Page 41 of Checking Out the Librarian

He glanced at the mug. “I don’t know, are you the World’s Best Teacher, Connor?”

“Of course. But the coffee?”

He glared at Connor’s ridiculous smile. “Black like my soul?”

“Nah, you like it with a hint of cream.”

Jonathan could name the time and place of each of the four coffees they’d shared. Espresso over dinner in Portland, coffee in the room the morning after, another at Voodoo Donuts, and then cold brew yesterday afternoon. It was not a surprise that Connor remembered how Jonathan liked his coffee, almost everyone would at this point. It was a common order, nothing unusual, so this shouldn’t feel like something.

“You’re right.”

He took a sip and stared at Connor. If he looked hard enough, truly committed his gaze to the other man, he could make him blush.

“I was working out. I do that in the morning. Garage in the gym, I mean, gym in my garage, so.” Connor shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, and back, and lifted his empty hand as if he thought he also had a coffee. “So, yeah.”

Jonathan said nothing. He sipped and stared, and Connor blushed. Absolutely without fail. Halfway down his torso, at least. Brighter than his chest hair where it stuck out from that horrendous piece of fabric pretending to be clothing.

“Gonna hop in the shower.” Connor plucked the offending thing away from his stomach. “Or maybe I should make cinnamon-vanilla brioche French toast?”

Worth the limitations of Connor’s skin care products, worth the dog hair that was inevitably going to cling to his messenger bag, even worth putting yesterday’s briefs back on.

Last night Connor had proved he wasn’t exaggerating his cooking skills, and Jonathan remembered the conversation where he’d claimed brunch was his specialty.

“I need something to wear.”

“Borrow something of mine.” Connor looked excited, then sheepish over his own obvious excitement, then he pulled open a middle drawer on the oak dresser. “Here, this is honestly too small for me.”

He shook out what was a less slashed but still sleeveless gray cotton shirt with a plain text version of the university baseball team’s logo on the front.

“No.”

“It’s clean!”

“I don’t doubt that, but I do not want that particular gray to sap my current energy.”

That got him a raised eyebrow. He enjoyed Connor’s eyebrows, which were enough shades darker than his hair to be distinctive, even if they had obviously never inhabited the same zip code as an aesthetician.

“What about this?” Connor held up a yellow mesh thing, but it was not a thing that Jonathan would consider clothing. It had a rectangular shape, with arm holes and a neck opening, but it could not be called a shirt.

From deep in his youth, Jonathan recognized this as a form of sports gear that people wore to distinguish one team from another, and thus he suspected that Connor was teasing him. “I do not wear yellow.”

“But mesh? You would wear mesh?” His open and sunny face could look devilish when he tried, but it could not look subtle. He was teasing.

Jonathan took another sip of his coffee, then answered. “You have seen me wear mesh.”

“Right, the black shirt. It was like if a honky-tonk shirt decided to come out as a gay club outfit. It was pretty nice.” His feet did a shuffle step and a hip circle, as if attempting to dance along with his words, which should not be so cute that Jonathan felt his muscles soften and suddenly worried about dropping his cup.

This guy. So fucking charming. What the fuck.

Then Connor hunted in a different drawer and whirled to show him an extremely large white T-shirt with rainbow-colored letters in a balloon font spelling PRIDE. “You can’t complain about wearing this.”

“You are correct, I cannot complain about that. If I was, say, a nineteen-year-old female H&M salesperson expected to wear a dress from the discount merchandise rack, that is.”

“I’m thinking that’s also a no.”

“My coffee is almost empty. We should either finish this or fuck.”

“Or maybe I should feed you.” Connor threw up his hands and yanked open a door on the wall. “Have at it. Wear whatever you want.”