Chapter Text
Jason was in the best mood when he arrived at the library the next morning. He woke up feeling lighter than usual. The date from the night before replayed in his mind as he went through his routine. Roy’s laugh. The way he looked at him with such fondness throughout the date even in the moments things had gotten a bit heavy. The hug at his door that he’d reluctantly pulled away from.
Everything had gone so well and felt so natural that he would have been convinced it was dream if not for the text he’d received from Roy later that night saying he’d made it home and hoped they could do that again. Jason hoped so too if he was being honest.
The sun was slowly rising as he walked to the coffee shop to get his usual. Even the slightly longer wait didn’t dull his mood as he continued on to the library. He realized he was smiling the whole walk to work despite the cold nipping at him through his jacket.
He’d done his best to try to tamp down some of the happiness as he approached the building. He didn’t want anyone asking questions as to why he was in a good mood when usually he was stressed to the max at this point in the month. Clearly he hadn’t done a good enough job because Madi was on him the second he walked in to drop his stuff at his desk. She trailed him all the way to the teen room with a smirk.
“If I didn’t know any better with how you’re acting and the fact that I didn’t hear from you last night after your date, I’d think you got laid,” she teased once they were alone.
Jason almost spit out the coffee he had unfortunately taken a sip of at the worst time. “Please don’t imply anything about my sex life this early in the morning.”
She laughed. “Sorry I had to. But really, I won’t bug you about the details because I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Just let me know how the date went overall?” He could feel the excitement and anticipation rolling off her in waves.
“Geez, you’re just as bad as Dick.” He rolled his eyes but he couldn’t help the smile that returned to his face. “It went really well, Madi.”
She all but squealed before she got a hold of herself as one of their coworkers walked by, a look of confusion clear on their face. Jason gave them an awkward wave, trying not to start laughing as Madi cleared her throat and composed herself. “That’s very good to hear,” she told him professionally. “I’m happy for you, Jay.” He could tell that she meant it.
“Thank you,” he replied with just as much sincerity. He didn’t want to jinx it, but it felt like the beginning of something good.
“You ready for tonight?”
That was enough to bring him back down to Earth. He had almost forgotten about tonight being Cocoa & Conversations. The event he’d been preparing for for weeks now. Normally, he would have spent the whole night before worrying and preparing but that had been the one night he and Roy had been able to make work this week. If he was honest, it had been a good distraction and, given the opportunity, he’d choose it again.
“I think so,” Jason told her even as the nerves started to bubble up.
She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be great. You’re going to do amazing,” she assured him and he did his best to believe it.
~
The beginning of the day went as normal. Jason worked quietly on his displays in the teen room. He made it through the last of his pending Lit Kits and delivered them to the desk so the patrons would be notified. He was still riding the high from last night, but the anxiety for tonight was starting to creep in making him antsy to keep himself moving from task to task.
His phone buzzed in his pocket by the time he was heading out to take a quick lunch. The bright smile returned as he saw that it was a text from Roy.
Good luck tonight! :) I’m sure you’ll do great!
He stared at it for a second a little surprised that Roy had been listening and remembered that tonight was a big night for him. Despite everything else he had to keep track of from his shop to Lian, he’d made sure to reach out about that. Jason couldn’t help but feel touched by the gesture.
Thanks, I just hope it goes smoothly and I remember everything I want to say.
Within seconds he got a reply. I have no doubt that you will.
Jason slipped his phone back into his pocket with a small smile, his nerves eased for the time being.
~
The rest of the day went by in slight chaos with the library closing a little earlier than usual due to the offsite event. On top of that, the self checkouts went down for some unknown reason in the early afternoon which meant patrons had to have their items checked out by a staff member manually while IT tried to get to the root of the problem. In the grand scheme of things, it could’ve been much worse. There had been rare days where the whole system had crashed due to a bug making checkouts completely impossible. Fortunately, some patrons were understanding about the situation. Others… not so much.
“How hard is it to get a system back up and running anyway,” a mother muttered as he worked his way through checking out the small stack of books her teen had brought up to the desk. The teen had the decency to look embarrassed about her behavior and Jason felt bad for them.
He forced a fake smile on his face even though he really wanted to glare at the woman for her impatience. “Sometimes things like this happen, but IT is working on a fix. Shouldn’t be long.”
She hit him with an unimpressed look and he had to remind himself that he can’t snap at patrons even if they deserve it. Once he finished checking the books out he handed them over to the teen who thanked him with an apologetic look.
“About time,” the woman snapped, leading the way out of the area and toward the doors. As soon as she turned away Jason glared at the back of her head. People like that were one of the least favorite things about his job. Was it that hard to have some curtesy and grace when things went wrong? It’s not like he’d broken the machines himself just to make everyone’s day worse.
The added stress of the machines being down didn’t help calm his nerves for tonight. He’d gone over his notes a handful of times throughout the day making sure that he knew his talking points. He was as prepared as he could be now, but his anxiety wouldn’t quit.
A lot of the pressure he felt was his own doing and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. He was a perfectionist and he cared a lot about his job. This event was a big one. The last thing he needed was to make an absolute fool of himself.
He’d debated texting Roy, but talked himself out of it. Roy was busy with his own job and his own life. He didn’t need Jason being clingy blowing up his phone begging for reassurance. The last thing Jason wanted to do was give Roy a reason to stop seeing him.
Along the same lines, he didn’t want to bother any of his brothers about it. Dick would get overprotective and drop everything to be there for him. Tim would likely do the same, more than likely with Kon in tow at the other man’s insistence. They had their own lives and he didn’t need to burden them with this. He should be able to handle this. He could handle this. He just needed to focus.
“Knock, knock,” Madi said announcing her presence. “I got us permission to go over early and set up since the system probably won’t be fixed by the time we close anyway. The good news is it should be back up and running tomorrow.”
Jason breathed out a sigh. She’d been eyeing him all day and he had no doubt she’d picked up on the stress and anxiety eating away at him. This was her way of getting him a little quiet reprieve before the rest of the chaos tonight. In that moment, he was as grateful as ever to have her as a friend. “You’re a lifesaver you know that?”
“I do my best! Now come on.” She grabbed his hands and tugged him to his feet. “Before they change their minds and decide we need to stay this last hour and a half.”
~
Jason was tugging at his sleeves and taking deep breaths in one of the backrooms they were using for storing their coats and boxes that had once been full of decorations. He could hear the growing crowd that was gathering in the main room waiting for the event to start. The overlapping voices and laughter seeped into the room, disrupting the quiet and reminding Jason of what waited for him out there. His palms were beginning to sweat and he wiped them on his jeans with a grimace.
As easy as it was for him to talk about books and give recommendations, he usually did it in smaller spaces and ones he felt more comfortable sharing his passion in. This event felt like a higher pressure version of that and he was beginning to hate the past version of himself that signed him up for this. I’ll be okay. I won’t mess this up. Both statements he repeated in his head felt decidedly false.
He looked over his notes again trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking ever so slightly. He knew the books he was talking about. Knew what he loved about them. What might appeal to other readers. Knew his overall pitch. But the the what ifs continued to swirl around in his brain.
He pulled his phone out, pulling up Roy’s contact. His finger hovered over the button to call him, but once again he found himself hesitating. It was getting late. Roy was probably with Lian and who was he to take his attention away from her? No, he needed to do this on his own.
“Hey,” Madi greeted him gently. He didn’t know when she’d come in. “I know it’s your first time doing this event and you’re nervous, but you’ve got this. It’s only a two hour event. We can do this. ”
Jason gave her a weak smile and nodded, following closely behind as she led the way out to the crowd.
~
Jason got a break over halfway through the event and was debating sneaking out and going home. He’d done his pitch for his selected books and hoped he was the only one who noticed how his voice wavered, his mouth went dry, his hands shook, and he stumbled over a few words here and there. He hated public speaking, but at least that part was over now, not that his brain would stop picking it apart piece by piece. His one saving grace was that he hadn’t turned bright red like he sometimes did.
He’d watched as Madi did her presentation flawlessly after him, easily capturing the attention of the audience and pitching her book recommendations. It was moments like these that he was jealous of her extroverted tendencies. The confidence she had in putting herself out there.
“Stop overthinking it. You did great,” Madi assured him as she put a hot chocolate down in front of him, taking a sip of her own. It was piled with whipped cream and had a dash of cinnamon on top.
Jason shrugged, holding the cup between his hands and sighing as the warmth seeped in. “I think I did okay.” Telling her what he really thought would just lead to more reassurances. He didn’t think he completely failed, but he didn’t feel like he excelled either which felt like a failure in his book. He should’ve had a different librarian take his spot.
“You’re being hard on yourself.” She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “This was your first time. Usually we don’t have to talk to the whole crowd at once, so I think all things considered you did a great job.”
One of the ways that they had differentiated this year’s event from previous years was that they had the librarians and booksellers pitch their recommendations to the whole crowd. It had allowed them to expand their recommendations ever so slightly rather than forcing them to choose a specific genre to focus on. The rest of the event consisted of the librarians and booksellers being posted at different tables where people could sit down and get more recommendations or just talk to them about books in a more casual setting. The local bookstore had also brought stock of many of the recommendations for purchase which those in attendance could then peruse if they wanted.
He took a sip of his hot chocolate and nodded. “You’re right.”
“We have less than an hour left,” she reminded him. “And I’ll be right here with you.”
Jason was grateful that they’d been assigned to the same table. Madi would help the conversation flow which would be helpful as he could already feel his social battery beginning to reach close to empty from all of the chaos of today. He quietly sat there as people came up to Madi, letting her take the lead at the table.
“Hey, I just wanted to say I also really enjoyed that first book you recommended,” a woman said, sitting down in the seat next to him.
It took him a second to realize that the statement was directed at him. “Really? I don’t know many other people who have read that book.”
“That’s because it’s so underrated! Do you have any other recommendations like it? I’m in a reading slump at the moment and have been chasing that high ever since.”
“Actually, yeah I do.” He couldn’t help but smile as he started to go into his book recommendation mode. This was more his speed and he was glad to have a small win to hold on to from the night.
~
By the end of the event, Jason was drained. He’d only had a handful of people come up to him for book recommendations the rest of the time, but he was okay with that. Now he was on autopilot helping clean up. He threw away half full cups of hot chocolate left behind, helped box up the remaining books to be brought back to the bookstore, and packed up the decor to go back to the library.
“Hey, you did great,” Madi told him holding her hand up for a high five. He returned it half heartedly.
“Thanks.”
She shot him a sympathetic look. “Okay, reminder that this was your first time doing this event and you did fantastic. I was hard on myself after my first one too so I understand, but don’t beat yourself up. I didn’t hear a single complaint the whole night. Everyone had a great time.”
Jason nodded, but he still couldn’t seem to shake the feeling of failure. He could have done better on the first portion and he knew it.
“Go home and rest.” Her tone was gentle but firm and Jason didn’t argue. That sounded like the best idea he’d heard all day.
Walking home, he let the cold air ground him. Madi was right, the event had been a success. People had been laughing and enjoying meeting up with other book lovers. It was exactly what the entire event series was supposed to be about; connection, community, and fostering a love of reading. She was also right that he was being hard on himself. Realistically, he knew he shouldn’t be, but it was hard when he was a perfectionist about his job.
His phone buzzed once again. Before he even pulled it out to check he knew it was Roy.
Hope tonight went okay <3
Jason smiled slightly but didn’t have the energy to answer it tonight. His brain was getting loud with spiraling thoughts as he replayed the beginning of the night over and over. Pocketing his phone, he continued the walk home trying his best to pull himself from the thoughts of failure.