Page 141 of Checking Out the Librarian

Ribby was at their feet barking, and Connor lifted his arms between them, but Tony moved faster than Connor remembered and his grip was a major league catcher’s.

“I said no!” Connor pushed, but his elbows were bent and he was trapped.

“You don’t mean it. You can’t.” Tony was bigger, stronger, had always had the reach, none of that had changed, and he was saying sloppy things Connor couldn’t hear over the rushing in his ears and Ribby’s crazy noise.

He couldn’t breathe, because he’d locked his lips tight to keep Tony’s snake tongue out of his mouth. Had to use his nose, he could breathe, he could, he wasn’t suffocating, he wasn’t, but his fists were trapped and his lips were curled hard against his teeth, and he could feel a dam inside about to burst.

He needed to get Tony out of here.

Needed to get away.

Tony’s mouth was wet on his face, and Connor pushed as hard as he could despite how Tony squeezed. Tony’s hands finally loosened, giving him the space to breathe.

He gulped, a wheezy sound in the lull between Ribby’s barks. “I hate you.”

“Do you?” Asshole sounded like he was near tears. Connor could feel the other man try to shuffle-step sideways, but then Ribby yelped and scrabbled out of the hall.

“You hurt my dog, you piece of shit.” Somehow, Connor’s foot was behind Tony’s.

“No, I—” Tony stumbled and reached for Connor’s T-shirt, pulling until Connor overbalanced, too. He hadn’t realized his hands were still raised between them, and his stumble turned into a shove with his weight unexpectedly behind it.

Tony wheeled backward into the hall console table and then fell to the ground. The noise was sudden and loud.

Then it was silent.

He wasn’t quite sure in what order things had happened, but somehow the table where mail and keys collected had collapsed underneath Tony.

The framed poster of Crater Lake from the wall above had also tumbled to the floor, leaving a record of anger written in broken glass.

Somebody was breathing really loudly, a thick and wet sound accompanied by moaning. Connor didn’t know which was Tony and which was him, or if they were both him or both Tony, but he did know there was blood on Tony’s face.

A lot of blood on his forehead.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Don’t put your hands down!”

Now there was even more blood, all over Tony’s face, from a cut at his hairline, and some on the floor. There was glass everywhere, and a catcher needed his hands.

“Don’t move!”

Tony froze with one hand on his forehead and looked up at Connor with the eyes of all the dogs Connor hadn’t been able to rescue.

Connor only wore socks, but his dog-walking slides were next to Jonathan’s sneakers, so he shoved his feet into them while he fished his phone from his cargo pocket. The shoes took two attempts, the phone three.

“Calling an ambulance.”

“No, no, don’t.” Tony removed his hand from his head and held it out to Connor, begging. There was blood on his palm.

“You need the ER.” There was a lot of blood, more than a knocked-out tooth at school. A lot more. “Stitches.”

Tony lifted his bloody hand to his head again, looking dazed. “You take me.”

He wouldn’t do it. Tony was on the floor; he couldn’t make Connor do it. “I said, don’t move. There’s glass everywhere.”

If he left to get a broom or a dustpan, would Tony put his hand down and do more damage? He pulled his shirt over his head and held it out. The fabric waved in his hand.

He didn’t know if he could toss it to Tony, or even if Tony could field it, so he crunched across the glass. “Here. Use this on your head.”