2020-05-12 - Woodworking and Milton

It's twenty minutes till closing, and the library's yet to shake loose its last loiterer. Sturdy fellow in a leather jacket and dark, snug-fitting jeans whose identity is somewhat (but not really) obscured beneath the brim of a ratty ballcap he hasn't bothered to tug off. He's rummaging through the section of literature marked 800-895, and currently has a volume of work by Milton slid out and cracked open. A couple of books are tucked under one arm; the top one appears to be To the Moon and Beyond.

It's not frequent, but now and then Harper sends her assistant librarians home and closes the place herself. Tonight is one of those nights. She's nearly done with the last pass of the night, prepping the godawful-slow computers along the back wall to be shut down. She's picked up in the children's section, tucking away picture books that are strewn about on little chairs and tables. Next comes gathering books discarded here and there by adults to be re-shelved first thing in the morning. Somewhere along the way, she checks the bathrooms for lingerers, then starts checking in with the few folks who are using the last nineteen minutes to live their best library lives.

A man in the literature section. A man wearing a ball cap. Harper passes by the other end of that row once and then slowly backs up for a second look. Does he look familiar? A ridiculous number of the local population looks familiar to Harper, hushed as the space might be on this late spring evening. Pivoting on the toe of one red pump, Harper strolls down the row toward where the man is buried in his personal literary pursuit.

"A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n," she quotes idly after seeing the Milton held in a strong hand. Her gaze travels slowly up the attached arm to the shadowed line of the man's profile and thus a smile is born. "I thought it was you. It's Javier, isn' t it?"

Does he look familiar? Indubitably. That dished, foreign profile and the cut of his jaw, the scruffy beard sporting as much silver as red, in some schizophrenic defiance of the nearly black hair on his head. Town like this, there aren't a hell of a lot of middle-aged Mexican men. Even fewer, one might wager, who've an interest in Milton. That, or he was looking for the picture books section and got lost.

"Javier, yeah," he confirms, mouth skewing into a quick smile in riposte as the book's thumped shut, and his thoughts dragged back from wherever they'd been. "What matter where," is her rejoinder as he slots the tome back into its rightful place on the shelf, "if I be still the same? And what I should be, all but less than he, whom thunder hath made greater?" His accent tangles a few of the consonants, and bathes deeply, langorously in the vowels.

"Miss Price, right? We, uh, met at the.. birthday. Bennie's birthday." Without the book to distract, he has the opportunity to take in the younger woman from top to toes, which he does unabashedly. It's not particularly lewd, the way those dark eyes trail her, but one would have to be blind not to spot the hunter's intensity in his keen sight. He pauses on the bright red pumps, gaze returning to her face after a protracted beat or two.

It's almost as if the harsh, craggy lines of the man soften the focus on Harper until she's simply a (genuine) smile surrounded by books. It is Javier. She didn't misremember what Joseph said. It's hard to say whether she's just good with minutia or if there is some intention to the recollection. The librarian settles back on her heels, shifting her weight to one hip while crossing one arm across her slender torso and propping the other elbow there as she listens to the man recite Milton back at her, a knuckle grazing beneath her chin. "So I take it you'd prefer to reign, Captain?" The assumption is playful.

All those little jigsaw pieces. She keeps them jealously together and idly tries them in different combinations for her own amusement. Her voice, although pleasant, is easily a background murmur, simple enough to overlook for want of something more dramatic or dangerous. "Please do feel invited to spout literature at me as long as you like. I might entirely forget the time and while away the hours in the halls of your delightful accent and wealthy education."

Miss Price? "Yes. Harper, if you like." Though points go to the Captain for remembering her preferred form of address. As for where they met? That subject lights a flicker of amusement behind her brown eyes. "I think we've been in the very slow process of meeting one another over the past few weeks. You do get around town, don't you." Not really a question at all. "We actually nearly danced a whole set at Bennie's birthday." Ruiz and his boys. If Harper is bothered by the intense once-over, it doesn't show in either her demeanor or her stance. She might take the few extra moments to flicker an assessing look in return over the imposing figure in front of her.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" If one didn't know how harmless the woman is, it might be translated as a scandalous question. But, then, it is her job.

To be entirely fair, the way he pronounces it, there's a touch more throaty inflection on the first syllable. Not that he bothers pointing this out; his focus, instead, is on the librarian in the flouncy skirt and pumps that put her almost on par with him for height. If a good thirty or fourty pounds lighter, by the looks of him. "No lo harían todos?" he returns with a low, warm chuckle, hefting the books under his arm, glancing at his watch. Seven minutes to closing and, "My education would heavily disappoint you, Miss-" But then he realises she's corrected him, and he rolls his jaw, a flash of his tongue sliced across canines that are sharper than they ought to be.

"Harper." Another smile; this one teases out a dimple, and he confides in a smoke-roughened murmur, "I do like." His phone buzzes somewhere in a pocket of his jacket, ignored. He doesn't flinch under the return scrutiny, nor avert his gaze. Just that steady, sloe-lidded regard; he has all night, even if she's only got seven minutes. "I, uh, actually, yeah.." He digs in his jeans pocket, leather jacket crunching with the movement, and fishes out a slip of crumpled paper that's summarily handed over. Energiya-Buran: the Soviet Space Shuttle, is scribbled on it, along with an ISBN.

The direct Spanish tips her brows up, followed directly by a rueful smile. "And this is where I regret the Latin and Greek and wish I'd studied a less archaic romance language. So much regret, Javier." Words that imply a confidence preface the smile that lives in her warm brown eyes and behind her mildly animated features more than it actually lingers upon her lips. His body language tells a story; and Harper is quite enamored with stories. "I beg to differ," she answers about his education. "A man who can recite Milton off the cuff has quite a sufficient amount of education for a library tete-a-tete. At least you do, my friend. I'm a patient woman. I can wait for further proof of any variety. I'm quite certain you don't disappoint if the company you keep is any indication."

Ah. And there's her name. Her lips curve into the smallest of smiles in response only to drift to something less overt as she twists the wrist that knuckled under her chin to press her palm flat and light above her heart. "Such a simple trio of words. And yet, you'd best be careful, or I'll step on your toes with that lead." She offers up the mild reprimand with anything but a scolding demeanor. The words dissipate like mist in the sunshine as the silence stretches. This doesn't seem to bother the librarian in the slightest.

With those demonstrative fingers, Harper reaches for the crumpled paper, her other arm dropping away from her chest. She lifts her gaze without lifting her chin, regarding the man under her lashes a moment before looking back to the title on the paper. "Give me a moment, Javier." Harper drifts away, swallowed up by the Dewey Decimal system in search of the nearest computer. A bit of tapping at the keys and she murmurs something to herself and winds around the end of one row and down another, crouching down in a flutter of blue material and tracing her finger along a row of books. Sure enough, she returns, if the man didn't follow, with a black-covered book whose cover shows the lift-off of a space shuttle on its telltale booster. "I'm hoping this will improve Joe's health and well-being. He didn't look at all well the other night." She arches a brow and extends the book toward Ruiz.

As to her regret, he's disposed to counter with yet more Spanish; it's offered warmly, huskily, and with no small measure of amusement: "Hay cosas mejores por delante que las que dejamos atrás." No further argument as to his education or lack thereof, unless one counts the noncommittal mm that loiters in his throat and the deeply grooved crow's feet sketched at the corners of his eyes.

And then the slip of paper's changing hands; from weathered, swarthy, ink-scrawled fingers to her far more delicate ones. He watches her eyes, and then her mouth when she tells him to be careful, as if in flagrant disregard for that reprimand that isn't. "Okay," comes out a little sing-songy, and sure enough, he does follow her over to the computer. Moves like he looks; like a hunter of men, prowlish and spare. And when the book's retrieved and handed over, a softly murmured gracias as it's collected into his hand. He spares a glance for it, slots it in with the other two under his arm.

"No, he's.. recovering. He likes to read. Old people, you know." You know. Like he himself isn't edging ever closer to fifty. Another glance at his watch tells him that, "I've kept you late. I should get the fuck out of your hair."

Ruiz ups the stakes with more Spanish. Harper is less surprised than she is beguiled. "I think I take back what I said about quoting literature. There might be something better, if a bit less evident." Once Harper has more of a purpose than wasting the saturnine man's time, she is efficient and purposeful. Side by side, they are an unlikely combination, but Harper is relentless in her idiosyncratic pursuits, stubbornly wrestling what she wants from the uncooperative world at large. Beside the predation Ruiz wears like a second skin, Harper flaunts her effervescent demeanor like a favorite dress.

"You're welcome, of course," Harper replies dryly, poking fun at her own simplistic skills translating Spanish. Most of the other patrons have exited the premises now, but Harper doesn't look as though she is in any rush to shove the police captain out the door. "Old people?" Harper laughs, hardly a shiver of breath before she shakes her head slowly, "On the handful of occasions the commander and I have conversed, he's been more full of life than most of my 'young' acquaintances. But if you say he is recovering, I will be content enough." As for her hair, Harper arches a brow, "I'd be happy to check those out for you, Javier," she offers, gesturing with a splay of fingertips toward the books he is holding. "My hair is fuck-less this evening," she states with startling candor. "But you certainly don't have to remain in it. That would be quite the opposite of what I want the library to be: dragging people down and tangling up so many tiresome social norms with the pursuit of pleasure and knowledge."

By the looks of him, he's got plenty of time, and none of it's wasted where this conversation's concerned. He takes a shoulder against the bookcase they've ended up conversing in front of, and continues to drink her in steadily while she speaks; like he's trying to puzzle something out about her.

"I didn't say anything about what he's full of." There's something irreverent loitering just under the surface of that cheeky smile, but he has perhaps just enough tact not to say it. Instead, the stack of books is hefted out from under his arm, and passed across to the younger woman. The book she'd found him, on top. Then To the Moon and Beyond. And lastly, Woodworking for Dummies. "Do you think I find you tiresome, Harper?" He struggles a little with her name; his tongue wants to roll the *r*s, but it makes no lexographic sense. Pushing off the bookcase eventually, hands shoved into his jacket's pockets, his dark eyes take another little trip to see her shoes. The scenic route, and then back up to her eyes. And then, remembering that she'll need his card, he goes digging for that, too.

Under scrutiny and held up against some unspoken standard, Harper regards Ruiz with some measure of expectation that somehow belies more typical social cartography, entirely comfortable and pleasantly intrigued with the moments of perceptive silence. Most people don't look at Harper and see a puzzle. Her presented image clicks too many boxes, inviting quick verdicts.

"But would you even if I asked?" Harper inquires playfully of what Joseph may or may not be full of. She holds out her arms to take the pile of books easily and hugs them loosely to her chest. "Right then." She pivots to lead the way over to the main circulation desk that is perhaps twenty paces from the glass doors that lead inside. She isn't in any apparent rush, and hasn't glanced at a clock since she first approached the man and interrupted his browsing.

The books are set neatly down beside the scanner and she opens them, one by one, to prepare them for said scanning. "Now isn't that an interesting question?" She pauses, tracing light fingertips across the inside cover of one of the books. "Do I think you find me tiresome?" She sways a hip in to lean up against the counter as she considers Ruiz with briefly narrowed eyes. "I would hope that you do not, but honestly I have no misconceptions that I know anything of consequence about your taste in acquaintances. You are ... an intriguing, dangerous sort of man, I think. And, well, --" She waves a hand in two lazy circles in her general space, self-indicative, "-- I enjoy what I can of life. What thoughts you might have I can only hope to influence toward the pleasant side of hell." 'Where he reigns' is implied.

She pauses to offer a sidelong, skimming smile before reaching for his card. With a glance at it to confirm some personal curiosity about his name, she then scans it and the books, one by one. Iridescent, midnight blue manicured nailed fingertips atop the card, she slides it across the counter back to Ruiz with something of an inquiring smile, prints out a due date receipt and closes the books one by one. "Woodworking. I always do woodwork while I read my John Milton." Or recite it, as they've established. "I hope you are a fast reader, Javier."

Javier, as she may or may not have surmised by now, is not most people. It's been decades since he sat behind the reticle of an M40, but the sniper's patience is something bred into him. He knows the long game, seeks it, craves it. "Of course not," is his bemused reply, on the subject of Joseph. Of the man, he's clearly very fond, despite his incessant shit-talking.

His phone buzzes again as he steps up to the counter to wait for his books to be checked out. A huff of breath through his nose, like, what bullshit now, and the thing's dug out, checked, switched off and shoved away again with him barely taking his gaze off the librarian. As if he could hold her in place like a butterfly pinned to tackboard with those dark, dark eyes. A smidge of a smile when she trots out the word hell as if he has any providence there, and then his card's finally handed over.

Except it's not his library card. It does have his name on it: Captain J. R. de la Vega, GHPD and what looks like a cell number on the back. He studies those vivid nails fanned out atop the card, shadows her a smile when she makes the quip about woodworking and Milton, as if to suggest he couldn't possibly know what she's talking about. "Books aren't for me," he reminds her low-voiced, glancing toward the door with a jut of his chin as his upper lip's sucked between his teeth. Yep, just patiently waiting for his books to be signed out.

Then it must be that Harper has paused the book check out procedure to examine the card. After a moment, and a silent, querying look, she lifts it between thumb and fingertip to tuck into her breast pocket. This is where things get complicated. Is the man expecting she'll hand over the books in highwayman fashion? She remains there, leaning in and sets her palms atop the cornered edge of the counter. She's not impervious to the weight of that practiced, patient gaze. "Not for you, of course not," as if the conception were utterly absurd. The words are slow, almost-notes in the hush of the empty library.

"I'll amend that to arrogant and dangerous," she murmurs with a hint of a sly smile in what sounds like anything but a derogatory tone of voice. "Give me a moment." She tiptaps with those fingertips against her keyboard for a few moments. "That will do." She hits enter and the computer chimes before she scans the books (this time for real, but on whose account?). The books are slowly closed, neatly stacked, and slid with both hands atop the pile to Ruiz's side of the counter. "Perhaps Bennie will be struck with a party-throwing appetite," she murmurs in that same low hush that is faintly musical, a thrum of amusement to her words, just lingering on this side of audible.

"No para mi," he repeats, warm and slow, as if to leave no mistake in the meaning of his words. Vowels lingered upon, consonants crumbled and smudged like charcoal. A lowering of his lashes to follow the tuck of the card into her pocket, and then those deep grooves reappear at the corners of his slanted eyes again. Unabashed approval. Arrogance, perhaps, as she says. "Por supuesto." Give me a moment and he's watching her mouth again, then her throat, then the stack of books pushed toward him. And, "Thank you," in English this time.

He doesn't presume to let his hand touch hers as the stack of reading material's relinquished. The impulse to do so, the fact that he could, and that he would, and that he's choosing instead to behave himself, all are conveyed in the way he watches her. The beat before he collects the books, hefts them under his arm. "Or perhaps I can make up for keeping you.." A glance at his watch. "Eighteen minutes over time, with coffee." He has a peculiar way of making that not quite a request.

No para mi. Harper mouths the words slowly, half understanding and half inferring. Still, he knows what she thinks of the accent, not to mention the language. Por supuesto. Harper breathes in a slow breath, then smiles slowly, an expression more a slow crescendo and decrescendo than a flash of the expression. "De nada," she replies with self-directed amusement: that she should try to speak Spanish to this man?

That watchful gaze has long since moved to the long game. Harper may play at casual playfulness, but there's awareness to read in her brown eyes if someone is looking for more than what is expected of an affable librarian. "I think I'm looking forward to adding more words to that list," she offers as she draws her hands back to her side of the counter. Some descriptors beyond 'arrogant' and 'dangerous'. Harper, too, looks at Ruiz's watch, a blatant devil-may-care attitude settling behind her eyes, across the line of her shoulders, in her easy lean into the counter. "You say that like I don't live for moments like th--" Eighteen minutes over time, with coffee. "What would Bennie say?" she inquires with an uptipping of her brows.

Judging by his raspy-warm chuckle, the attempt at Spanish, with amusement as its prime directive, has been a success. "Not bad," he allows. A step away from the counter, though; dark eyes on dark. It's raining outside, as usual, but his truck's parked not far from the front door. Hopefully the books won't get (too) wet. "Give me a call when you have an evening free," he tells again, rather than asks. Arrogant, or a control freak, or both?

He's about to turn and make his way out, when that last question hits him slantwise. And compels him to step back in close, free hand with its inked up knuckles slid across the counter, his face tipped in to a nearly improprietous distance. The heat of his body, the sharp scent of his soap; citrus and a faint undertone of vetiver. And his voice, a low murmur for her ears only: "I couldn't give the slightest fuck what Bennie would say." His tongue lashes his lips. "Nos vemos luego, Harper." Then he pushes off, and prowls for the door while digging out his phone, after it buzzes for the umpteenth time.