Page 32 of Checking Out the Librarian

“Jonathan?” His voice was much quieter and he ducked his head. “Did I do something? Did I say something wrong?”

Lily looked between them.

The break room would have been better.

“Connor? Are you ready?” The red-haired woman wore a diamond ring that Jonathan might have described as adequate, if he’d felt like being polite. “Everything’s checked out.”

Jonathan realized everyone, Connor, Lily, the other woman, the girl, and fuck it, a nearby table of people studying English as a Second Language, all of them, were staring at him.

“You heard her, Connor.” The razor jammed in his throat sliced deep, filling his voice with the bleeding evidence of his own pain, his shame, his absolute despair at doing this again. “You should go.”

Still carrying the moppet, Connor trailed after the woman with the books. He looked over his shoulder once, and Jonathan watched him raise his hand as if to wave.

His expression would have made Jonathan weep if he’d seen it after a competition, it was the level of despair and bewilderment of a person who’d believed they could hit their marks but had fallen and fallen and fallen. That only meant he was an incompetent liar. Before finishing the gesture, Connor let his shoulders slump and trudged out the doors.

“Ouch.” Lily exhaled the word. “Exit, stage left, pursued by a golden retriever?”

He took a deep breath to make sure he could speak. “Pursued by a lying, cheating⁠—”

“Maybe don’t finish that sentence here.”

“Sorry.” He bowed his head. He wouldn’t let her see his eyes. “You’re right.”

“Wait. I recognized that view.” She dropped her voice to barely whisper. “That wasn’t the books-by-Dicks guy, was it? Was that him, the jock?”

He nodded. If he couldn’t even trust a guy who sent photos of books, he was definitely unable to trust his voice.

“Nooo, don’t break me like that. Those photos from Powell’s. I thought he would be a good one.” She let the emotions Jonathan felt show on her face, but when she pressed her lips into a hard line and took two steps away from the desk, he reached out to stop her.

“I’ll survive.”

He wasn’t alone. No matter what happened with his love life, he had one superlatively good friend.

“What the heck was going on in there, Connor?” Lauren fished Olivia’s helmet out of the bin of her cargo bike. “Was that an ex you haven’t told me about?”

“I don’t know.” He set Olivia on the ground, and she immediately reached for Ribby, who he’d left tied to a railing. Connor bent to run his fingers in Ribby’s fur as if Olivia needed an example, but really, he was the one who needed to touch the dog.

“I think that guy was unhappy with you, but why?”

Olivia wanted to pet Ribby, so Connor reminded her of the proper way to touch a dog before he answered Lauren. “I don’t know. We texted this morning and it was…or I thought it was…good.” His voice cracked.

Maybe his Powell’s photos had been too much, or the hints about this weekend. He’d been himself, hadn’t held back, and it hadn’t worked, which was nothing new. Nothing to get upset about. Certainly wasn’t anything to get teary about.

He should be glad he didn’t have to waste more time or energy on Jonathan, but he didn’t understand why it felt like a swing had hit him in the chest.

“How do you know him?”

“We, ah, went out last weekend. In Portland.” The description was inadequate, but his dog’s big eyes weren’t giving him any better words. “I thought we were going to have a real date this weekend.”

Once he knew Olivia was stroking Ribby in the right way, not pulling the dog’s ears or poking his face, Connor straightened and moved closer to Lauren.

“But the previous ‘going out’”—she made air quotes—“was not a real date?”

His face was definitely flaming red and Lauren wasn’t going to accept him blaming it on the heat, but if he kept looking at Ribby maybe she wouldn’t notice. “We met there, so I was surprised to see him here.”

“I see.” She lifted her hands for those annoying finger quotes again. “You ‘met’ for a ‘date’.”

He dropped his voice so Olivia wouldn’t hear, even though she was only three and wouldn’t understand the second meaning, probably not even the first. “You don’t have to do that finger thing, but, yeah, that. But then we wanted to, um, see each other again. At least I thought so.”