Page 117 of Checking Out the Librarian

“I’ll be better!”

Connor leaned his forehead against Jonathan’s. “What do you always say to me?”

Jonathan looked into the warm hazel eyes, so close that he felt dizzy.

“Breathe, Jonathan. Just breathe.”

He did.

“You’re not chasing me away.”

He breathed.

24

HIGH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. THE HIGHEST

On Monday Jonathan made his own coffee before work, exactly as he had on Sunday morning before the veterinarian appointment.

No ugly anteater mug delivered bedside. No pancakes. No fruit sliced by someone else while he slept, which was quite possibly the pinnacle of decadence for a lazy, entitled snot like himself.

It was ridiculous, but between having to bottle feed the kitten, pack everything the potato-sized ball of energy required for a day at the library, and get himself ready, he fell far behind his schedule. His skin care routine had not happened, which wasn’t the tone he wanted to set for the day, but it was that or be late.

Kitten’s travel gear included a half-size portable covered tray that Jonathan had poured litter into, since it was time to teach the cute-ster how to do his own business without involving other parties.

Lily had been excited to assume supervisory responsibilities, which, after thirty-six hours of handling Kitten’s biological processes on his own, Jonathan had embraced with promises of muffins, cupcakes, sandwiches, pie, whatever she wanted, as long as it was whatever Connor made, and as long as he had one blessed shift without butt gauze and pee. Just one eight-hour pee-free block of time.

An hour later, Kitten was doing better at work than Jonathan was. He was a champion of lounging in the cross-body bag, which Jonathan stabilized with a small cardboard insert. When Jonathan swayed, he purred and popped his head in and out of the opening. He was also a champion of the heating pad nap.

For story time, Lily replaced her planned reading of the classic 17 Things I’m Not Allowed to do Anymore, which Jonathan privately felt was an unwise road map for a Monday morning audience, with Kitten’s First Full Moon.

Someone tiny and black and white was asked to make a special guest appearance, and that someone obliged.

Surprisingly, Boss Becca acquiesced to this complete invasion of her fiefdom. “This once, I’ll permit it. Since he was found here.”

She was remarkably agreeable for a dog person, but then he didn’t really understand middle-aged women.

He snuck to the back to let Kitten toddle around while he checked his texts. He’d felt his phone vibrate several times, and since Lily shared the desk with him, it was Connor.

Connor

Let’s try introducing them

You can hold Kitten and I can hold Ribby

I watched videos on how to do this

They are very safe for work

He’d also sent Jonathan a link. And then another. And of course a third, all about introducing tiny cats to dog guardians, a genre of video that Jonathan had not known existed but which cracked things inside his chest that were supposed to stay whole and together.

Maybe those things had already been dropped a couple times and were ready to break open, but Connor and his videos weren’t helping at all.

Jonathan

Liar. Those were NSFW.

By the time he got home from work and changed into his soft clothes and soft robe—he owned three robes, each with a legitimately different use—Jonathan had no energy for anything other than fried eggs with a side of apple slices, the best-looking things in his refrigerator, and the last three pieces of kimbap he found in an undated freezer bag.