Every time Rory took a short jumping step her foot caused a splash, and even if she didn't want to splash everywhere she couldn't help it. The weather all day had been just rain, so everywhere you stepped was part of some kind of puddle. Rory didn't mind that at all, in fact at that moment as she walked down the sidewalk she was trying to see how many puddles she could splash in. The bigger the splash the better, but she had to make sure not to splash too big. She was sure the other people using the sidewalks weren't going to take to kindly to getting wet.
Rory was sure that every now and then pedestrians were giving her odd looks for jumping into the puddles as she walked by with her umbrella. But she didn't pay any attention to them, and thanks to the weather no one was going to really stop to try to talk to her. Anyone who was out in that kind of heavy rain usually wanted to get to their destination without anything slowing them down. So Rory continued to do as she pleased.
Just as she jumped into another puddle and made a rather large splash she happened to look up and noticed a store front that had two wooden double doors. Unlike most stores that kept their doors closed when the weather was bad this particular store had one of the doors propped open. Pausing Rory peeked through the large glass windows to see what exactly what was in the store. At first it was hard to tell since it seemed to be a clutter of things against the walls, and then there were tables spread out around the place.
Curiosity getting the better of her and Rory stepped through the open door, but paused to close her umbrella and shake it a bit so it wouldn't drip too much on the floor. Glancing around she looked for a place to put her umbrella and found a little corner to put her umbrella in, while she wasn't using it. When that was taken care of she made her way inside and started looking around. The front room's walls were covered with what looked like vast collection of random pictures, as well as some large book cases spread out everywhere. She made her way over to the book cases since there seemed to be a vast collection of different odds and end knick knacks on the shelves. To her surprise it looked like who ever set up the display filled with nearly every cute and interesting items they could find.
Which meant that Rory was going to take a while to finish looking through everything, because as soon as she saw one thing on the shelf another thing caught her attention just as quickly. When she found something that she thought was really cute she dared to gently touch it before putting it back in it's rightful place. After she touched a few of the items she peeked over her shoulder to make sure there wasn't anyone looking at her. She didn't want to get in trouble for touching things, but at the same time she didn't see any signs that told her not to. To her relief she saw that the room was pretty much empty, but that didn't surprise her at all since not a lot of people wanted to go out to places in the rain.
It felt a little creepy though to be the only person in the building, like as if she wasn't suppose to be there. With the door wide open that seemed like a pretty open invitation for her. So she decided that she would stay until she came across someone who told her otherwise. As she looked around she noticed that towards the back of the front store room there was a staircase on one side, and on the other there seemed to be a cafe sort of set up. Behind the drink area seemed to be some kind of back room. So Rory guessed that this place was some kind of cozy little cafe. Her attention returned back onto the staircase as she wondered what was up on the second floor.
Peeking around she looked to see if there was any sort of sign forbidding people to go up to the second floor, but she found nothing. So deciding that it was ok Rory carefully made her way up the stairs. Since the building was so quiet, except for the sound of rain hitting the windows and roof, Rory decided to try and not make any sort of noise. Even though she doubted that anyone would even notice if she made loud noises, but she still didn't want to disturb the peaceful silence of the building. She felt just a tad sneaky skulking around the place trying not to make any noise.
From the top of the stairs she saw that the second floor was completely filled with book shelves, but unlike the ones downstairs these were filled completely with books. Rory stepped toward the closest bookshelf to her and started looking through the titles of the books. Rory thought of herself as a bit of a reader, but as she looked through the shelves she noticed that a lot of the books she had never heard of. Based on how some of the books looked she could tell it was varied from old to very new looking books.
The more she explored through the bookshelves the more she noticed that there didn't seem to be any real organization. It seemed like whoever placed the books on the shelf just decided to cram each and every book into whatever space was available at the time. So it took a while until Rory finally saw a book that she was familiar with. Though unfortunately for her the book was located on a shelf much higher than she was. She thought about trying to climb up on the shelf itself, but she didn't want to risk bringing the whole thing down with her.
Looking around she looked for something that she could climb on to reach, after a couple of minutes she managed to find a small stool. Picking it up she brought it back over to the bookshelf and carefully climbed on top of it. She felt the stool wobble slightly underneath her, which did frighten her for a moment as she didn't want to break the nice little chair. But she managed to get it to stay still. She took a moment to take a deep breath and try to slow down her pulse from the minor scare she just had. After she felt calmed down again she reached up for the book and tried to pull it out, but she found out that it was tightly wedged between the other books.
Frowning Rory gripped the top of the book and pulled a little harder. At first it didn't seem to budge, but after a little more strength it was slowly sliding free. Now that the book was sticking out more at an angle Rory grabbed the corner of the book sticking out and she grabbed it from there and pulled hard. She had expected it to resist like earlier, but instead it slid out of it's spot quite easily. For a moment Rory felt a sense of accomplishment, but that was short lived as she noticed that she was leaning at an angle too far for her to keep up straight.
"Crap," Rory muttered to herself right before she twisted her body to the side and landed on the ground. It felt like the entire second floor shook when she hit the ground. Rory looked around her to make sure that none of the bookshelves were going to tumble down over her. Even though it probably wouldn't hurt her, but it still would be embarrassing to have to clean up the whole mess. Thankfully the shelves stayed where they are, and Rory pushed herself up onto her arms.
"What are you making all that racket for?" said a voice that startled Rory as she thought that she was going to be in trouble. When she looked up she expected to see some angry and maybe elderly store owner.
"Wait...what are you doing here?" Rory asked as she was completely confused as to why and how Steve was doing leaning against the end of the bookshelf.
"Catching up on some reading," Steve replied as he held up a book in his hands to further prove his point.
"You read?" Rory asked curiously, as she didn't really see him as the reading type at all.
"Here and there," he admitted to her, and walked over to her and offered her a hand up. Rory stared at his hand for a moment, but decided to take it and with nearly one swift motion he got her up on her feet again.
"Thanks," she told him as she let go of his hand and patted herself down from her fall. Steve shrugged at her thanks as if to say it was nothing. Which surprised Rory as he was usually doing something to try and pick on her.
"So what are you doing here?" Steve asked in return.
"I was just passing by and I saw that this place was open. So I decided to look around and it's a really nice place." Rory explained to him.
"And so why are you trying to destroy the entire second floor?" he asked with a huge teasing grin. Rory felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her as she hadn't meant to fall.
"I was trying to reach a book and I slipped..." she admitted to him in a quiet voice. Hoping that he wasn't going to turn around and use that against her in anyway. But she didn't hold out much hope since he was pretty much known to do that.
As soon as she mentioned the book she turned around and looked on the ground for the book she had pulled out of the bookshelf. As she had just had remembered about it. Not too far from where she was standing she saw the book on the floor and carefully squatted down and picked it up. She dusted off both side of it before straightening up again and making sure that she didn't cause any damage to the book. Giving the book a good once over she saw that the books didn't have any dents or bent pages, which was a relief.
"What's that?" Steve asked her before reaching out for the book, and turning it to the side to try and read what was on the spine. Rory let Steve take the book out of her hands and look at it. "Mythology of Western Europe?" Steve asked curiously as he had read out the title of the book.
"Yeah it's a really interesting book," Rory admitted as it was one of the few books on mythology that she really liked. Although normally she might have been a little shy to admit that she liked things like that.
"Well I guess that great minds think alike then," Steve said with a chuckle as he handed her back the book. Rory cocked her head to the side looking pretty confused at what he said, so he handed over the book that he had been reading himself. She awkwardly shifted her book under her arm so she could take Steve's book and glance at the cover of it.
"Hubert's Guide to the Supernatural," Rory read out loud and then looked up at Steve lifting an eyebrow at him, as if to ask him if he was serious. He just grinned at her and shrugged at her again. Rory looked at him for a moment with a somewhat confused look before just suddenly laughing. Steve looked a little taken aback for a moment by her reaction, but realized that it wasn't anything to be worried over. It took a couple of minutes for Rory to settle down again. "Sorry," Rory said as she bent over a little trying to catch her breath again and handed Steve back the book he was reading.
After long last here's another chapter for this particular story. Although there isn't much smooching in this chapter, but maybe in future chapters.