Page 79 of The Librarians

This might be the most middle-aged thing he’s ever said. And damn it, he’s not middle-aged yet. Just a man in his prime with a slightly elevated triglyceride count.

“Do you mind if I do?”

Ryan doesn’t wait for permission but leaves again and returns with a pint of Amy’s Mexican vanilla ice cream.

“Now you’re really tempting me.”

“Adulting: Nobody to drag you away from temptations.” Ryan smiles slightly.

An electric caress of a smile. Desire and yearning, wound together like the braids of a whip, lash Jonathan across the heart. He downs half a can of beer.

“So why are you here tonight?” asks Ryan.

Jonathan chokes on his beer and coughs. “I’m sorry?”

“I may not be a cop, but I still search for evidence for a living. There was nothing in that couch before you got here.”

“I—” Jonathan’s brain is functioning about as well as the fried egg in that ubiquitous antidrug PSA of his childhood.

He coughs some more. Ryan hands him a paper napkin.

Jonathan manages to catch his breath.Oh, Hazel, I hope you find All The Things. I’m about to go over the event horizon here.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

Ryan eats a spoonful of ice cream—he is still waiting for an answer. Jonathan feels naked.

“I—guess I just wanted to see you.”

Ryan raises a cool eyebrow.

Shit. Jonathan’s getting spaghettified. Is this going to be the last time he sees Ryan? “I wanted…to apologize.”

“Really?”

Ryan sounds surprised. That bothers Jonathan but there is no stopping the words spilling out of him like guts from an eviscerated man.

“For all those years ago—the cruel and untrue things I said. I wasn’t ready to face myself yet. I was still holding on to some illusions. You shredded those illusions and in that moment, I couldn’t take it. I’m sorry. I was wrong. You don’t have to forgive me, but you should know that Iamsorry and that I’ve been sorry ever since that day.”

That night.

Graduation was two months in the past. He and Maryam had parted ways but remained friendly and she was the one who told him about the pool party down the street from her house.

There must have been thirty, forty kids. The temperature had been a hundred and five earlier in the day and the water in the pool was almost warm enough to proof yeast. Jonathan sought refuge in the artificially cooled interior of the house and there was Maryam, sitting on Ryan’s lap, the two of them whispering and giggling.

The sight of Ryan’s arm around Maryam did something to Jonathan. But he wasn’t angry that Ryan was maybe encroaching on his very recent ex. No, he was jealous of Maryam, her hand on Ryan’s nape, her barely covered ass smushed into his groin.

The two spied Jonathan and broke into a fresh peal of laughter. Then Maryam leaped up. “I’m going into the pool.”

She gave Jonathan a slap on the shoulder. Which annoyed him a little. Sure, they never did anything beyond kissing and a little light groping when they were together, but she could have felt his abs or something as she sauntered past, instead of that positively sisterly slap.

But with Maryam out of the way, Ryan’s bare torso filled Jonathan’s vision. He was just so…fit.

Ryan smiled. “You wanna see something cool? Maryam just showed it to me.”

“What?”

Ryan beckoned. Jonathan, despite the alarm bells going off in his head, followed.