Page 133 of Checking Out the Librarian

And he flipped to the other side, Connor’s solo part, and drew a sunshine. “Mornings. Your side, AKA, hell.”

Despite the dense woodland canopy that cast afternoon shade nearly dark enough to lose the edges of thoughts, Connor stepped into a pocket of light that illuminated his face. Teeth gleamed in his smile.

His eyes, his chest, his arms, all of him looked so much more relaxed and present that for a delirious moment Jonathan considered whether he could write a non-dreadful book of grounding exercises to help emotional, overthinking boyfriends get out of their own heads.

He’d done it.

He’d morphed into a fucking spiritual caretaker.

“So.” He waved with the stick and Ribby twitched and whined. “Look at it. Do we have enough in common?”

Connor held out his hand for the stick. “My turn.”

“I’m warning you, this better be good.”

“I’m very good.” Connor added a horizontal dash across a bundle of lines already in the middle section. “Reads pictures books out loud while making animal sounds.”

The stick hovered in the air, and Jonathan couldn’t stop staring at its vibrating tip.

“Let’s see, where does covered in fur go?” He started to lower the point to the side where Jonathan had drawn a sunshine but then stabbed a line in the middle. “Both! It’s both of us because you have a pet!”

“Fuck you.”

“Honesty, good idea. I like that.” Hash mark in the middle.

Connor hesitated and dropped his chin. “Deleted iEros profile. Where should I put that?”

“Where do you think? In the middle. After one week, but only because I was lazy.” He looked at the ground and forced himself to be completely open. “Or I would have done it sooner.”

Ribby was entirely involved with the chart at this point, trampling their confessions, which felt exactly like what was supposed to happen.

“Lastly, perhaps most importantly, likes hot dick.” Connor scratched energetically at the middle section, and Ribby started to mouth the stick at the same time.

“You are so fucking evolved.”

“And where should I put a mark for that?” Without taking his gaze off Jonathan’s face, Connor moved the tip of the stick to the separate area that represented his own qualities. “Here? Or is that evolving thing something we’re also sharing?”

He gave Connor his biggest smile, which wasn’t difficult at all because a stray sunbeam hit Connor’s hair and created a halo effect.

His life had become a rom-com cliché, all the way down to the lighting and cinematography, but there was nothing to be done except speak his lines.

So he held out his hand and, in his best customer service voice, said, “Let me show you where that goes.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed, clearly suspicious, but he surrendered the stick.

Jonathan immediately threw it as far as he could, which admittedly was about five feet away, but it was enough to distract Ribby so he could throw himself into Connor’s arms without tripping on the dog.

Connor caught him, of course; Jonathan had never had a doubt.

In the filtered light of the woods, Connor needed words that didn’t exist.

Jonathan’s lips were soft, not dry like his own, and tasted like vanilla cookies. His boyfriend was a cookie.

He, himself, was a monster, but the best kind, the big happy kind that wanted to eat his boyfriend, so he let his hand slide down Jonathan’s spine over the bare skin at his waist and he palmed the curve of his ass in those dangerous denim shorts.

For getting an even tan, Jonathan had explained when Connor had raised his eyebrows at the shorts, and Connor fully supported all of Jonathan’s goals.

Jonathan had molded his body to Connor’s, and it was nothing to pull him to his toes and settle him so that their cocks nestled together. Mouths slanted against each other.