Page 148 of Checking Out the Librarian

His name was, indisputably, Pawsley.

Jonathan hadn’t sincerely disputed it in several days, he’d only been teasing Connor and pretending not to concede, but Connor’s suggestion had been too adorable to refuse. Permitting Connor the satisfaction of having named Pawsley might make him feel better.

Jonathan

Someone is going to grow up to be a gymnast

He attached a five-second video of Pawsley pouncing from his thigh to the couch cushion, getting scooped up, and tumbling again.

This was Jonathan’s third try to correctly film a video of their couch play; Pawsley’s ninth or tenth iteration of the game. The tuxedo cat’s ears and white-dipped paws were still large in proportion to the rest of him, but these days his very playful body rarely wobbled side-to-side.

Jonathan

Pawsley ate half a bowl of wet food tonight, more than ever before, and I find myself both proud and horrified. It smells terrible going in and I’m afraid of what it’s going to be like coming out

Shoot me now, I’m discussing poop

Remember when you told me that you do that?

That first day at the library?

Connor didn’t respond to Jonathan calling the kitten Pawsley, not with triumph or happiness, and he didn’t mock Jonathan’s poop comment. He didn’t know what to do, but his amygdala and hippocampus had new fodder to digest and regurgitate into worries.

Pawsley wanted to lick his face, which was simultaneously gross because Jonathan knew the monster licked all sorts of things and while snail mucin was a valid skin care ingredient, kitten spit most definitely was not, and yet it was also comforting when Connor wasn’t replying. He vacillated between needing Pawsley up against his face and being horrified.

He wouldn’t ghost Jonathan, not at this point, not possible, so he must be sleeping.

There was no reason to rush over to Connor’s house.

Neither of them was operatic divas dying of nineteenth-century style consumption. They were two men, one of whom was under the weather, and the other of whom was a fucking lunatic making this all about himself, and he could stop.

Now.

He could make his dinner, tidy his apartment, and stop worrying.

Right. That. Easy.

Connor stood, hand braced on the top of his dresser, and stared. He’d been shaking under the covers, his brain unwilling to shut down and let him sleep, so he’d stumbled to his dresser to grab a long-sleeved T-shirt, a thing he’d done a thousand times, but now he couldn’t move.

His stuffies had acquired a picnic.

Mister Lemon Tart and his friends sat in a half-circle around three cups that perched on saucers the size of Girl Scout cookies. A tea pot painted with yellow roses like the bush in his front yard and three pieces of dessert that matched each of them completed the diorama.

He touched the tiny slice of red velvet cake. It was hard, but somehow warmer to the touch than plastic, and he recognized it as specialty bake-in-the-oven clay that crafty people used to create fridge magnets and miniatures.

At some point—Connor didn’t know when, just that it must have been before that bastard knocked on his front door—Jonathan had smuggled these into the house and arranged them. The desserts were handmade, not molded, and his heart told him that Jonathan had rolled and patted these, smoothed them, somehow crimped the miniature edges of the tiny lemon tart sitting in front of Mr. Tart.

Probably when they had been sleeping separately before introducing Ribby and Pawsley, Jonathan’s hands had been creating these.

This was the silliest, most beautiful, most amazing, most absolutely ridiculous thing anyone had ever done for him.

He loved Jonathan.

He’d known that in his chest since their first bike ride, and he’d known it in his head since that hike when Jonathan had drawn the beautiful diagram of how they fit together, but until he touched this tiny piece of cake, he hadn’t known that Jonathan loved him.

The pot tipped and rolled a slow spiral on his dresser top.

His hand was shaking.