Page 200 of Checking Out the Librarian

Connor walked away from The Bacon Barn holding a long skewer threaded through a thinly sliced spiral potato that had been deep fried, drizzled with melted cheese and sour cream, and showered with crispy bacon bits and chives.

It was death on a stick.

He started to nibble before he even passed the end of the waiting line.

“Going to need a beer to dilute this sodium.”

Jonathan held out the paper tray with his bacon sundae for Connor to marvel at. “They managed to cram every course into one bowl, for the low, low price of ten dollars. I have a salad, see the cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices? And then bacon and shredded cheese and these crispy tortilla wedges, main course, but everything is on itty-bitty skewers sticking out of a slice of ice cream.”

His voice reached a pitch on the marveling side of the excitement spectrum that meant no one was going to need an explanation of Jonathan’s orientation.

“A slice of ice cream! I have never thought of buying a square container and cutting it into slices with a knife. Oh, my fate is sealed, there are salted cashews sprinkled on this, too. Cashews and bacon!”

He stuck a sporkful of ice cream and toppings in his mouth and had to stop talking.

They paused and stared at each other. Connor could feel sour cream clinging to his upper lip and licked it. Jonathan licked his own lips.

“We’re gonna die.” Jonathan said. “The Bacon Barn is going to lop six months off our life expectancy, isn’t it?”

“I’ll go cycling with you.”

“Can’t.” Jonathan looked very serious. “I have to go home tomorrow.”

“Then I guess it’s heart attacks.”

Jonathan didn’t break character. “At least we’ll be together.”

“Yeah.” They were going to be together, and it didn’t matter if they’d already had a few stares and a couple conversations with acquaintances that had been briefer than Connor remembered from the same time last summer.

They were together and none of the rest of it mattered.

“Now let’s find your sister and get you that beer. I want lemonade. This is a good place for a giant lemonade, shaken, not stirred. I’m always better running on undiluted sugar.”

This wasn’t true, but Connor was too deep in grease management and bacon disposal to speak for the moment, and also, his father would never, ever have contradicted his mother on any statement that began with “I’m better when I” and they seemed to do pretty well.

The only reason to open his mouth was to take another bite of bacon-fried potato on a stick.

Jess and her friends had commandeered space at the back of the beer garden, under the branches of a large Japanese maple. Tiny twinkle LEDs dripping from the branches added magic that surpassed anything a high school gym could have provided. He’d definitely string some of these in his yard.

At the picnic table, Hannah and Bri skipped the stupid when-did-you-realize type conversations, thank you Jess, and went right into bonding with Jonathan like it was a competition to see who could Jonathan-stan harder and faster.

Connor propped his elbows on the wooden picnic table while he ate and drank the slightly flat beer Jess had bought him. He might look a bit like a beaver gnawing on a potato and bacon stick, but he was a fucking happy beaver.

They could hear, but not see, the concert in the grandstand.

His hands were too greasy to casually drape an arm across Jonathan’s shoulders or pull his boyfriend against his side, but he could stretch his leg out under the table and press his calf against Jonathan’s, feeling the return pressure he craved, while they listened to the music and everyone talked.

By the time he stood to buy more drinks, the band was playing a cover of that Lori Jason song about taking the long road home that he remembered from high school, and the others were discussing shoes.

Not to yuck anyone else’s yum, but he was still not that kind of gay.

Jonathan, however, was.

At the counter, he ordered four IPAs and an unsweetened iced tea, because Jonathan had sporked all of the slice of ice cream into his mouth, not even stopping when it melted, so he was absolutely cutting off the sugar drip. Luckily even fair vendors let him tap a card now, but he was going to have to make two trips to get five drinks to the table.

“Smack!”

At the nickname only his old high school teammates used, Connor’s stomach flopped around worse than a ten-pound steelhead, but he couldn’t place the voice. He turned.