Page 76 of Checking Out the Librarian

“You look like Ribby.”

“Is that bad?”

“No.” Jonathan made a hand rocking gesture. “But maybe I don’t understand?”

When he inhaled, he heard the air travel across the obstruction in his throat. “I think I’m just sungry.”

“Sungry?” Jonathan lifted one eyebrow.

“That hungry on a sunny day exhausted feeling,” Connor explained. “Or maybe it means sore and hungry. Both work right now.”

“That’s an excellent portmanteau. I intend to steal it.”

The order Jonathan had placed for them arrived, and the charcuterie plate was as generous as promised. Also, the olives came in a tiny finger bowl that Jonathan immediately whisked to his side of the table along with his hummus, pita, and cucumber salad. Jonathan had even pre-ordered two servings of tiramisu.

Connor glanced up from the breadbasket. “Eight pieces this time.”

Jonathan swallowed a nibble of his pita. “Four each, no fighting?”

“Seven and one, no fighting.”

“Not fair!” He waved a piece of cucumber speared on the end of his fork. “I rode as far as you did.”

“On a fancier bike, hauling less weight, and I’m not asking for a taste of your pita.”

Jonathan threw his head back and laughed hard enough that people at the next table turned.

“Shhh.” He knew he was bright red. He knew it. “I didn’t mean⁠—”

“I know you didn’t.” He finally stopped giggling. “That’s why it’s so funny. You referred to a⁠—”

“Bread. I referred to the Middle-Eastern flat bread on your plate. Nothing else.” Objectively, he knew this teasing was nothing more than two guys bantering words the same way he and Hank put a pickleball in motion, a fast and fun way to spend time, with something to win at the end.

But this afternoon Jonathan’s face was perpetually lit with laughter. Even in the shade cast by the canopy of vines, his skin glowed from more than the exertion of riding here. Feelings swirled inside Connor’s chest each time he looked into Jonathan’s face, soft and hungry and possessive feelings, mixed with lots of other stuff he couldn’t categorize, so he took the easy route.

He ate.

Although the charcuterie platter was generous, Connor was more than hungry enough to tackle it on his own while they had decided which wines of the tasting flights they preferred. A happy warmth pushed back against Connor’s stiffening muscles, and that throbbing chest thing had abated. Of course, he was not sitting on the bike.

When Jonathan stretched his quick sneaky fingers across the table and twitched a slice of hard salami to his side, Connor glared. “You don’t fully appreciate the amount of protein required to run my body.”

“I certainly appreciate how cranky you get if the tank gets low. That’s why I bought two desserts.”

Jonathan was chasing smudges of hummus with increasingly smaller pieces of pita bread when Connor pulled both plates of tiramisu to his side of the round table. By the time Jonathan set aside his empty salad plate, Connor had finished one, deliberately divided the second piece of tiramisu down the middle, and mostly finished one of those halves, too. Jonathan usually gave him a leftover half of any dessert he ordered, so this was just getting a jump on things.

Jonathan’s glare was about as threatening as an orphan baby deer, especially because his mouth twitched when he looked at Connor’s face. He must have a little bit of cream or maybe cocoa powder on his lip. He watched Jonathan reach across the table for the remaining half of the tiramisu, like a fawn about to enter the fire swamp.

Poor Jonathan. Connor snagged the edge of the plate and stopped him from pulling it back to the other side.

“Hey! You’re trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.” That line was from one of his parents’ favorite movies. There was a secret pleasure saying it to Jonathan, whose gaze assessed Connor like he’d heard a faint echo and was waiting for a repeat, so Connor continued. “I can’t compete with you physically, and you’re no match for my brains.”

“Fuck me, this is that movie, isn’t it?” Jonathan’s eyebrows drew inward the moment the Princess Bride quotes clicked into place. “Am I supposed to challenge you to a battle of wits or something similarly annoying?”

“A battle of wits for the tiramisu?” The plate with a partial remaining dessert taunted both of them. “To the death? I accept!”

Jonathan reached for the last of his white wine. “How far are we taking this? Because I’m almost out of material.” He glared at the empty plate in front of Connor but didn’t actually object. In fact, his eyes crinkled at the edges as if he was fighting laughter. “And it seems I’m the only one with dessert left.”

“But I am not out of iocaine powder!” Connor wasn’t going to wonder if he was taking this too far. Jonathan liked him, this was him, he was always all kinds of over the top coming out of his mouth and weird facts and random words, and he’d ridden on that evil bike seat for twenty-four miles, so he was going all the way.