Page 59 of Checking Out the Librarian

“I think so?” Connor’s eyebrows bunched toward the bridge of his nose as if they were illustrations in a book about fuzzy caterpillars. Undoubtedly happy ones.

Jonathan continued staring at him. He looked exactly like a man who rarely considered, let alone discussed, his interior landscape.

“Are you saying…” Connor’s voice sounded tentative, as if he’d made himself smaller than Jonathan. “It’s too much?”

“It’s not. It’s…” Shrugging was difficult while smushed into the pillows. “It’s you. I just want to know.”

Connor stopped looking at his face, but only to shift his attention lower. “I grew up with horses, got a scholarship to play baseball, and was openly gay in the athlete dorm for four years, which was pretty much an all you can eat dessert bar, but for sex.”

Jonathan winced. “Dear God, after that image, we will be exchanging health records.”

“There’s a Planned Parenthood on Franklin, that’s where I go for testing. And my blood tests for PrEP.” Connor began slowly caressing Jonathan’s chest.

He could time his breathing with the strokes, inhaling when Connor began to stroke down, exhaling when he lifted his hand from the skin below Jonathan’s navel to go back to Jonathan’s clavicle.

Connor was so easy. How was Jonathan here, with this man, in a bed with six pillows, exerting zero effort, and being petted and coddled?

“My dad thinks I should teach high school, so I can coach, but do you know, I get to play kickball at recess? I get paid to play kickball at recess. So, yeah, I think I’ve always been…” His hand left Jonathan’s chest mid-journey and waved a circle in the air. “This. Happy, I guess. Mostly.” The weight of his hand settled back on Jonathan, heavy but gentle. “When I’m here. In Eugene.”

“That sounds enviable.” The trailing off at the end was a little sus, as the tweens at the library occasionally said, and Jonathan wasn’t going to ask about the tiny echo he’d heard behind the phrase “my dad thinks,” or the way living in Eugene maybe came out of that story as a bit of a refuge, because Connor was so much farther along the happiness scale than he himself was.

Although Jonathan had brought a change of clothes and a bag of his evening skincare routine with him last night, so perhaps he’d taken a few steps on the path toward personal growth and fulfillment.

“I wish my father…” He couldn’t continue.

But Connor was petting him, stroking from the far shoulder across Jonathan’s clavicle and making a slow, warm circle on Jonathan’s chest. Above Jonathan’s heart. Connor had shared, and sharing went both ways, so he swallowed. With his eyes closed, and Connor’s hand so reassuringly predictable in its motion, he could try.

“I wish my father thought about my career at all. He paid for my degrees, but he doesn’t ever ask about my work. Actually, he doesn’t even call, so he can’t ask. If he doesn’t call, I mean.”

Connor pressed his lips against Jonathan’s temple. It was a warm, dry kiss, the type that was about bonding and sharing, and not about sex. He was starting to understand those now. Or at least recognize them, because Connor deployed them frequently.

“I want to be happy, too.” He’d said it. He didn’t think he could move again.

“I don’t think about being happy or not. I get up and take care of Ribby and then I do stuff. Maybe that’s what you should do, too.” He ran the tip of one finger along the upper edge of Jonathan’s lips.

It was nothing. A big awkward finger stroking his lip, nothing special even if his eyes felt scratchy and he had to blink. It must be because they had gotten off and then spilled some emotions and all of it made his lips and eyes super-sensitive.

Connor loomed over him again. His gaze fixed on Jonathan’s and didn’t look away. “I’m glad you’re the stuff I’m doing.”

Jonathan swallowed. “I’m glad I’m the stuff you’re doing, too.”

15

MORE SPORTS WITH BALLS

Connor

Sure you won’t play w/us Tuesday night? You could be the sub for the sub for right field

Guarantee you’d never get in

Well never get in the game!

Did you get it

Jonathan

No.