Page 132 of Checking Out the Librarian

“I’m sorry.” Being neither self-destructive nor generally destructive required those words more often than he’d anticipated.

Connor scuffed the toe of his shoe into the trail and remained quiet.

“I shouldn’t have deflected by…” Another self-help book moment, or maybe it was auto-recall of his own time in the talking chair, gave him words to finish his sentence. “By lashing out.”

Whatever. It was time for him to try to shift old patterns with fucking intent and manifest his authenticity while choking his limiting beliefs with all that chicken soup that did nothing for his personal soul except shrivel it.

Even if he couldn’t be the perfect boyfriend, even if he made mistakes, that wasn’t a reason to quit in advance. He could work at being good enough. Just because he hadn’t seen any good relationships and he was surely going to mess up the best thing that had ever happened to him didn’t mean he shouldn’t try.

Take that, double negatives.

He took a deep breath. “Yes, you’re my boyfriend.”

Ugh, that word tasted like meat and not in a good way. But he survived.

This could be a success worth describing in Monday night’s first consultation with his leader in the inner landscape terraforming process, i.e., his new therapist.

“We are boyfriends. I think.”

It slipped out easier the second time.

Ribby nudged Connor’s knee. Jonathan watched Connor drop a hand to the dog’s head, but his shoulders remained high and by his neck. “But do you think we have enough in common? To last?”

He couldn’t stop the sound of gritted teeth from escaping his mouth, and he copied Connor by kicking the dirt. “I want to be the type of British character who mutters oh fucking shite and marches off across the moors right now, I really do. Especially because I know how much you enjoy those types of characters.”

He bent and grabbed a broken branch from the side of the trail.

“But I don’t have a moor. I only have this random piece of wood and I’m sure Ribby is looking at it covetously.” He started scratching at the dirt. Luckily, it had drizzled overnight so it wasn’t hardpan. “I’m only going to demonstrate this once, so pay attention.”

While he drew two overlapping circles, each about twenty-four inches across, Connor inched closer.

In the combined middle space of the Venn diagram, Jonathan slashed a short line. “Books.”

And another. “Pets.”

And another. “Your amazing cooking.”

And another. “Period television dramas.”

And another. “You tried cycling and keep trying despite your lack of affinity or skill.”

Connor nodded along with each hash mark Jonathan drew, which was a good sign.

“Multicultural cooking shows, although to be fair, you watch sincerely and I watch for other purposes, but we can call it an overlapping interest.” Hash mark in the center.

Connor exhaled loudly.

“Food trucks with friends. Candles.” More marks.

“Tight pants, wearing.” One hash mark.

“Tight pants, staring.” Second hash mark.

Connor stepped closer, his toes almost on top of the edge of the diagram. He focused on the stick, or maybe on Jonathan’s hand on the stick, but his shoulders had loosened so Jonathan knew he wasn’t in the teeth of whatever had been gnawing him moments before.

“Now over here—” He moved his stick away from the very full overlapped area and made a deep puncture. He rotated the tip of the stick in the hole to enlarge it.

“Punctuation. That’s on my side.”