9. Tiny Hops
TINY HOPS
Jonathan had fussed with his hair in the staff bathroom, sniff-checked his armpits and unfastened and refastened the second and, embarrassingly, at one point, the third, button on his shirt.
Work was one button, clearly, but a coffee shop with Connor should be two. Three was for bars, Palm Springs, and after dark.
Connor
Would you like a latte
Iced or hot? Or something else
It looked like Connor was typing a third message, but nothing arrived. The phone informed him it was already 4:08. If he didn’t reply, then leave this bathroom, Connor might assume he’d ghosted.
Jonathan
A small cold brew with a splash of cream, please and thank you.
Failure is not fatal, he reminded himself. If you don’t try anything, you won’t fail, but you can’t succeed, either.
Last year he’d written out twenty sayings about failure, practicing them in architect-style block print, fancy calligraphy, even Gen Z failed cursive, until he’d memorized them.
His former therapist had suggested he consider being less of a perfectionist about this, too, but at least they’d laughed over his very nicely composed lists.
He hadn’t had a professional to talk to since he’d moved to Eugene, but he was capable of recognizing that reciting motivational sayings to bolster his nerve to cross a street and meet a former hookup was being a bit of a drama queen; the only thing he needed to do was go.
Just go.
He took three tiny hops. Not two. Not one. Three.
The familiar performance ritual felt good, so he gave a full body shake-out in front of the mirror, from his shoulders to his fingertips to his spine. Flexed his fingers and toes three times.
If he and Connor had nothing to say to each other, if Portland had been a one-time-only thing, that would be fine.
He followed the usual leaving routines, starting with a finger wave to Lily, who smirked and whole-arm waved in reply. The air outside was warm and close after the artificial cool of the library.
At the corner, he pushed the walk sign button with his elbow like he’d been doing since 2020, then concentrated on maintaining a relaxed posture as he crossed the street and approached the café.
He paused to let himself absorb the scene.
Connor was a remarkably good-looking man in an effortless jock way, and he was performing that reading-a-book-in-public thirst trap meme that always caught Jonathan’s attention.
His T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, the fabric glowing with the slight translucence of well-worn cotton in bright light, and his legs sprawled in a pose that showed his firm calves and thick thighs.
From this distance he could see that Connor’s dog also sprawled, half under the table, half on top of Connor’s foot. The two color-coordinated in golden tones like a soft-focus ad for pet food.
Connor had acquired a bright blue ball cap from somewhere, and his blond hair fluffed from under the sides of it and down onto his ears, which made Jonathan want to shove his fingers into those remembered curls and pull a little bit.
Maybe a medium bit.
However much it took to make Connor moan.
He drew closer, but Connor kept reading, so Jonathan continued to study him.
He wasn’t the type of book snob who cared that Connor was engrossed in a Jack Reacher thriller.
His book crushes were gothic romance dark heroes or manhwa antiheroes or Edwardian detectives, so if Connor had a man-crush going on Reacher, who was basically nothing like Jonathan in any way whatsoever, that was also fine.
The cup in front of Connor contained mostly ice and a paper straw, bent as if Connor had chewed it.
Next to a plate holding two small scones, a second compostable cold beverage cup filled with inky dark brew waited, condensation dotting the sides while the cream topping its surface drifted slowly down through the liquid.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
Connor’s shoulders jerked and he looked up quickly, immediately smiling. He stood and started to come around the table, but something happened, perhaps the dog, perhaps its leash, perhaps this was the natural state of an excited second-grade teacher.
Suddenly Connor was stumbling toward Jonathan faster than anyone could wish to when already this close, and the paperback flew out of his hand and skittered across the sidewalk, thankfully away from the drinks.
Jonathan raised his hands, as if he could catch a man who outweighed him by approximately a pallet of books, while Connor pinwheeled until his arm landed on Jonathan’s shoulder.
The dog barked, massively helpful. Although both Connor and Jonathan were a mess of colliding torsos and flailing limbs, no one fell.
They stood motionless for a long moment.
Jonathan could feel the heat of Connor’s body through the worn cotton under his hand.
The shirt stuck to Connor as if the late afternoon sun had dialed up to the melt setting, and he was breathing faster and harder than required from one minute of moderate excitement, leaving it to Jonathan to break the silence.
“Well, hello.”
Connor blushed and couldn’t meet his gaze, but also, he didn’t let go of Jonathan’s shoulder. “That was not how I pictured this going,” he muttered.
“No? But you conveniently ended up in my arms.” Jonathan recognized Connor’s nerves, as if the connection of Connor’s hand to Jonathan’s shoulder conveyed the other man’s inner thoughts.
Because Jonathan had been a performer who’d known that if he fell in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of spectators, he’d have to rise and continue skating, he didn’t telegraph his own nervousness, but he’d have to be oblivious not to recognize it in the other man’s wide eyes and flared nostrils.
“Try again?” Connor asked.
This close to each other, his chest almost brushed Jonathan’s when either of them inhaled, creating the illusion that their words vibrated with each other’s bodies.
The momentary intensity was too much, too uncomfortable. He had to change gears. “Will my coffee survive a second attempt?”
“I think so.” Connor came closer, and Jonathan had a stuttering-brain moment where he pictured being kissed on the patio of the café he went to a couple times a week with his co-workers.
His lips parted, ready to accept a kiss or maybe to say something cutting, he didn’t know.
He didn’t. But then he felt the lightest glide of warmth across his cheekbone, just a brush, and he froze with a certainty that caused his chest to seize that this was something riskier than the meeting of his mouth with Connor’s mouth.
It was a kiss of familiarity, rather than seduction. A kiss of what might be.
Connor pulled away first, glanced down the sidewalk in both directions, and then met Jonathan’s gaze. “So.”
Jonathan couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Guess we’re both intact.”
He bit back his instinct to tell Connor to speak for himself, because at the moment he, Jonathan, was held together by the loosest of stitches and maybe a three-inch piece of skate tape, nothing more. He stepped away. “I should confirm how intact my coffee is.”
“Good plan.” The niceties of arranging themselves in the black iron café chairs led to discussing the two scones sitting on one plate in the center of the round metal table.
“I asked the barista what you liked,” Connor said.
“What do you mean, you asked the barista?”
“Well, I asked what the hot Asian-American librarian liked, and she said which one, and I said the dude.”
Jonathan snorted. He’d tell Lily she qualified as hot to at least one person. “I hope she didn’t say dick.”
Connor’s grin stretched so wide, it squished his cheeks up toward his eyes. “That was probably implied, but she said scones, so I complied.”
Jonathan shouldn’t find the way Connor emphasized the internal rhythm lent by the words implied and complied to be sexy; he was only a slight Merriam-Webster-stan, but nevertheless, he fell into the words.
Words kept coming out of Connor’s smiling mouth while his tawny eyes laughed and promised, and now his cap was off and he was fluffing his hair with his hand.
How could Jonathan resist this man and his words and his laugh. He could not.
Connor nudged the plate closer, and Jonathan touched a finger to his lips. “Thank you, this is perfect.”
He wasn’t supposed to use that word, but it was presumably acceptable when talking about coffee and scones chosen by someone else. He wasn’t setting an unachievable standard; he was thanking Connor for being thoughtful.
And Connor clearly liked to be thanked. His cheeks were a different type of pink now, not the sudden bright flush caused by having tripped at their greeting, but a softer color that complemented his slightly parted lips and deep, steady gaze.
They divided both scones, a cheddar dill and a cherry vanilla, because that made a balanced meal with protein and fruit, according to Connor.
And they talked. And talked. It wasn’t even five pm so they couldn’t just go fuck.
“How long have you lived here?” Connor asked.
“I finished my master’s degree in January and moved here in February.
” Jonathan lifted his cold brew to his mouth and paused with it in front of his lips to watch Connor watching his mouth.
He was so awkwardly attractive that Jonathan wanted to mess with him and make that flush on his cheeks spread across the places he already knew it would. “You?”
“What?” The way Connor’s voice rose on the word made him sound dazed.
“When did you move here?”
“Oh.” Connor took a deep breath and reached down to pet his dog, which seemed to cohere his thoughts. “I grew up in Eastern Oregon and played baseball here for the university. I lived at home during the first part of Covid, which motivated me to get a job back here.”
“You teach second grade?”
“Yep. At a small private school, because I don’t have a teaching cert yet, but I’m working on that. I don’t think I’ll leave my school, but the credential will give me the flexibility to go to the public system if I want.”