Page 135 of Checking Out the Librarian

“Is that baseball?” Jonathan’s voice rose with disbelief. “Baseball has you⁠—”

“A baseball player.” Jonathan’s arms tightened, so he stared at the diagram they had drawn beside the trail. Ribby had smudged half the circles, but it was engraved inside his body. They had enough marks in the center to make it work. “Sort of an ex.”

Jonathan’s arms loosened and suddenly there was space between Connor’s back and his boyfriend’s chest and then he understood how his comment could have been misconstrued.

Panic made him reach up and clamp Jonathan’s arms before the other man could drop them away.

“He’s an ex, definitely ex, I haven’t seen him or texted since probably February before pitchers and catchers reported.” That came out wrong, or at least not perfectly accurate, but he couldn’t stop to correct himself.

“He always ditches me during the season. The sort of ex comment was because he was only sort of a boyfriend. Actually not at all a boyfriend.” He had a real standard of comparison now. “But he’s very much out of my life.”

Connor knew a part of Jonathan was always prepared to be dumped or cheated on, and he understood why.

The first day in the library when he’d seen Connor with Lauren and her daughter and immediately assumed the worst hadn’t been an aberration, and Connor wondered if maybe that was a factor behind why Jonathan came to all the softball games, too. He struggled with trust.

That meant Connor had to be painfully open with details. He took a deep breath, which let him feel the band of Jonathan’s arms.

“We used to play together. In college.”

“Here?” Jonathan’s voice was as thin as grass blades.

“He was a year ahead of me, and the starting catcher. He’s in the closet and I’m not. Wasn’t, even then.”

Jonathan’s weight leaning on his back helped him find the start and end of his sentences, but he hadn’t said anything.

“He left for the minors and then he got called up, so we never had time at school to be anything. Only Hank knows about me and him, because he was my roommate.”

Connor realized that he was explaining the past, but not why in the present he was such a fucking mess. “He always shows up when he comes home to Portland for All Star Break. That’s all it is. Texts about how I’m the only guy he’s ever—I tell him I’m busy but then he shows up like I’m a—like a⁠—”

Like I’m a cut of meat on a menu.

“How long has he been doing that to you?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t think the time Tony had visited fall practice and played the major leaguer card with the coaches and team, when they’d given each other hand jobs in a car, was quite the same as what had been happening the last couple years. “Since I moved back after the pandemic? Four years?”

His throat and chest felt congested, and even the dappled forest light hurt his eyes, but he wanted to tell Jonathan everything. “But we started hooking up eight years ago.”

“I can be a manipulative little bitch and even I know that is not okay to do to someone.” Jonathan’s head pressed harder into the space between Connor’s shoulders, and he let more of his weight lean on Connor. It was comfortable. Comforting. “Not okay.”

“You’re not manipulative.” He didn’t like it when Jonathan talked about himself like he was an emotionally stunted, terrible person. Jonathan cared as hard as anyone Connor had ever met, even though he tried to hide it.

If that diagram wasn’t proof enough, he’d seen Jonathan help frazzled parents at the back of story time. He’d seen him start a free socks bin for the homeless people who came in the library every day.

He’d seen Jonathan cry over a kitten making a friend.

“You’re so innocent.” Jonathan’s hand pressed firmly on top of Connor’s heart, like he was a human stethoscope.

“I’m not, I’m really not.”

“Shh.” Somehow Jonathan pulled Connor tighter into his embrace. “It’s okay to be sweet.”

“I’m not sweet, either.”

“Yes, you are. Except for when you’re fishing for compliments.”

He did like compliments, no lie. “Did I catch some?”

Jonathan nipped the meat of his shoulder hard enough to be felt through the cotton fabric. “They got away.”