Chapter 15 #3
“For the gentleman, a drink will do,” he said, trying to play along. And he pursed his lips together, arched an eyebrow at Nate. “Don't tell me you're making me drink alone.”
“Never.” Nate grabbed a second glass off the counter, delicately clinking it against Connor's. “Salud?”
“Salud,” Connor repeated, pausing awkwardly before he mimed drinking, because that felt like the right thing to do. But Nate looked utterly delighted.
Then he glanced around the model kitchen, eyeing additional props, before he located a double-chambered oil-and-vinegar carafe. He turned it over twice in his hands before turning back to Connor, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Okay, sharks. Have I got an invention for you today.You listening?”
“I'm listening,” Connor replied, his cheeks starting to feel sore from smiling. “You gonna impress me?”
“Oh, I'll impress you. What I have here represents the highest achievements in glass design and innovation.”
“Well, I'm gonna have to see this.”
“Ever come home from work and find yourself wanting a drink, but you don't know what to have?” Nate whipped out the carafe, displaying it for Connor. “Well, I present to you, uh-”
He checked the paper tag and made a face at the Swedish name before turning the carafe over again in his hands, clearly at a loss for words.
“C'mon,” Connor grinned. “I'm sure you've got a great name for your invention.”
“Yeah? Yeah, I do. It's– it's Schrodinger's Flask, as we call it in English.”
Nate said it with such determination that Connor couldn't help but bust up laughing.
“Schrodinger's Flask, okay. And how did you come up with–” Connor motioned to the carafe in Nate's hands, holding back another bout of laughter.
“Well, don't judge it so harshly. You haven't even heard my pitch yet. You're gonna love this.” And Nate composed himself, getting into character. “Ever find yourself coming home from work and you don't know if you want rum or wine? Well, with my newest invention–”
“You keep rum in that thing?” Connor asked with a fond shake of his head.
“Well, I'm getting to that. See, this outer chamber houses the wine, but that little interior chamber–” Nate tapped his finger against the glass, “That's for your secret stash of rum.”
“Right,” Connor nodded. “So I can hide the good liquor from my guests while still serving them.”
“Exactly,” Nate said with a snap of his fingers. “So, whatddya say, sharks? You in?”
“I think you've got me sold,” Connor said after pretending to consider for a moment. “Anyway I can get in on that rum?”
“Of course, that's part of the boyfriend special, if you invest right now.”
“Boyfriend special?” Connor didn't know what expression he wore, because Nate's grin faltered.
“I probably– I mean–”
Nate set the carafe down, clearly embarrassed. And Connor decided to cut in, saving him.
“And here I thought you couldn't take back special offers to the sharks in Shark Tank,” Connor said wryly.
And Nate’s expression softened, eyes darting back and forth before he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Connor’s cheek.
Quick. Barely there. Barely noticeable if someone were to have seen. But they were alone in this department. Alone, just the two of them.
That evening saw them back at Nate’s duplex, Gone Girl playing in the background while the two of them worked their way through a Costco pizza, Mano a pile of hay, and an assortment of modern Swedish furniture for the cultured young man just waiting to be assembled.
At least, that was the nickname Connor had given to Nate’s preferred aesthetic in his head. Stylish earth tones, greens and browns that brought to mind a warm afternoon spent in a park.
Connor made short work of his new coffee table while Nate plotted out decent spots for the art he’d found, hanging command hooks and moving pictures around until he found an arrangement he was happy with.
That wooden crucifix stayed right where he’d originally hung it, just near the kitchen.
Kneeling where he was, trying to work his way around an Allen wrench when he’d never been much of a handyman, Connor found himself thrust back into memories of Catholic school, avoiding eye-contact with the sculpture above the pulpit as he tried to imagine himself in New York, Chicago, London–anywhere but where he was in the moment.
And then he couldn’t do it anymore.
“Can I ask you about that?” Was how Connor went about it, inclining his head towards the wooden crucifix when Nate gave him a questioning look. And then understanding seemed to cross over his face, mixed with apprehension.
“Uh. Yeah. Sure. What do you wanna know?”
“You’re Catholic?”
Nate’s face darkened.
“It’s complicated. It’s not something I thought a whole lot about when I was a kid, you know. It was all just something I did because of my family. My mom.”
“And now?” Connor asked cautiously, hoping it wasn’t too invasive.
“Now? I dunno.” Nate stood back, like he was studying the wooden crucifix. “My ‘Buelo went through a whittling phase before he passed, he made one for each of us.”
Abuelo was grandfather. Connor knew that much. This wasn’t the first time Nate had mentioned him.
“And you’ve got that rosary in your car,” he said, his way of asking without asking.
“Yeah. Driving scares the shit outta me. I guess it's comforting.”
“Comforting,” Connor repeated, and not sarcastically, either. Because he did want to understand.
Even if he couldn’t relate.
“Yeah. It’s not even the religion, it’s–it’s my family and–and the way we’ve always done things.
” Nate grimaced. “I’m Catholic in the same way I’m Puerto Rican.
I didn’t get a choice in either. I don’t get to unchoose it, either.
The two are kinda like opposite faces of a single coin. I mean, San Juan means-”
“Saint John,” Connor cut in, nodding.
Nate’s smile was one of relief.
“Don’t tell me your Spanish is better than mine.”
“It’s not,” Connor said, shaking his head. “I just know a little. Catholic school.”
“Catholic school?” Nate repeated, his eyebrows raising. “You get Confirmed?”
Now Connor was rolling his eyes.
“Not by choice. But my parents are Catholic. You know how it is.”
He didn’t mean to sound so bitter–but there it was. And Nate’s smile faded.
“And I guess you’re not, right?”
“Nope.” Connor regretted how quickly he answered, softening it with, “Kinda sucked it out of me, going to Catholic school. Small Ohio town, plus Catholic school, plus being gay, maybe I’d feel differently about it minus one of those.”
“Maybe,” Nate said gently. “Maybe not.”
“Maybe not,” Connor repeated, wishing that he hadn't brought it up.
But for all that he’d been putting his foot in his mouth, at least he wasn’t Ben Stiller smiling next to a picture of his missing wife.
His gaze shifted from Nate’s television back down to the paper instructions, trying to figure out how he was supposed to attach the supporting beams for this coffee table.
“Can I ask–What are you… what are you thinking about it?” Nate asked like he almost feared how Connor might respond.
“Nothing bad. Not about you.”
“So it's not a deal breaker?”
“Not even close.” Connor smiled, before grimacing and holding out the horizontal supporting beam for Nate to see. “But you making me put your furniture together might be.”
Often these evenings would end with the two of them finding their way into bed together, not with the impatience and desperation of their first few times.
Connor could feel Nate approaching his body with a calm curiosity, studying him the way a plein-air artist might a scene worth preserving in oil.
But there was always a line between them, one they hadn’t yet crossed.
Nate was ever attentive with his hands and his mouth, once even bringing himself to completion by just blowing Connor. He’d been utterly embarrassed while Connor couldn’t have felt more, well, flattered.
But he still had yet to let Nate fuck him.
Maybe let was the wrong word to be using, because Nate had never asked.
Connor hadn’t been sure Nate had any interest in it until one evening found him flat on his back, Nate’s hands pushing his thighs back into his chest as his mouth lit him aflame from the inside out.
And when he’d drawn back after Connor had reached his peak, his own come marring his chest, Nate’s cock had stood at full attention, like an understudy hoping to make an appearance on stage.
Even then, he hadn’t asked, and Connor hadn’t consented. So it never went past that.
There wasn’t any real reason–he’d always liked that. Whatever shame Connor used to feel about his sexual preferences had been lost to time over the twelve years he’d lived his life as a man who had sex with men. And it wasn’t like he didn’t think about it.
He’d often pull Nate on top of him, burying his gasps in warm skin while hooking his legs over his thighs. His own boundaries be damned, that didn’t stop Connor from imagining just how good Nate would feel slipping inside him, girth of his cock stretching him open so he could feel the burn.
Instead, Connor would wrap his fist around their cocks and worked them both to completion, saving his need to be filled to be satisfied only by himself in rare moments, evenings he’d come home from work early and spend the night by himself, riding his own fingers between suggestive texts from Nate.
Not as good as the real thing, not even close.
Sometimes Connor would find himself feeling so frustrated by his own trepidations, laying in bed while his desires battled his anxieties until the early morning hours.
It probably wouldn’t be bad, was what he’d reasoned. Nate probably knew what he was doing.
Nate had alluded to experience with other men, comments here and there about hook up culture in New York.
But Connor couldn’t do it.