Page 202 of Checking Out the Librarian

A very specific letter. The letter F.

“Don’t say it.” He set his beer on the table and stepped closer to Brand. “Don’t.”

“I can say whatever the fuck I want, you⁠—”

Suddenly Connor’s dad was on Brand’s other side, holding a plate piled with six cobs of roasted corn. He bumped his shoulder hard enough into Brand’s that Connor’s former teammate staggered a step farther from the table, out of arm’s reach of Jonathan and Jess, which Connor hadn’t known his subconscious had already measured.

“Hey, watch—oh, Mr. McMillan.” The preacher’s boy switched his tone in the middle of the sentence, trying to show respect, like everyone in town didn’t already know him and his ways.

“Brand. This is my seat.” His father set the plate on the table and stepped, empty-handed, a lot closer to Brand than the bully seemed to expect. “No space here for you. Best you shut up and go away.”

Brand opened his mouth for two seconds.

Connor knew how long because he actually said to himself one-Mississippi-two-Mississippi while he watched Brand realize that even though Connor’s dad was a couple inches shorter and twenty-five years older, he was also about twelve inches wider and had arms and shoulders that had run cattle for decades.

Brand ran used cars and high-interest loans.

The whole table watched Brand realize that he was well boxed in between Connor and his father, which negated any height advantage.

His color turned an unpleasant red. “Fuck you all.”

He spun on his boot heel and left.

Connor’s dad eased onto one end of the bench next to Jonathan, Connor took the other side of Jonathan, and that was it. The whole thing.

“Sorry about that.” Connor’s dad glanced at Jonathan. “You alright?”

“Whoever that was, he didn’t knock over my tea in his haste to depart, so I’m perfect.” Jonathan sniffed loudly and flicked a piece of hair away from his jaw, and Connor wasn’t sure if those were hints of emotional turmoil or just nerves. “But thank you.”

Connor’s dad snaked his hand across the table and pulled Jess’s untouched beer in front of himself.

“Hey!” she frowned at him.

“Well, I clearly cannot drink the beer in front of me, because I don’t have one. So, I clearly have to choose the beer in front of you.”

Jonathan turned to stare at Connor, bewildered. “Princess Bride?“ he mouthed silently.

“It’s a family thing,” Connor whispered. “They still have the DVD.”

“Drink the beer in front of Connor then, but that one’s mine.”

“He just bested a giant, so he can keep his beer.” His dad took the type of sip Connor would have classified more as a gulp. And he was suspicious that this wasn’t his father’s first trip round the arena tonight. “Also, pretty sure he paid. And you don’t need a second.”

“Neither do you.” Jess glared. “Or a third, more like.”

“Your mother’ll take me home. She’ll cut me off when she’s good and ready.” He pushed the plate of grilled corn, the pyramid steaming with their folded-back husks trailing off the edge, closer to Jonathan and Connor. “Here. Maybe this will redeem our town. Corn’s pretty good with this red spice mix and the cheese. Tastes like pepper and lime. Try one?”

“Thanks, David.” Odd to hear his dad’s first name out of Jonathan’s mouth, but it was an odd night. “For everything.”

Jonathan sounded embarrassed.

No, it wasn’t embarrassment. He sounded shy, and that was unusual because he always covered up his insecurities with sarcasm or defensiveness.

“When I was a kid, corn was always plain. Butter and salt. Same everywhere.” His father had a fuckton of elote toppings on his chin. “This stuff’s pretty good. Keeps it interesting. I welcome the change.”

His dad had quite possibly made an extended metaphor comparing corn on the cob toppings to diversity, and that was weirdly awesome.

It took a few minutes of beer and munching their elote before conversation picked back up, but once Hannah started talking water management with his father, and it got heated, he remembered she was the friend of Jess’s who went to law school.