Page 80 of The Librarians

Ryan led him into an office lined on three walls with shelves. “Maryam said that she used to play a lot in this house when another Iranian American family lived here. And her favorite spot used to be—let’s see if I remember it right.”

He crouched down and pulled. A three-foot-high, eighteen-inch-wide lower section of the shelves swung forward, exposing a narrow set of stairs behind.

“What?” The exclamation shot out of Jonathan.

“Cool, right? You’re not too big to fit in, are you?”

“Course not.”

But Jonathan did have to shimmy in sideways. The stairs elevated only about five feet or so and he found himself in an octagonal reading nook, with shelves, a floor lamp, and a leather sofa chair facing a trio of large windows that had their blinds drawn shut.

He sank into the chair. Ryan came up, took a cushion from behind Jonathan, dropped it on the floor, and sat down at Jonathan’s feet, between his splayed knees.

Jonathan tensed. The next second he lost his breath as Ryan ran the back of his hand over Jonathan’s shin. It was as if Skynet had unleashed the nuclear apocalypse. Jonathan was scorched, burnt to a crisp.

Stop, he wanted to say. But he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, out would come,Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.

Ryan peered at him. His hand moved up to settle at Jonathan’s knee. Jonathan was paralyzed—and engorged to the limit. And when, with another grin, Ryan’s hand settled on Jonathan’s waistband, Jonathan’s brain promptly short-circuited.

His still-dry swimming trunks ended up on the floor. Ryan took himinside his mouth. Jonathan’s fingers dug into the armrests of the sofa chair. Ryan. Him. The two of them. It was all he wanted.

It was what he feared above all. The beginning of his worst nightmare.

But as long as he didn’t come, he didn’t need to deal with it.

And then Ryan did something and Jonathan bucked and convulsed uncontrollably for a frightfully pleasurable eternity.

When he opened his eyes, still panting hard, Ryan was again smiling at him with that seductive gleam in his eyes. “Think you can return the favor, big guy?”

Jonathan jumped out of the sofa chair, knocking Ryan backward. He grabbed his swimming trunks and stepped into them, not caring that maybe he was pulling them on backward.

Ryan was on his feet now, rubbing his ribs where Jonathan had inadvertently rammed his knee. He studied Jonathan, a little puzzled.

Jonathan tried to explain that he wanted a life in which he never had to explain anything to his parents. A life in which he was never the butt of any locker room jokes. A life in which he was just a man, not a gay man.

But he shouted, “Don’t try to make me a f—— just because you’re one. You’re disgusting. Stay away from me!”

And then, instead of following that up with a righteous door slam, he had to go sideways down the narrow steps and crawl out of the hidden door that almost trapped him between its too-narrow frames.

Present-day Ryan slowly eats another spoonful of ice cream. “Apology accepted.”

Jonathan blinks.

“Although, to be honest, I’m not even all that sure what you’re talking about. I kind of remember that pool party as a good time—that’s all.”

“Oh,” says Jonathan.

Now his brain is not only fried but hurled out of that pan to land splat on the kitchen wall, yolk dripping down in slow, sticky streaks.

“That’s—that’s good. I guess I didn’t need to give myself such a hard time, then.”

“No, not at all,” says Ryan sincerely and, for the first time ever in their acquaintance, a little uncomfortably.

The significance of everything Ryan is saying doesn’t sink in right away. Then it does and mortification flays Jonathan. He isn’t upset that he’s been fixated on his mistake all these years—he was cruel and dishonest and should have been tormented. But it is crushing that an outburst that has taken on such outsized significance in his life made no impression on Ryan at all.

Fuck. Where does one go from here? The possibility of catharsis is now just unbearable embarrassment. Even Ryan, in all his pajamaed, ice-creaming-eating splendor, isn’t enough to lure Jonathan to stay.

But Hazel—Hazel is still here.