Well....

Ten minutes passed in near silence. Emily moved from shelf to shelf in the back corner of the sci-fi section, her fingers drifting over glossy covers, pulling one down, skimming a few pages, sliding it back again. Nothing grabbed her. Not really. Her mind wandered too easily, her skin too aware of itself, her shirt still clinging where it shouldn’t. She adjusted it once, then again, pretending she wasn’t checking whether the fabric had gotten more transparent or whether her nipples were still outlined as clearly as before.

She was just about to give up.

She sighed, letting her hand fall from the edge of a trade paperback whose back blurb didn’t match the promise of its cover. She stepped back.

And then—

There it was.

Low, far to the side near the floor, where the shelves narrowed again: a small paperback, worn but intact, the spine familiar from countless wishlists and recommendations. The first in a series she’d meant to read for years. Always checked out. Always missing. But here it was now, almost hidden behind a crooked metal bookend on the bottom shelf.

Emily lowered to her knees, then leaned to the side, reaching deep.

Her fingers closed around the book’s spine. It slid free with a gentle shffk, the pages slightly stuck from humidity. She smiled—actually smiled—then started to stand.

But the motion caught.

A tug, sudden and sharp.

Something yanked at the right side of her blouse.

It happened fast.

The corner of her shirt had slipped behind the wire lip of the bookend, and as she rose, it snagged deep inside one of the metal curls—tight enough that when she stood up fully, the trapped fabric resisted for a heartbeat, then gave way in a violent rip. The sound was unmistakable—RRRRRTCH!—echoing down the quiet aisle like a firecracker in a church.

Emily gasped.

Buttons popped off in sequence, pinging across the floor. One bounced off the toe of her shoe. Another disappeared beneath the nearby shelf. The entire right side of her blouse tore open, the cotton flapping loose, no longer holding shape, the edge dangling where it had been forcibly unthreaded from her body.

She stood frozen.

Chest exposed.

Completely.

Her right breast was fully bare, soft skin flushed, the nipple stiff from the cold, her left only partially covered now as the ruined side of the shirt hung askew. Her arm instinctively came up too late, trembling slightly as it crossed her front. She stared down, stunned.

And then she heard footsteps.

Not slow. Not cautious. Not loud enough to be staff.

Quick, unpracticed steps from soft sneakers.

She didn’t have time to move.

The young man from earlier appeared at the end of the aisle, eyes wide behind his glasses. He’d clearly come to investigate the sound—drawn by the **** of it, not expecting anything like this.

He saw her.

And stopped cold.

His mouth opened slightly, closed again. His gaze, uncomprehending for a split second, flicked down—and landed squarely on her exposed chest.

Emily’s face went bright with heat.

She snatched the book she’d just pulled free and clutched it to her chest, as if that could undo what he’d seen. The corners of the paperback barely covered her. Her blouse still hung limp on one side, useless, the shoulder of it slipping down her arm as she scrambled to hold it together with one hand.

“I—I didn’t—” he started, his voice high and cracking.

Emily didn’t answer.

Her heart thudded violently in her chest. Every inch of her felt lit up, nerve endings alive with cold and shock and embarrassment. She turned her shoulder away, shielding what she could, trying to breathe, to think, to—

The boy was still there.

Frozen.

And she was still half-naked, in a library, clutching a space opera to her bare breasts.