Page 176 of Checking Out the Librarian

But he didn’t hear a word from her.

“I’m gay.”

He hadn’t thought it possible, but the kitchen was even quieter, so she must have heard what he said. At least he didn’t have to repeat himself, especially since he didn’t think he could muster the energy.

Her eyes got really big and her mouth started to open, the same time as his heart started to crack. He turned to the sink and twisted on the water. His hands were sticky.

His eyes were sticky.

He was a car with an empty gas tank and just enough fumes to get to the side of the road, but damn he didn’t even have enough battery for a hazard blinker. He turned off the water, braced his hands on the edge of the sink, and locked his elbows.

“Connor, sweetie.” She was very close, right at his shoulder, close enough to feel her presence even though she hadn’t put a hand on him.

He turned and she wrapped her arms around him, softly, as if she wasn’t sure what he wanted. But he needed her hug, and he raised his wet hands to his mother’s back and pulled her close and squeezed his eyes very tightly shut.

“Is it difficult, honey?” She asked against his shoulder. “I’ve been so worried.”

“Worried?” He didn’t understand what she was saying, and his shoulders stiffened.

“No, no, I’m not worried about you being, ah, gay.” It took her an extra breath to get the word out, and it came out weirdly loud, like she wasn’t sure whether to emphasize it or not and changed her mind halfway through the single syllable, but she refused to let go of him. “I guess I meant I’m worried about how other people treat you. You might be taller than your father, but you’re still my sweet baby.”

She reached up to stroke his hair off his forehead, awkward in this position, but so very welcome. “I watched a video about the Trevor Project and that made me worried for you. And I read about a teacher in Florida or somewhere getting in trouble for having a wedding picture and⁠—”

“No, Mom, Eugene’s great. It’s a great city for me.”

He might be shaking.

“I have a great life. Everybody at school knows and it’s no big deal. I have friends and it’s all fine.”

He was definitely shaking.

Every time he heard himself use the word fine, he thought of Jonathan.

“I’d been wondering if there was more to your sister kicking things up about church. And there was always your thing with the British Royals. So that’s why I thought maybe.”

“What? What do you mean?” He knew for a fact he had never breathed a word about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex out here around the ranch.

She pulled back to give them enough space that she could look into his face. Her eyebrows were both raised up her forehead. “Connor, when I drove you all over the tri-state for baseball tournaments, you wanted every People magazine issue that featured the Royal Family. Except Camilla. You never wanted magazines with Camilla on the cover.”

“Did I?” He had, he remembered now. He’d definitely been that little gay boy, and Jonathan was going to give himself a hernia laughing about it.

“Your box of Princess Diana special editions is still under your bed.”

“I’d totally forgotten about those.” Going off to college, playing Division 1 baseball, and actually being out at school, had driven all the middle-school secret fantasies about life with royal pomp and circumstance right out of his head, until he’d rediscovered his favorite prince had become an adult. “Maybe I’ll take them back with me.”

“Remember when the older one got married, and you woke up real early in the morning to watch and talk about all the horses and uniforms? You were what, eleven?”

Prince William married Kate in April of 2011, so he’d been almost thirteen, but no fucking way was he going to correct his mother, because that would confirm that he knew the month and year of the royal weddings, plural.

He remembered wanting to find the sword and sash he’d played with when he’d been younger, but being enough of a middle-school-aged boy trying to figure himself out to know that dressing up like a British royal on a random non-Halloween morning was not done.

And if Jonathan ever found out, he’d take twenty points off that pretend heteronormative score he kept teasing Connor with.

“While we were watching that Bridgerton show, I was thinking about how much you used to like all that and so I sort of thought more about it?”

They were still hugging. His face was still on the side of his mom’s head, and her T-shirt was a bit stiff from being dried on the line, and they were still hugging.

“And, also, I, umm.” He couldn’t look at his mother’s face. He didn’t think he’d see a problem, but this was unexpectedly hard, especially given how much he teased Jonathan about difficulty saying the word. “I have a boyfriend.”