Page 203 of Checking Out the Librarian

He took the cover offered by their debate and leaned closer to Jonathan. “Are you okay?”

Jonathan twisted to look at him.

“Just had my big, hot boyfriend stare down a homophobic jerk and get even bigger right next to me.” He blinked and let his lips curve slowly with promises. “I am very okay.”

The last bit of his worry flipped into a warm and happy feeling that no one could take away.

“I probably should be asking you that. This isn’t my town, these aren’t my people, and my father didn’t just compare me to plain corn. I didn’t know that cretinous lump, and your sister and her awesome friends warned me as soon as they saw him, so I was ready.”

He raised his hand to Connor’s face and indicated that there was something clinging to his upper lip.

Connor held up his messy fingers and tilted his head, wordlessly asking for assistance.

Jonathan’s thumb gave a feathery pass across his skin, and his fingertips trailed on the edge of Connor’s jaw for a moment, only a moment, and then fell back to his lap.

“Corn?” Connor asked.

“Spice mix.” Jonathan smiled, the one with the slow curve of his closed lips and even slower lowering of his eyelashes that always made Connor wild.

Even after what had just happened, Jonathan wasn’t afraid to flirt in public, and Connor knew he’d fallen in love with the bravest man in the universe and he wasn’t going to screw this up.

“This is all my long way of asking, how are you feeling?”

Connor took a sip of beer and tried to poke around in his head like he imagined therapy would make him do, but he didn’t really find anything worth noting. “Honestly, I’m pretty good. Exhausted, but good.”

“Tonight’s a lot to process. I’m forced to handle self-help books at work, so I’m somewhat familiar with the principles. It must be shifting a lot of memories of growing up here? How people treated you then versus now? I’d understand if that’s taking a toll.”

“Oh.” That seemed like his go-to reply for this week’s self-discoveries. He should think about getting a better one. Probably shouldn’t be fuck.

“You mean, if people behave differently to me now, I have to reconsider things from in my past, too, like did they even like me back then, because I’m still me? Or did they just want to hang out with a jock, and they didn’t see anything else about me? Is that what you mean?”

Working these issues out at a picnic table with his second pint wasn’t the worst way he could imagine doing this. Unexpected, but not actually awful.

“Or you can be like me and ignore your entire past and never think of it again.” Jonathan fluttered his fingers in the air, sweeping away imaginary gnats. “Gone, like a bad yearbook photo. That is, until you need lots and lots of therapy.”

Jonathan fluttered his eyelashes, so Connor knew he wasn’t being serious, and he’d already agreed with the suggestion to talk to a professional back in Eugene to sort the fallout from that thing that had happened.

He honestly thought he was doing okay processing on his own, but he wanted to do better than okay, so he’d accept help.

“I just need you.”

Everyone else was far, far away from him and Jonathan, even as they all sat elbow-to-elbow at the table. A distantly heard slow song, perfect for thinking about love, wrapped around the two of them, and he leaned his shoulder against Jonathan.

“Oh my god, you’re a sap. A total sap.” In Jonathan’s world, that tone of horror definitely meant I love you.

“I have to win you a prize at the baseball booth.”

“Opting for the time-honored strategy of changing the subject? I fully approve.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “No, I do want to win you one of the big ponies, so you have something to keep you company tomorrow night back at your apartment and don’t have to rob my house.”

“Oh, you’re going to win a stuffie for me, sure, absolutely. You’ll have to help me pick which one I want, as long as it’s a pony.”

“Let me finish this.” Connor raised the cup that still held about three fingers of beer. “And then I’ll go show off for you.”

“But who will watch our new pet while we dance?”

“Are we dancing?”