4. Bread Baskets & Blushes #3
While Connor enjoyed his zucchini and goat cheese ravioli, decorated with tiny, deep-fried squash blossoms, and Jonathan the peas and morel risotto, they didn’t fall into conversational lulls, until the point when Connor asked if Jonathan had pets, and he said no.
Jonathan sighed. “This is where I ask you the same question, isn’t it?”
Connor’s grin told him the answer, even before the nod that sent his hair flopping around. “I have a rescue greyhound named Ribby. He’s the best.”
“They always are.”
“No, seriously, he is. A few weeks ago, I didn’t know a chickadee had hit the front window of my house, but Ribby was running back and forth inside along the windowsill, so I went to check and found the little guy.
I put it in a box with a towel so it wouldn’t be cold, and Ribby sat near the box until it flew away.
I’m pretty sure he was guarding it from predators.
Of course, I had to watch too, in case he forgot to be a good boy and got too doggy, but he didn’t. He was so careful. So careful.”
Jonathan wanted, suddenly and completely, with every part of his soul, to have someone speak about him with that glow of wonder in his voice, but this was a hook up with a guy who lived a hundred miles from him and was for probably, most likely, undoubtedly, nothing but tonight.
“And then the script requires me to ask if you have a photo, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, you’d like to see a picture of Ribby? Sure, I happen to have one right on my phone.”
“One?”
“Oh, you’d like to see several?” Connor smirked and then shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t do that on a first date.”
Jonathan snickered while Connor held out his phone.
“He looks very doggie.” And also startlingly like Connor, with gleaming hazel eyes, red-gold coloring, and an alertly tilted head. “Is that a dog smile?”
“That’s his look when he knows I’m taking his photo.”
“He knows that, does he?” It would be nice to have someone look at a photo of him the way Connor looked at the dog on his screen, but producing that type of awe clearly required dating a guy like Connor, not a sarcastic scene queen, and Jonathan knew that he didn’t know how.
As soon as the server left the dessert list, a solemn expression settled on Connor’s face and Jonathan wondered whether he’d somehow insulted the adored Ribby.
No, that was merely his own insecurity. He’d said nothing wrong. More likely, Connor was about to make a joke.
“The recent onion debacle demonstrates that we need not one, but two desserts.”
“Or perhaps we go with none? We could leave sooner.”
“Or, hear me out.” Connor lifted a finger to punctuate himself, apparently with no idea that he was seconds away from Jonathan’s teeth snapping at the end of that finger. “What about three?”
“Hmm.” He tapped his chin. “No.”
In the end, they both ordered decaf espresso macchiatos that came in demitasse cups with twists of lemon zest and tiny spoons that looked unbearably twee in Connor’s hand, which gave Jonathan more unsettling thoughts about Connor’s hands and Connor’s thighs and, inevitably, Connor’s cock.
They also shared a chocolate pot de crème and a tiramisu, neither as ignorable as the butter lettuce salad, but not the level of sublime that they would think about tomorrow.
They didn’t even argue over the bill, just put both credit cards on the tray to split it evenly.
Without over-thinking, at least not by Jonathan’s standards of over-thinking, he and Connor were outside crossing the street.
He was doing an exemplary job of existing in the moment.
When he swayed toward Connor, it wasn’t from alcohol, because they’d each drunk only one cocktail and one glass of wine.
No, Jonathan knew he swayed toward all that solidity. Those shoulders and the chest that could absolutely do whatever he wanted to Jonathan, combined with the blushes and goofy smiles that complemented his awkward awareness that he was large.
Jonathan reached out, not quite sure what his hand was going to do once it entered Connor’s space, but then he wrapped his fingers around Connor’s wrist, above and below the band of his watch.
He felt the round steel face settle into his palm at the base of his own fingers, felt the tiny knob on the side of the watch poke into his flesh, but that was overshadowed by the tickle of the hairs on Connor’s wrist against his fingers.
His chest hair had been visibly taunting Jonathan, adorning the exposed vee below his throat with golden promises of what might be underneath the fabric. Jonathan imagined a swathe of hair as soft and ticklish as the hair brushing the sides of his fingers.
Next to him, Connor exhaled. Jonathan sensed a heavier pull from the weight of Connor’s arm, as if a string in his shoulder had been snipped and Connor’s arm had been given to him to carry.
The lobby was much brighter than he remembered, and a few men lingered on the couches, talking, but more time getting to know each other didn’t feel necessary. He knew he wanted Connor, and he felt a surge of confidence that the man who had surrendered his wrist thought the same.
“Your room or mine?”