Page 82 of The Librarians

Ryan looks from Hazel to Conrad, then back again, and seems to make a conscious decision to take things at face value—for now. “Didn’t know you were coming back so soon, Conrad,” he says.

Conrad shrugs. “Last-minute change of plans.”

“So…everything’s okay?” asks Jonathan, his voice tight.

Hazel nods. “Everything’s fine. We saw your pickup truck and didn’t want to interrupt you and Ryan, so we came in from the side.” This house has to have a side door or several, right? “But in the dark we tripped.”

Jonathan evidently doesn’t believe her—he knows why she is really here. She’s pretty sure Ryan doesn’t either.

“Okay then. You guys talk things over.”

Ryan turns to leave, giving Jonathan little choice but to follow. But at the top of the staircase, Jonathan turns around and looks again at Hazel.

Go, she mouths.You can go.

Jonathan is not at all reassured, but Ryan is already halfway down the stairs, looking back expectantly at him, and Hazel clearly does not want him to be further involved.

But what is going on? Was Conrad lying in wait? Has he managed to entrap Hazel with a ruse about being out of town this week?

“Hazel, do you want something to drink?” asks Conrad all of a sudden.

But his voice is low. And the way he studies her, with such undiluted attention—Jonathan could almost forget that he has just caught her housebreaking.

She glances at him. Is she also surprised by his apparent solicitude? “I could use a glass of wine,” she says, deadpan.

“Could you get that for Hazel, Ryan?” Conrad calls toward the curving staircase. “I have to check something on my desktop. I’ll meet you guys in the kitchen in five minutes.”

Without waiting for an answer, he disappears into his bedroom. Hazelstares a moment at the now-closed door, then turns to Jonathan and smiles slightly. “Well, let’s go.”

Jonathan loved the kitchen in this house last night. Ryan before the stove, Ryan draining pasta, Ryan’s head-tilted smile as he extracted the cork from the bottle of red Jonathan had brought. But right now all he can think about is whether Ryan and Conrad are in this together. The hell Conrad is looking at his desktop. What is he doing? Loading a bazooka?

No, actually, maybe “desktop” isn’t a euphemism. Maybe he really has to wipe his hard drive after Hazel has rooted around in there.

Ryan pulls out a pale pink bottle from the fridge. “How about a glass of Kylie Minogue’s Prosecco for you, Hazel? I was at a gay wedding this afternoon and they gave everybody a bottle.”

“It will do,” Hazel answers.

She trails her fingertips along a row of hefty cookbooks, looking for all the world like she’s on a casual, or at least a normal, visit. Wait, is that a Glock in her pocket? Jesus, Jonathan thought they’d agreed not to bring firearms to avoid unnecessary escalation.

While Ryan fetches stemware, Hazel unwraps the foil atop the bottle and twists and pops the cork, her motions quick and efficient. “How was the wedding? Did you have fun?”

Ryan tilts a glass and pours carefully into it. “Wedding was nice. Not one hundred percent sure though that at my age I still have ‘fun’ at weddings.”

“Oh?” says Hazel, accepting the glass of prosecco from Ryan. “What do you have, then, instead of fun?”

Ryan pours another glass and frowns slightly, an unusual expression for him. “If I think the couple isn’t gonna make it, I wonder why everybody is there wasting their time. If I do think the marriage will last, then I’m forced to ask myself: ‘Do I want to be married? Am I going to make a disaster of it? And do I want it just because it’sthemost patriarchal, heteronormative thing under the sun?’ ”

Hazel picks up the glass he’s just finished pouring and gives it to Jonathan. “What about you, Jonathan? Do you like weddings?”

She’s doing her Jedi mind trick, diverting attention from herself, and once again doing it so successfully that Jonathan dives headlong into the topic. “I love weddings—I can’t help it. I don’t even mind those that I’m sure will end in tears, as long as in that moment I can feel a sense of genuine hope and commitment.”

This earns him a long look from Ryan.

“Hey, Conrad,” says Ryan, shifting his gaze. “Do you want to get married?”

Jonathan turns to see Conrad walking into the kitchen, in head-to-toe black like Hazel.

“Is that a proposal?” he replies casually. “I’ll think about it after you learn to load the dishwasher properly.”