Jane curled up in the worn leather armchair and tucked her legs under herself as she scanned the pages of her book, looking for the place she’d left off reading. She was just about at the part where Jane Eyre sees smoke in the middle of the night and goes into Mr. Rochester’s bedroom to find him with his bed sheets set on fire. Scandalous, she thought. She couldn’t imagine barging into her employer’s room like that under any circumstances – it had taken all her courage just to come down and sit here in the library.

She’d been working here as a nanny for a full week now, but this was the first time she’d dared set foot in this room again. She and her boss seemed to have come to an uneasy truce since the day she’d missed the train. They’d taken Adele for ice cream, and the pouring rain had miraculously stopped by the time they’d headed back toward home. The sun had peeked out from behind the clouds. The birds had started chirping. The whole world had practically burst into Technicolor splendor, like in the movie she’d been watching with Adele earlier, after the storm passed and little Dorothy woke up in Oz.

Her boss’s mood had seemed to change with the weather. They’d all sung along with the songs on the radio, and he’d laughed instead of cursing when Adele managed to drip her chocolate ice cream over every surface of the truck’s interior. Jane had taken his good mood as an opportunity to apologize, and he’d shrugged in acceptance. “Let’s just start over and see how it goes,” he’d said, graciously enough.

She still didn’t trust it, somehow. Something about it bothered her, just like The Wizard of Oz had been bothering her for days after watching it – something about that ending with Dorothy right back where she’d started, the whole story nothing more than a dream. Was that supposed to be a happy ending? It felt like such a cop out.

“There’s no place like home,” Dorothy had chanted. “Easy for you to say,” Jane had muttered back. Not every orphan girl had a nice cuddly Auntie Em hovering over her, waiting for her to wake up and open her eyes. No, Jane thought, she’d much prefer to stay in unfamiliar Oz. Anything was preferable to a one-way train ticket back home to the black-and-white dreariness of her own childhood home.

She’d done her best to avoid her boss all week, wanting to prove herself useful and unobtrusive. It was getting a bit stifling, though, spending every evening shut up in her little room after she’d finished putting Adele to bed.  She longed to sit and read in the cozy library, but he always seemed to be in here, working and drinking his wine. Tonight, though, she’d caught a glimpse of him through her bedroom window doing some kind of yoga routine outside in the final rays before sundown. She’d grabbed her book and run downstairs, jumping at the chance to spend a half an hour in the library before he came back inside.

She found her place in the book and settled in now to read. One chapter turned into two, and she froze like a startled deer when she was interrupted by the sound of the library door clicking open.

Adam entered the room carrying a bottle of wine and a glass. He was wearing a pair of form-fitting black yoga pants that hugged his legs from hips to ankles, with nothing on top but a white towel draped around his neck, soaking up the light coating of sweat that glistened from his exposed skin. The tattoos didn’t end at his shoulders, as she had imagined, but continued all over the lean but chiseled musculature of his chest and back. Jane blushed and dropped her eyes before he could catch her staring. “Don’t mind me,” he said, turning to the shelves and starting to thumb through the CD cases. He looked back at her over his shoulder after a moment.

“You want some?“ He held up the wine bottle at her and then let it drop, thinking better of it. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Forgot. You don’t drink.”

 “I can leave if you want to be in here,” she responded, starting to get up out of the chair.

“No no, stay.” He waved her back down before turning back to the music collection.

She reopened her book and attempted to concentrate on the page she’d been reading, but she’d lost her place again. Where was she? Jane Eyre was just giving young Adele a drawing lesson . . . . No, it was no use. She felt too awkward, sitting here reading while he was in the room, and she hesitantly broke the silence.  “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“What made you pick the name Adele?”

“I dunno,” he turned around to look at her with a little smirk on his face. “Sounded better than Lady Gaga?”

Jane looked at him blankly.

“Seriously? You never heard of Gaga?”

She shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry!” he crowed. “That would really eat her up. ‘I live for the applause, applause, applause’ and all that.”

Jane shook her head with an apologetic look on her face. “Is that a song?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered. “She’s not worth your time. Pretentious Madonna wannabe.”

“I think I’ve heard of Madonna,” Jane said tentatively.

“Wow.” He shook his head in wonderment. “What rock did they find you under?”

She bristled slightly and drew up her shoulders. “We didn’t really have pop music wear I grew up.”

“Where was that, Mars?”

“You don’t have to be rude about it.”

“Sorry,” he held his hands up in a gesture that acknowledged his wrongdoing. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a washed up old pop star. There’s no greater sin than having never heard of me.”

Jane paused for a beat before replying. “Our Lady of Mercy Home For Girls.”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“That’s where I grew up,” she explained.

“What’s that? Some kind of Catholic school?”

“A group home,” she corrected. “They don’t like to use the word ‘orphanage’ anymore.”

He studied her face for a moment before replying. “What happened to your parents?”

She shrugged. “No idea what happened to my dad. My mom – she was an addict. She took me to a fire station when I was three years old and never came back.”

 There. That had finally wiped the smirk off his face, she saw with satisfaction.

“And you didn’t have any other family that could take you in?” he asked.

“No one that wanted me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Amazing how inconvenient a three year old can be sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.” Adam felt a stab of remorse for having almost fired this girl last week. He could understand now why she’d gone off on him about Adele’s absentee mother. Didn’t excuse it, he thought to himself, but at least he could see why she would have strong feelings on the subject.

Jane picked up her book and opened it again to the page she’d been reading. “I’m over it,” she said. “Thanks though.” She expected him to go back to hunting through his CDs, but she could feel his eyes lingering on her as she tried to read. At last, he turned back to the shelves of music, singing to himself under his breath.

I've overheard your theory:

Nostalgia's for geeks.

I guess sir, if you say so.

Some of us just like to read.

He broke off singing and started to chuckle, and Jane put the book back down in exasperation. “Why are you always laughing at me?”

He turned and looked at her in surprise. “Not laughing at you. You just got that godawful Gaga song stuck in my head, that’s all.”

“Why is that funny?”

He shrugged. “No reason. I mainly laugh at things that aren’t funny,” he said with a grin, bringing out the dimples in both his cheeks.

She squinted at him in confusion. Was he still making fun of her? Maybe he was just making fun of himself?

“Forget it,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “What are you reading anyway?”

“Jane Eyre.” She held up the book cover for him to see. “Have you read it?”

He pulled a gagging face. “Not much of a literature guy,” he said. “I mainly stick to fan fiction about myself.”

She gave him another baffled look.

He laughed. “And she’s never heard of fan fiction.” Adam wondered to himself why it bothered him so much. Why was he so intent on getting this girl to crack a smile? He was used to people breaking down into fits of giggles at every other word out of his mouth. Especially women. Getting a woman to smile was like breathing to him. Irrepressible and effortless. Or usually effortless, at least. But this one was really making him work for it. Maybe that’s why that blank expression of hers kept getting under his skin.

“People write stories about you?” she asked.

“It was a joke,” he said. “But yes, people write all kinds of shit about me. You wouldn’t believe what kind of weirdos there are out there on the internet. Or maybe just bad writers who lack the imagination to come up with an original character...”

“I didn’t realize you were such a big deal,” she interrupted his rambling.

“Used to be,” he shrugged. “I haven’t recorded anything new since—“ he broke off for a moment, as if catching himself,”—since Adele was born.”

“And why did you name her Adele?”

“Why are you so hung up on the name?”

“It’s just a weird coincidence, that’s all,” Jane said. She gestured again at the copy of Jane Eyre. “In the book, the governess is Jane and the little girl is Adele.”

“And let me guess,” he said. “There’s a father in there named Adam Levine?”

“No,” she shook her head, unable to suppress a mischievous smile from quirking her lips. “There’s a bitter asshole of a father, but his name is Mr. Rochester – in the book.”

Adam stood looking at her for a long moment, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. She was just about to backpedal when he suddenly broke into a full-on belly laugh. He turned back to the shelf and picked up a couple of CDs, his shoulders still shaking with laughter. “Thanks,” he said at last. “I deserved that.”

She returned her eyes to her book, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face at the sound of his mirth. Real laughter this time – not that ugly, sardonic chuckle she’d been hearing from him all week. The knowledge that she was the one who made him laugh that way brought the butterflies back into her stomach. She was still struggling to control her face as he made his way past her to leave the room.

Adam didn’t fail to notice the color rising to her cheeks or the smile tugging gently at the corners of her lips. Still got it, he thought, with some satisfaction. Maybe she wasn’t completely hopeless in the sense-of-humor department after all. Maybe he just made her nervous.

He was suddenly aware of his near nakedness. He should really go put a shirt on, he thought to himself, but something in him made him want to draw out the moment just a little longer. He stopped next to her chair, looking down at the CDs in his hand as if he’d just remembered something. “Her mother picked it,” he said softly, as he rested one hand on her shoulder.

Jane felt her breath catch at his touch, and she struggled to concentrate on the words he’d just said instead of the weight of his hand or the nearness of his bare torso. “Her mother picked it,” he’d said. She thought he meant the music he was holding. She glanced at the CDs and saw they were the same two cases she’d taken down the other day – that pair of autographed Adele albums, 19 and 21. She opened her mouth, but he spoke first.

“The name,” he clarified, abruptly abandoning her shoulder to flick one of the album covers with the back of his hand, before continuing on his way out of the room. “The name Adele. Her mother wanted to call her that.”