Greta Van Fleet

Literary Masterpiece

pairing: Jake Kiszka x Female Reader

summary: You and Jake make a pit stop at the local library before leaving for tour

word count: 1,190

warnings: just a few mentions of kissing!

________________________________________________________

“Jake, if you don’t knock it off we’re going to be asked to leave!”, I whisper-screamed at him, unable to stifle my laughter. Once again, Jake was causing trouble. I frequently joked to him that he is why we can’t have nice things and he is why we don’t go places. Which isn’t entirely true. We go to a lot of places.  But he always ends up causing some kind of trouble, usually accompanied by his 2 brothers, Sam and Josh, and their friend Danny. The 4 musketeers, if you will. 

But on this rare occasion, it was just the two of us. Jake’s full-time job as a musician in a rising band didn’t lend us much time to do typical couple-y things. We hadn’t been on a bona fide date in months and I could count on one hand how many times we’ve actually slept in our own bed together in the past year. That’s the price you pay when you’re a rockstar, or so I’ve been told. 

I’m pulled out of my thoughts by yet another noise an octave too high for the library we’re in. Sure enough, there’s my boyfriend picking up the multiple books he just knocked off a display. I playfully roll my eyes at him through the rows of books as I round the corner to help him. 

“I swear I didn’t do it on purpose! I was just walking by and ‘poof’, off they went”, Jake says as he stands up to meet me, both hands up near his head in an attempt to distance himself from the mess on the floor. 

“Must’ve been a ghost, huh?”, I say with a twinkle in my eye. 

He chuckles and playfully nudges my arm with his. “You know those damn ghosts don’t ever leave me alone, Y/N”

If by ‘ghosts’ he means his general lack of coordination, then yes, I do know. 

As we finish putting the books back that he knocked over, I lean against a table across from him. “Find any books that pique your interest yet?”, I pose.

“Nope, not yet. I’ve been too busy watching you to even look at any books” he replies with a sly grin. 

“Have you been stalking me, Jacob Kiszka?” I exclaim as I feign a look of shock, bringing my free hand to my chest to add in the dramatics. 

“Me? Stalk you? Darling, I couldn’t possibly. But were my eyes following you from behind the bookcases? Absolutely” 

“I’m fairly certain you just described stalking, darling” I tease back, adding emphasis to the word ‘darling’. 

I nudge past him towards the non-fiction, determined to find something for him to read. We’re heading out for their next show shortly and we always grab a few books for the road. I’ve already selected 3, which should last me until we get to our destination. He always picks on me for getting so immersed in the books I read. “Earth to Y/N, are you there?”, he’ll say while waving a hand in front of my face. 

I scan the shelves waiting for something, anything, to jump out at me. One shelf...two shelves..three shelves….and then I see it. “The Folk Songs of North America”. That’s it, that’s the one. It’s exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for. 

“Jacob, I found you the perfect book!”, I say as I pull the work from its place on the shelf. 

Jake meanders over from where he had bent down to peruse other options. “Let’s see it, baby”

He takes the book from my hand and looks it over, carefully flipping through its pages. He nods his head with approval a few times as he reads over a passage or two. “Good find”, he says as he looks up with a smile. 

I feel butterflies in my stomach; his smile gets me every time. As rambunctious and chaotic as he can be, his sweet and tender smile just softens him completely. He melts me like butter when he then reaches his free hand up to my face to brush a few stray hairs out of my eyes.  With a featherlight touch, he brushes them gently behind my ear. Swoon. 

His gentle touch lasted only for a fleeting moment as his soft smile turned devilish. I could see a little glimmer in his eyes, which should have been warning enough. However, I was too caught up in my love for him that it took me completely by surprise when he grabbed my waist and pushed me back against the shelf of books behind me. “Jacob!”, I hissed through gritted teeth. 

He chuckles as he takes the books from my hands and blindly places them on a table nearby, along with the book I had just picked out for him. He never took his eyes off of me; his other hand still resting upon my hip. I wasn’t entirely sure what ideas were playing around in his head but I did know that whatever they were, they were definitely not appropriate for the public library we were in. 

He brings his other hand up to cradle my cheek, closing the distance between his lips and mine. I can’t help but return the gesture, though I don’t let it last too long. It’s nearly impossible to resist him, public library or not. 

I can all but feel his impish smile spread across his face against my own. He knows he’s embarrassing me; he lives for this shit. 

“What? Can’t a guy kiss his girlfriend every once in a while?” He tugs on a strand of my hair as I gently nudge him off of me, unable to hide my shy smile and the rosy tint that’s creeping up my cheeks. 

“You are incorrigible, Jacob Thomas. But yes, absolutely. You can kiss your girlfriend every once in a while. Just maybe not in a public library with children around,” I murmur, trailing my hand down his arm as I shoulder past him. “Let’s check these books out and head home; there’s one story, in particular, I can’t wait to get my hands on,” I wink. 

Jake stands where I left him, mouth slightly agape. I think he knows from my tone of voice what I’m insinuating but he can’t quite grasp the innuendo right away. “Uh, what story would that be?” he croaks out after me, falling quickly in line with my steps as I head towards the front of the room. 

What he doesn’t know is that he is my favorite story. His thoughts and words are the pages that I take in breathlessly; his body is the binding and covers that I hold as tightly as I can. Our memories together are creases in the pages that I finger through repetitively, determined to remember them forever. The dog-eared pages are the things we’ve experienced together; the good, the bad, and the ugly. The underlined passages, the notes written in the margins, the underlined snippets….all pieces of him that keep me coming back, time and time again. He is the book that I never want to put down.