Page 108 of Checking Out the Librarian

Before he could apologize for his inadvertent imitation of their boss, Connor rushed in carrying two bags, looking more breathless, messy, and gorgeous than usual. Jonathan’s ribs were squeezing all his insides too tightly, and he wasn’t sure how he managed to keep breathing.

“Paw Patrol!” The Connor version of a whisper was not a whisper in any commonly understood sense, but luckily most of the children had departed, hopefully for naps their caretakers could enjoy.

Lily dashed around the end of the counter. “Let me! It will make my shins feel better.”

“I bought the stuff.”

“But I was here first.” Her arms reached high over her head, but Connor’s were longer. All she could do was swat the bottom of the bags.

Connor tried to lower his voice to Lily’s librarian-level, but quiet was a country he’d never visited and he clearly didn’t have a visa. “But I’m⁠—”

“Don’t say bigger.”

Wisely, Connor shut his mouth, but he continued to hold the bags away from her because she wasn’t willing to make a scene in her workplace and Connor had never met a scene he wouldn’t spin and lift off its feet. He won the kitten supply tussle without breaking more sweat than his normal three p.m. glow.

Jonathan’s minions were fighting amongst themselves, and that wouldn’t do.

He reached into the box at his knees. Possession and law might be one thing, but stealth and Jonathan were another, far more successful, thing.

“Connor, Lily,” he called very softly with the tiny cat cradled against his shoulder, face out and tiny front paws draped over his fingers. “We need the bottle.”

Lily froze and stared at him. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”

Unlike Lily, Connor was speechless.

Boss Becca arrived to the tableau and muttered about Gen Z, public service, serious work, blah blah, kittens, and ended with a Shakespeare reference about being pursued by a bear all the way to the break room with said kitten.

Assuming the bear was a reference to Connor, Jonathan led them all into the back.

“And I’ll run the desk, but only for thirty minutes!” Becca called after them.

“This is the best day ever! I’m behind the scenes in the library with a baby animal.” Connor pulled a can of premixed formula and a tiny bottle, which Jonathan recognized as a two-ounce nursing bottle like those he’d seen in how to feed your kitten videos, from one of the bags.

He stared at Jonathan with eyes as big as his grin and vibrated from his ears to the balls of his feet. “It’s like I’m on the best field trip ever, and I don’t even have kids to watch.”

He wanted to slam into this man and plaster himself all over that chest and just melt into his arms because who the fuck said that stuff so sincerely and why did he like Jonathan, but he couldn’t do that, not here. All he could do was take the formula from Connor’s hand.

“Sorry, but the emergency situation has superseded the niceties. I’ve watched the videos.” He handed the can to Lily. “Run warm water into a bowl to heat the formula. A microwave would make it too hot.” He couldn’t do that himself, because he’d definitely make it too hot, but Lily would be good at it.

He turned to Connor, who was fixated on the kitten Jonathan had tucked into the crook of his arm. “Scissors are over there.” He indicated a shelf with his chin because then no one else could see confirmation that his hands were shaking. “Cut a tiny bit of the tip off the nipple. A little nick. Lily, the warm water? To heat the formula?”

“Right!” She shook herself and rushed to the sink.

“On it.” Connor rummaged in his bags for the bottle set up.

He glanced at his spread fingers. He wasn’t shaking, not physically, even if his guts felt like he was one whiff of bad weed away from puking.

Within minutes, they had an acceptable bottle. He’d studied the videos, so he knew not to put the kitten on its back, but to hold it upright.

What none of the videos described was how it felt to hold this trembling body, fingers spread around it like a basket while finding the right angle, the best angle, and then hearing that rumble and watching the ears wiggle and twitch with each suckle.

He swore he flat-lined. His heart couldn’t take anymore. Videos hadn’t conveyed how it would hurt in his chest the first time the kitten raised tiny paws to his thumb and finger and held on, how wonder and fear would kickbox inside him.

Connor came up close and wrapped an arm around Jonathan’s shoulder, providing support for Jonathan’s weakness by letting him lean against his chest. “So, I made a vet appointment for the little guy tomorrow at one,” he whispered next to Jonathan’s head.

“How? Tomorrow is Sunday?” They were both so quiet, so careful of the tiny being.

“My vet has emergency weekend hours.”