Page 196 of Checking Out the Librarian

“Then you’ll be glad to know I was lying,” he whispered. “You don’t look nice at all.” He inhaled, and strands of Jonathan’s hair wafted close to his lips. “You look like a fucking race car. I want to drive you.”

Jonathan made a choking noise and blinked several times, very rapidly, and then Connor realized his entire family was still in the kitchen, silently trying not to watch while totally absorbed. He stumbled back and bumped into the edge of the breakfast table. Jonathan stepped back too, more gracefully, no bumps involved.

Neither of them looked at each other.

“Yeah, so we’re going.” Jess rolled her eyes.

“Wait!” Jonathan sounded panicked. “I brought something. It’s not a big deal, but maybe if you⁠—”

He fumbled inside a gift bag on the counter and came out with a handful of the popular enameled metal pins that every café and gift store in Eugene stocked. Instead of being funny corgis, soothing potted plants, or sentient coffee mugs, these were variations of the rainbow flag.

His mother and Jess converged rapidly and started choosing.

“This one!” His mother held up a pin that said “Be Kind” with each letter part of the rainbow, and a heart dotting the lower-case letter i. “But I love the book one, too.”

Predictably, Jonathan had included a pin that looked like a stack of books in all colors of the rainbow.

His sister took a chubby tabby cat holding a pride flag in its mouth and immediately fastened it to the left side of her collar.

His dad put his hands in his pockets, but he was looking at the pins in Jonathan’s hand. “I don’t know.”

“David,” his mother said.

“I’m gonna wear one. Trying to choose.”

“You can rush into this. It’s perfectly acceptable to go faster.”

“Don’t know if anyone will even know what a cassette tape is except you and me, so guess I’ll take the one with both flags.” He held out his hand and Connor watched Jonathan drop the heart-shaped pin, half of it the American flag and the other half the pride flag, into his father’s palm.

Connor squeezed the bridge of his nose, but that didn’t help the shit happening yet again in his chest and face.

The last two weeks had been some of the lowest, worst, scariest, wrongest days of his life, and also some of the best, and the result was this mess he couldn’t sort inside his ribs. But all that crap had led to this moment, his family supporting the public date they were about to head out to, where he’d probably see his entire hometown before the night ended.

It was a lot. A lot. He suspected he wasn’t handling it well.

Seemed like they knew he couldn’t speak, so they took themselves off faster than they usually did, leaving him and Jonathan alone in the kitchen. His sister had the final words, as always. “I’m leaving you in charge, Jonathan! Don’t be toooooo late.”

Jonathan waved them out and then he was there, his arms around Connor from behind and crossed tightly in front of Connor’s chest, his face nestled in the spot between Connor’s shoulders. He was wrapped up tight enough to breathe again, if that made sense, which it didn’t. Sometimes the truth didn’t.

“I have pins for you, too. If you want.”

“Okay.” Speaking any words was a good start.

He let go of Connor and picked up a small black purse on the counter. Connor recognized it as one of Jonathan’s cross-body bags.

“Here.” He pulled out a pair of matching pins, vee shapes that spread out from the point into wider triangles of rainbow stripes. “They’re collar tips, if that’s okay?”

He nodded.

“I’ll pin them here.” Jonathan eased close enough that Connor dropped his hands to Jonathan’s hips. The bones were there, and the strength, all of it wrapped in denim that he wished was softer so he could feel more of Jonathan’s movements.

Connor looked down at the top of his boyfriend’s head, watched the lush strands fall forward as he bent to remove the pin back, watched the way the overhead kitchen fixture picked out highlights in the shiniest hair in the world.

They stood close enough that it was hard to see the lower part of Jonathan’s face, but Connor assumed he’d tightened his lips in order to focus on the job. He wanted to kiss the groove between Jonathan’s eyebrows when he removed the pin back, a piece of metal so small that Connor wondered if his own fingers could manage it given how much he struggled with safety pins.

Jonathan positioned the rainbow part of the pin at the tip of one of Connor’s collars, pushed, and then flipped it to attach the backing. During the entire process, Connor felt wrapped in Jonathan’s fresh-washed scent, the familiar bright zing that was Jonathan, a reminder of him that clung to Connor’s pillows and the towels hung in Connor’s bathroom.

“This feels vaguely like prom.” Jonathan smoothed one side of Connor’s collar back into place.