatter.

“Honestly, I don’t know anything about teenage boys,” I confessed. “I think Tyler’s okay, but he’s not talking to me at the moment and has merely grunted atme since he left the library, you know, after the... er... misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, I think I might know what fueled that,” he said.

I sat up straighter. “I’m listening.”

“Apparently, while I was talking to you, there was an altercation in the robotics room.”

“Altercation?”

“Ryan Fielding, who is the head instructor of the robotics camp, told me there was a disagreement and another student pushed Tyler down,” Ben said.

“What?” I jumped to my feet. “Are you telling me some bully put his hands on my brother? Who was it? Because I will march over to his house and demand to speak to his parents—”

“Her parents,” he said.

“Her pa—wait... what?”

“The student Tyler got into an altercation with was a girl named Amber Davis,” he said.

I stared at Ben. My brother got trounced by a girl. This was bad, and on so many levels. I wondered how far my dad and Stephanie were into their trip, because this situation was well above my pay grade and they could just turn their tail feathers around and come deal with it.

“A girl?” I asked just to make sure I was getting it right before I had a complete freak-out. “Tyler had an altercation with a girl?”

“Yes.”

I took a huge swallow of my beverage.

“Just to be clear,” Ben said. “Tyler handled it perfectly.”

“Okay.”

“He pointed out to Amber the potential difficulties in the design she was presenting, and she responded by knocking him down in front of the entire team.”

---