Page 125 of Checking Out the Librarian

“Pretty sure it’s my bike.” Jonathan raised an eyebrow but didn’t stop petting Ribby.

Connor scuffed his shoe on Jonathan’s welcome mat. It was black and tan coir with an image of a cup of coffee and a croissant, and the question What Did You Bring Me? printed on it. “You can only ride one at a time and you’re too snobby to ride that one, so I think it’s mine.”

I’m yours too. I brought myself.

Jonathan batted his eyelashes. They were very long and enhanced this evening and that made something flutter in Connor’s chest. “I see how this is going to go.”

Good, because he didn’t. He’d been wanting to be inside Jonathan’s apartment so badly for so long. It had felt like the last thing between them, and it really had been between them, but now he was nervous.

“You’re making Ribby pace.” Jonathan stood and draped his forearms loosely over Connor’s shoulders. That slight weight pressed his feet into the ground and stabilized more than his core muscles. Jonathan exaggerated his breathing, and Connor knew he was supposed to match it.

He tipped his forehead down to rest against Jonathan’s. Breathe in.

Maybe sparkles would transfer. Maybe he could be as cute and glittery as his boyfriend. Breathe out.

Because they were boyfriends, he was certain of that. Breathe in.

Mostly certain. Very certain. Breathe out.

Funny that they had switched roles, from Jonathan’s worry to his, and he didn’t even know why.

He shouldn’t have been nervous.

Jonathan’s apartment was not scary. It was actually colorful.

The couch on the right-hand wall was upholstered in a fabric between pink and orange that reminded Connor of a trip to Palm Springs. Three framed movie posters hung in a precise line on the wall above it, each a different design, but all of them for the movie Rebecca. He and Jonathan had watched it on the Fourth of July with Hank and Emma, cuddling Ribby to keep him calm during fireworks.

He sank to the floor and wrapped his arms around Ribby to settle him while he adjusted to the new location. Ribby, not himself, or not really himself.

The corner shelf had a copy of the book version of Rebecca propped on a stand, and he sensed a theme. “I didn’t know you liked that movie that much.”

“I used to watch it with my grandmother.” Jonathan’s face had some extra color that wasn’t from blush, Connor thought. “The original, not the remake. We don’t talk about that one.”

“No worries, I won’t.” The other walls of the apartment held a more eclectic collection, mostly the black and white that Connor had expected. A few moody architecture prints, a line drawing of a woman’s head, a big photo of palm trees backlit by sun so bright it washed out the sky and left the trees as mere silhouettes.

Not one photo of a person.

The only jarring note was Jonathan’s other bike hanging from a ceiling hook near the door. It was tidy and clean and looked almost like art, but it was a large piece of carbon fiber stretching from the popcorn ceiling almost to the floor.

Jonathan stood awkwardly between Connor and the kitchen area, shifting his weight, and Connor realized the quiet had been too long. “Can I walk Ribby around the place before I let him off his leash?”

“You’re both staying the night. I have Kitten closed in the bedroom right now.” Jonathan wiped his hands on the front of the apron Connor still wanted to remove, and looked nervous, too.

“That means yes?” Ribby wiggled into Connor’s chest and back out again.

“His feet are clean?”

“I took him to the dog bath café.” He’d worked hard this afternoon to keep him out of muck on their extra-long walk, but the bath had been insurance.

“Then yes.”

Ribby nosed around, liking the kitchen, liking the cabinet door that blocked him from Jonathan’s kitchen garbage, not caring about the bathroom door, shying away from a rosemary-scented candle, and spending a lot of time in front of the bedroom door that had Pawsley on the other side. All that finished, he let Ribby choose where to go.

“Straight for the zebra rug. Of course.” Jonathan muttered. “Of course.”

“Should I⁠—”

Jonathan waved in the air. “No, some things are inevitable.”