Every time she'd ever summoned him, she'd kissed him. This time, Geneva hadn't and Adrian was going out of his mind with need for her. Was this some sort of test? If so, he could feel himself failing it. She kept distracting him with strange empty looks that made him want to cradle her to his chest. Broken hallowed eyes that, when they start to swell with something familiar and joyous, she would purposely crush down.

While she seemed to struggle with her personal demons, she asked him about his. It was sickening, really, to know how little he existed outside of his work. And her. 

Adrian didn't want to tell her about Brian Ruiz because he knew that Geneva would be upset. She already looked upset about something else, he didn't want to add to her burden. Perhaps it was Elizabeth Crenshaw. The last time he saw the blonde, she'd summoned him the old way, but wishing for Death with every fiber of her being, so thoroughly, that he could not resist the call. But he couldn't take her. Geneva would never forgive him.

"Why aren't we...In your room?" Adrian managed as they browsed the table of new arrivals. He could feel his cheeks warming at the question. 

"I...wanted to learn more about you. You know, before we go any further," she said. Her face was angled down to peruse a flashy new book so he couldn't see her expression to decide if she was lying or not.

"What more do you want to know, Geneva? You know I would tell you anything," Adrian admitted. 

The way Geneva looked up at him, face full of surprise and doubt, cut him more than she knew. Did she question his sincerity? He'd never lied to her before, not even when he should have. That empty look had returned to her eyes and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. Not that she wasn't allowed to feel out of sorts, but rather, he wanted to bear her troubles with her, shoulder her burdens, and fix her problems.

"Where in the library do you go?"

"What?" He was just staring at her, as if he could see into her if he looked long enough. Adrian was concentrating so hard, that he didn't hear what Geneva was saying, or that she was talking to him until she turned that lovely oval face up and looked at him expectantly.

"I said, where in the library do you go?" She made a sweeping gesture with her hand and, encompassing half of the large open space with it. "As in, where do you like to go. What genre? No, wait, let me guess. History? No...Science!" 

She was starting to get that look of jubilation back, not much of it, but enough to make her eyes flash to life. Adrian found himself smiling at her, grinning like a fool. He couldn't resist smiling when she was smiling too.

"Both. But I like History for a different reason than I like Science. Here, let me show you," Adrian said and led her up the marble steps to a floor devoted to local history. 

"My father worked in this area a long long time ago. Some of the books he saved from the fire that killed him are kept here, partially charred. I like to visit them because they remind me of him," Adrian revealed to here a back room where seven singed oversized books were kept behind a glass case with a plaque memorializing a Arthur Wilder.

Geneva leaned in and murmured, "Wilder. Adrian Wilder," she said his surname as if she were testing it, tasting it, and he wondered if she liked it. He wanted her approval, he knew, but he wasn't going to tell her so or bring attention to his ridiculous urge to fish for praise from her. In order to keep himself from doing so, he continued on.

"It's ironic, really. My father risked his life to save these books. And here they sit, unopened, behind a case no one visits but me," Adrian said.

Geneva did the unthinkable. She turned to look at him, cast him a mischievous look that sent his heart thumping erratically. She watched him as she pulled a pin from her mass of lovely curls, and a metal nail file from her purse. "Keep an eye out," she said to him before turning her attention toward a standard lock on the side of the case. 

"God, what are you doing?"Adrian demanded. His heart was pounding. She excited him so much, in every way. Her body, most definitely, but her fearlessness, her utter compassion, and her stubbornness. She didn't answer him, her brows were furrowed with concentration. It took her eight minutes before she gave up. Laughing. Her laugh was a beautiful thing, all on its own.

"It looks so easy in the movies," she explained and leaned her head on the glass. 

"I have more respect for lock picks and thieves. It would have been an interesting skill for you to possess. Cupid, unrivaled archer, lock picker," said Adrian, smiling ear to ear as Geneva blew gently at the lock to dispel the metal dust she left behind. She gave him a scrunched up look at that.

"I'm not a very good shot, actually. I hit more trees than people," she admitted.

"That explains all those tree hugging hippies," Adrian replied, teasing. She smiled, gaping at him, then punched him lightly in the arm to retaliate.

"The 60s was a hard time for me, okay? I was just starting out! I'd never seen a bow and arrow outside of The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn!" Geneva exclaimed. Even though she managed to keep her voice down to Library standards, Adrian still looked around the nearly abandoned section to see if anyone was listening or watching.

"God, I was just joking. That was you?" Adrian asked her, incredulous and trying to stifle his laughter behind his hand.

"Of course it was me. I was still in training. They let me loose on all those poor people. 1967," she said with an embarrassed groan, "the Summer of Love, they called it."

Adrian laughed, unrestrained and was shushed by Geneva. She clung to him and buried her embarrassment in his chest. "It's not funny!" She declared, muffled and warm into his shirt front.

He looked down, his view of her shielded by her curly hair. But she was so close to him and even though she was embarrassed and groaning, he could hear the smile in her voice. His arms reached out, careful not to touch her, to wrap around her shoulders and hold her in place. Her hair smelled of coconut oil, he'd seen a jar of it on her vanity. But she smelled sweet and spicy too, like baked goods and chai tea and summer bouquets.

Geneva squirmed and pulled back and he released her immediately, taking a step back and tucking his hands behind his back like a proper gentleman. Geneva stepped back too and turned her gaze to the singed books. She peered at them as if really studying them and then her eyes widened and she turned back to him with a little smile.

"Hey, put on something more modern. I know what to do," she said. "I'll be right back," she added before she left the room and he heard the taps of her boots on her way down those marble steps. 

He changed his clothes. He'd tried successfully various times before, but since that time many months ago when Geneva stared distraught at his modern attire and appearance at the bar, he made it a point to appear to her only in the clothes she first met him in. But she'd requested this. And so he reformed his doublet and into a dark gray tee shirt, his breeches into dark fitted jeans, and turned his riding boots into converses like the ones he saw Brian wear.

By the time he was done, Geneva had returned. He assumed she wanted him to change so that he could be visible so he didn't try to use his powers to hide himself from view. The older woman who walked with her looked at Adrian and smiled sweetly.

The woman, a librarian, was in her late sixties. She wore a long cotton skirt that flowed side to side when she walked soundlessly across the carpeted floor. She had a notebook with her and a ring of keys that she fisted so they didn't jangle. When she reached Adrian, she put her silver rimmed glasses on from where they dangled at her neck from a colorful beaded lariat. 

"Oh! Well, these books are on the Safe Handling side of our library. Why don't you kids have a seat and I'll bring them over for you," said the older woman.

Geneva took Adrian's arm and pulled him over to the larger area where there were tables and one other person sitting quietly by the periodical machines looking at old newspapers and jotting down notes. 

"What did you tell her?" Adrian asked in a whisper.

"I told her the truth. I'm a writer and I was interested in these old books, she was the one who offered to take them out for me," Geneva said, offering up a triumphant grin.

"You're amazing," he replied, shaking his head.

The librarian returned, pushing a cart with all seven slightly burned books. She laid it out in front of them with gloved hands to protect the books. And because she was equal parts librarian and historian, she retold the tail of Arthur Wilder. Some parts, she got wrong. But Adrian wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise and she was so engaging, and Adrian missed hearing his father's name mentioned, that he was enrapt.

"Arthur Wilder is a local hero. Soon after his death, his wife died of heartbreak. It's really too bad what happened to his son," the librarian said and Adrian stiffened.

Before he could stop her, he heard Geneva ask, "What happened to his son?"

"He killed himself, or so they say. Adrian Wilder. Never found the body. Drained the river for him, searched the woods for him too. His last journal entry is very telling. We used to have it here in storage, but its gone now. Misplaced it years and years ago." 

He could feel Geneva's eyes boring into him but he couldn't manage to look at her. Instead, he smiled stiffly at the librarian who slowly turned the pages of a medical encyclopedia that his father had saved from a fiery death, continuing on about his fallen family tree.

______________________________

Author's Note:

Well, hullo there beautiful. Or, Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

Anyway, sleepless corniness aside, here's chapter 18. This is really amazing. at this point, I think this may be the most chapters I've written. When I go back to editing it, there will be a ton of changes. Some of which will be combining chapters. Even so, still a lot of chapters!

I hope you guys enjoyed this installment. I wanted you all to know a little more about Adrian. You've learned in previous chapters what life altering situations made a Cupid. I'm hinting toward situations that make Reapers. 

I'm still working on fleshing this out. I have a thousand loose ends to just flapping in the wind and I'm trying my best to get to them, I promise! If you spot any inconsistencies, especially glaring ones, please don't hesitate to let me know. I forget things easily these days.

I love you all and thank you SO much for reading, voting, and commenting. I honestly appreciate it. 

Also, I have written just enough of this chapter to equal 1967. :)