💖 Shhh… I Think I Like You

Isla Tran had three rules for surviving her job at the city library:

Never judge a patron by their overdue fines.

Hide in the archives whenever a school trip arrived.

Under no circumstances fall in love with anyone who talked loudly in the reading room.

So of course the universe sent her exactly that.

Tuesday afternoon was supposed to be quiet. The rain outside drummed gently against the tall arched windows, the air smelled of paper and dust and a bit of lemon cleaner, and Isla was reshelving returns in the 800s—her favorite section. Literature. Stories. People who existed on the page and therefore couldn’t suddenly invade her personal space.

“Excuse me!” someone stage-whispered behind her.

The whisper was the volume of a normal human shout.

Isla closed her eyes, inhaled, then turned.

A man stood there in a damp denim jacket and a graphic T-shirt that said BOOKS & BAD DECISIONS. His hair was dark and messy in a “I swear I didn’t try but maybe I did” way, and his smile was the kind that came with a warning label.

He was also holding a cup of coffee.

“Food and drink aren’t allowed past the front desk,” she said automatically.

“Oh. Sorry.” He looked at the cup, then at her, then, disastrously, at the nearest shelf. “Should I… hide it? I can hide it.”

“Please don’t smuggle contraband cappuccino into the Russian poetry section,” she said. “Just drink it before you go in.”

He took a sip, eyes still on her. “Multitasking.”

Isla tried not to notice that his eyes were annoyingly nice—brown with a golden ring near the pupil, like someone had dropped sunlight in and forgotten to take it back.

“Was there something you needed?” she asked.

“Right, yes.” He shifted his weight, the picture of someone who had not planned this interaction past “say hi.” “Do you have any books on… I don’t know, curses? Spells? Summoning dark forces to destroy people who talk too loudly in libraries?”

She blinked. “Do you know someone like that?”

He grinned. “I’m just doing research on behalf of a friend.”

“For fiction or for prison?” she said.

“Optimistically, fiction.”

She fought a smile and mostly lost. “Occult section is in the 200s. Realistically, what are you actually looking for?”

His face did a quick flicker—joking to sheepish. “Okay, fine. I’m… trying to write something. A mystery. I need, like, books about libraries. And dead bodies. Preferably not at the same time. Actually, maybe at the same time. That’d be fun.”

“You’re writing a library murder mystery,” she summarized.

“Allegedly,” he said. “Right now it’s more of a collection of vibes and a playlist.”

“Do you know where our mystery section is?” she asked.

“I was just going to wander around until a plot hit me in the face.”

“That explains the T-shirt,” she murmured.

He laughed, delighted. “Wow, she has jokes. What’s your name, library assassin?”

“Isla,” she said. “With an ‘s’, not a ‘z’. And I’m not an assassin. I’m an assistant.”

“Gabe,” he offered. “With a ‘G’, not a ’… actually, there’s no alternative letter there. Just Gabe.”

“Follow me, Just Gabe,” she said, turning toward the stairs. “Lower floor. Crime section. Try not to spill coffee on the way, our janitor cries when he sees stains on the marble.”

“Noted.” He walked beside her, slightly too close but not close enough for her to call HR. “So, Isla-with-an-‘s’, do you work here full-time or are you secretly writing your own murder mystery about an annoying patron named Gabe?”

“Only in my head,” she said. “In that version, you die in the first chapter because you ignore the ‘Silence Please’ signs.”

“Aw, at least make me the charming red herring.”

“You’d have to be charming for that.”

He put a hand to his heart. “Cruel. I like you.”

Isla almost tripped on the last step.

“I mean, like I like your energy,” he corrected quickly. “Your… librarian aura. You know, calm and vaguely threatening.”

“Better,” she said. “This way.”

In the crime section, she showed him a cart of staff recommendations. “These are good if you want to see how other authors did it,” she said. “Strong sense of place. Good pacing. Minimal clichés.”

He looked impressed. “So you read all of these?”

“That’s usually how recommending works,” she said.

“Right, sorry. I just—this is cool. It’s like having a human algorithm but less creepy.”

She wasn’t used to patrons looking at her like she was interesting. Mostly they looked at her like she was a walking search bar.

Gabe picked up one of the books and flipped it over. “Okay, how about a challenge.”

“No,” she said immediately.

“You don’t know what the challenge is yet.”

“I can feel it radiating off you.”

He grinned. “Recommend me three books that will (a) make me want to actually finish my own, and (b) prove that libraries are inherently spooky and romantic.”

“Spooky and romantic,” she repeated. “That’s oddly specific.”

“It’s my brand,” he said solemnly.

She crossed her arms, considering. “Fine. But if you don’t like them, you’re not allowed to complain on the internet.”

“I would never slander my favorite introvert online.”

“I’m not your—” she started, then stopped. “Whatever. First book: The Shadow of the Wind. Big dramatic bookshop, secrets, Barcelona, very moody.”

“Sold,” he said.

“Second: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Not about a library, but the way it deals with memory and stories, you might like it. Third…” She scanned the shelf, fingers trailing over spines. “…The Library at Mount Char if you want to see what truly chaotic library energy looks like.”

He accepted the stack reverently. “Okay, these are my homework. In return, I’ll put you in my acknowledgments when I inevitably win something.”

“What if your book is terrible?” she asked.

“Then I’ll just write ‘Thank you to Isla, who tried.’”

She snorted. “Very kind.”

“Hey, can I—” He paused, searching her face. “Is it okay if I come back and, like, bother you again? With progress updates? Or questions about how to kill someone with a bookend?”

“That’s extremely specific,” she said.

“I’m committed to accuracy.”

She hesitated. The safe thing was to say no. To point at rule three. To retreat back into the quiet stack where fictional people behaved better than real ones.

Instead, she heard herself say, “Fine. But if you’re too loud, I will personally reshelve you.”

His smile lit up like he’d just won something. “Deal.”

As he headed upstairs, still balancing coffee and murder research, Isla watched him go and told herself this was fine.

She was just helping a patron. A chaotic, caffeinated, unpredictably charming patron.

And besides, she thought, hugging a cart of books for no reason at all, what were the odds that her “Do not fall for loud people in libraries” rule would actually be tested?