Page 79 of Checking Out the Librarian

“I gather from your performance at the winery that you like old movies as well as Bridgerton?”

“Some.” Connor kept peeling carrots. The peeler looked ludicrously small with Connor’s fingers wrapped around it. “Ones with good costumes, I guess. History major, you know.”

His gaze flicked up to collide briefly with Jonathan’s. “That’s why I appreciate all those television dukes. For the history.”

Jonathan pursed his lips on the edge of his glass and looked through his eyelashes. “Of course. They’re all very”—he took a sip and then let water droplets cling to his lower lip for a moment before he licked them away—“historical.”

Connor’s smile hung between them like a disco ball. “Hank and Emma watch a lot of movies, and I hung out with them a lot before the softball season started up. But it’s my parents who love Princess Bride.“ He rolled his eyes. “Actually, love is too mild a word for their obsession.”

Love was not a mild word. It was the type of word that gave people anaphylaxis.

“Hank’s the one you play pickleball with?”

“Yes, him.” He started chopping the carrots into rounds, not professionally fast, but much closer to it than Jonathan’s prep skills could accomplish. “I also like Alfred Hitchcock, things with Cary Grant, Bond, James Bond, the Ocean’s Eleven series.“ He kept staring at his hands. “You know, elegant people.”

Jonathan heard elegant men in that list, and that settled something else he hadn’t known had been worrying at his insides until suddenly it wasn’t. Connor had given him no reason to think he judged Jonathan’s style, even though he was rather more involved with technical fabric and ripped sleeves than Jonathan could condone, but a lifetime of being termed high maintenance or worse, fancy, and not with approval, had apparently left a few interior bruises.

Jonathan wouldn’t ask the man who appeared to have memorized The Princess Bride and who liked Alfred Hitchcock if he’d seen Rebecca, because if the answer was yes, he’d invest way too much emotion, far too early. If the answer was no, he’d be disappointed in a way that Connor didn’t deserve.

Maybe next weekend they could stay in for a movie night.

“You want to meet Hank and Emma? We could do something together.” He brushed the peels into the compost and looked at Jonathan with that open, wholesome, beautiful grin.

“Hey, if you learn pickleball, we could play together. Emma plays too!”

A double date. “Maybe? Sure? Okay. Yes.”

A fucking double date.

18

RELEASE THE PROFESSIONAL BIRTHDAY CELEBRANT

By the middle of the week, Jonathan had his own phone charger on the table next to what had become his side of Connor’s bed, where he found himself with a frequency he didn’t disclose to Lily.

Every night they would have dinner and laugh like some cheerful couple in vacation ads, then he’d snuggle into Connor and dream of learning to skate, that first one-foot spin and the exhilaration thrumming in his legs as he took flight going clockwise, getting faster, the air lifting his hair. Then switching to counter-clockwise. After the switch, the spin changed. It defied physics, but he got faster and faster.

Too fast. He tried to raise his leg against the centripetal force, but it wouldn’t go. His skate lifted but wouldn’t cross over to the other side no matter how much he fought.

Every night he lost the fight. The air, that invisible opponent, would push until the blade would be compelled back. Back into his calf while he was still moving, slicing him, leaving a red trail on the white ice. He always ended falling forward but seeing the bloody path behind him.

He’d wake, gasping, before he hit the ice.

Not like that fun dream needed much interpretation each time he woke in the night. Also, not something he was disclosing.

But Connor’s body heat next to him helped, so Jonathan stayed, and tried not to dream.

This Wednesday morning was too bright when Jonathan’s phone chimed him awake despite his do not disturb setting rules.

Only two people had numbers that could break through. Jonathan didn’t know why he even maintained that courtesy for his parents, given how rarely they texted.

It was his mother, of course.

Julie Wilson Park (Mother)

Happy Birthday!

I miss you! When are you coming to see me?