Page 9 of Checking Out the Librarian

“I’m mostly an IPA guy.” The raised eyebrow made Connor’s traitorous sabotaging mouth keep explaining. “I like microbrews. Does beer have vintages?”

That soft lower lip pressed into the upper one and Connor wanted to tilt forward for a much closer look. “Afraid I don’t know anything about those other than they exist?”

Connor gazed upon the sharply defined, and more sharply raised, eyebrow and squeezed the drink in his hand to keep from reaching out to trace the shape. We don’t touch other people without their permission.

Had there been a question? Maybe about beer? “There’s a huge variety, some really good ones, and some bad ones, of course, but not vintages. Or at least I don’t think. Some have fruit and can be…” He was so dumb when speaking in person to people older than seven. How, how, could he be this dumb.

“Were you about to say fruity?”

“No, nope, definitely not going to say fruity in this particular lobby right now. I’m pretty sure I was going to say that there’s also hard cider, that is, if you don’t like beer.”

“Were we talking about beverages?” That blink was so slow, Connor could have brushed those long eyelashes with his own thumb for the whole ride.

He felt his cheeks heating. “We weren’t?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Oh.”

Fancy vintages.

“Oh.” He wanted to ask a guy whose name he didn’t even know if he wanted to get a drink, even though he already had a plan for this evening with someone who wasn’t this guy, so what the hell was he doing.

Do it.

“I’m Connor.”

“And I’m Jonathan.”

That is a common name and this is not Bridgerton and he does not know about your Jonathan Bailey dream life.

He held out his hand and for a flash of an instant Connor had the weirdest image of taking it and instead of squeezing briefly or shaking, he would rotate Jonathan’s hand, bow over it and then press his lips to Jonathan’s skin, but men in 2025 did not do that, it was not something they did, it was not.

“Nice to meet you, Jonathan.” Under Connor’s thumb, Jonathan’s palm was soft, or maybe his was a normal palm and Connor’s thumb was the product of throwing leather-covered balls for two decades. And aubergine wasn’t a good enough description for the nail polish, because the longer Connor studied Jonathan’s fingers, the more he saw tiny gold swirls.

“Connor.” His name sounded almost like a purr.

He hadn’t released Jonathan’s hand. In fact, he’d rotated it in his grip and found spots with his thumb that made no sense, none. His face felt hot and he knew he must be totally blushing.

The elevator dinged and Connor dropped Jonathan’s hand.

Jonathan stepped away, reaching out to stop the doors from closing as he looked over his shoulder. “Coming with me?”

He could get in the elevator with Jonathan and be incredibly spontaneous, but his nose told him he needed to shower. And do other self-improvement. And he’d already made plans with someone else.

“I’m going to have another.” He lifted his hand in the direction of the water dispenser. “It was good.”

Jonathan was fully inside the elevator now and turned to face Connor. “And wet.”

“Nice to meet you.” He’d said that already, hadn’t he?

Bridgerton-in-the-City waved his fingers as the doors closed, separating them.

Maybe there would be a party at a country house, and he would step into a quiet garden maze. There, standing among the towering hedges completely lost—no, Connor would be the lost lord, wearing a rumpled coat, but one with nice shiny buttons. This Jonathan would be wearing a perfect cravat and would find him in the maze and lift one perfect dark eyebrow and say, “Coming with me?” and mean so, so, many things.

Ah, shit.

Water. More of this fancy water, right now.