9. Tiny Hops #2
This Connor, the one with a plan and coherent sentence structure, reminded Jonathan of the man who had so smoothly ordered him a cocktail with only a gesture and a head tilt, not so much the guy who said ‘what’ and couldn’t type. He found the contrast intriguing.
“Where did you move here from?” Connor asked him. The table vibrated, and Jonathan assumed Ribby was shifting around beneath it.
“New York.” People who wanted to get to know each other shared more than the bare minimum. Connor had done that, so Jonathan pushed himself, too. “But I’m originally from Southern California. Outside of LA.”
Connor continued to look at him. “Why here then? Why not go back to California?”
“This was where I landed a job offer after grad school.”
“A library science degree?”
“Yes.” He was impressed that Connor knew the term and then felt a twinge of guilt for misjudging him. The man was himself getting an advanced degree. Jonathan shouldn’t assume from appearances that he was stereotypical dumb jock.
“I had a lot of free time during the pandemic and started taking online classes, and when it ended, I decided to stop skating and go to school in person. I wanted to get far away, and the library and information science program in New York admitted me.”
He spread his hands. No amount of familiarity or mutual sharing would make him add the reasons he wanted to be far, far away from his mother, his father, and his former coach. “That’s it.”
“Skating?” Connor tilted his head curiously. “Like, ice skating?”
“Exactly like that.”
Connor’s lips parted and he looked dazzled. “Wow.”
Jonathan braced himself for a joke. There was always a joke.
“Will you…” Connor looked down at the table.
Jonathan did not preempt him with one of his own quips. That would hurt too much.
“Can we go together sometime? I keep driving past the rink over by the Events Center, and I kind of want to try it, because I’ve never skated.”
And that was not a joke. That was, in fact, completely new.
Completely never had happened to Jonathan before.
He’d taught a lot of people, all of them children or teens, a few of them good enough to continue with better coaches, but not one, not even a fraction of one, had been a six-foot plus fully adult man that he’d fucked.
“It’d be good for my glutes, right? I could be a hybrid, a baseball and hockey butt in one amazing killer package.” Connor kept his chin tilted toward his chest but glanced at Jonathan through those golden eyelashes that did not obscure the flirty sparkle.
“Are you suggesting I’m some sort of Doctor Frankenstein?”
Now he lifted his head and stared, eyes narrowed, but no less flirtatious. “Hey, not a dumb jock here. You’re hinting that I’m the monster, aren’t you?”
“Monster butt.” What had he become? In his own defense, Connor’s accusation had edged too close to the thought Jonathan had criticized himself about moments before, so he’d resorted to the first ill-conceived response that popped into his brain.
Connor laughed. He always laughed. He was easy for that. “Look at us, chatting like a good first date.”
“But it’s not a first date.” Jonathan’s voice dropped. “We’re way past that.”
They both knew the demonstrative pronoun at the end of Jonathan’s sentence wasn’t a reference to sitting across a table from each other. Jonathan was back in the hotel room staring at Connor pressed against the door in total disarray, his cock flushed red and weeping while he obeyed Jonathan.
Jonathan lifted his drink, empty of everything but ice, to his mouth and slurped one of the smaller cubes. He felt parched and hot, sitting in the sun in long sleeves.
Connor angled his shoulders over the table and watched him without speaking.
The ice in Jonathan’s mouth melted faster than any ice he could remember. He tilted his head farther back, which he knew elongated his neck, and shook another piece into his mouth. He could feel the drops of coffee-water on his lips.
He dipped his fingers into the cup for a third piece of ice, plucked it out and slipped it between his lips.
Across the table, Connor’s lips also parted, and Jonathan watched his chest rise and fall. A few strands of hair poked above the crew neck of Connor’s T-shirt, and Jonathan remembered how soft that golden ocean had felt between his sifting fingers.
Connor remained silent but entirely focused on Jonathan. His lips parted and his chest rose noticeably faster. It was a zone he dropped into, Jonathan realized. He’d done it when they left the restaurant last weekend and possibly even when they’d flirted in the lobby.
The singular attention was flattering but also left him wondering what went through Connor’s head when his switch flipped. His gaze tracked Jonathan’s hand until Jonathan’s cold fingertips landed on the back of Connor’s curled fist.
Connor shuddered, and then his hand opened and flattened on the table.
Jonathan did not remove his fingers. Connor did not lift his gaze.
The table rattled and shifted from motion below. Not Ribby, apparently.
“Connor, your leg.” He pressed firmly on the back of Connor’s hand, and the table stopped vibrating.
The air whooshed out of Connor’s chest and his shoulders relaxed. In place of the fixed concentration, his eyes closed and he swayed in his chair. The tops of his cheekbones flushed darker, and his lips parted.
“That doesn’t sound appropriate for public.”
Connor’s eyes flew open and his eyebrows drew in toward the bridge of his nose. “But I didn’t say anything.”
“Your interior life was very loud.”
Jonathan watched another round of Connor’s blush spread across his cheeks and neck.
“Very, very loud.” He slurped another piece of ice without releasing Connor’s gaze. This man was fun. He made Jonathan feel like a cat with a very large toy.
“So, your place or mine?”
Jonathan snorted and then had to cough the chip of ice out of his throat.
“Oh! Are you okay? I didn’t mean for that!”
He pressed his palm to his chest in mock horror. “I’m so disappointed.”
“Wait, I mean, yes, of course, I mean for that, but also for dinner. Dinner first.” Connor inhaled.
“I have a piece of salmon I thawed for tonight, and I have gnocchi in the freezer. I’d like to cook for you.
And I also have parsley and mint in my garden for a quick chimichurri sauce, so that will work, and I could—”
Jonathan hadn’t yet noticed an exhale. Connor might be someone who accidentally held their breath. He pressed his full hand more firmly on top of Connor’s, trapping the other man’s hand between the iron screen of the table and Jonathan’s palm.
He pitched his voice deeper, which wasn’t his usual tone, but felt almost natural in this moment. “Connor.”
The pressure, combined with his name, drew Connor’s focus, and he let out a deep breath.
Without looking away from their hands on the table, Connor nodded, then spoke more slowly.
“If you don’t want to come over, we can go out, or your place.
Although we have to find an outdoor patio because I have Ribby. And I need to shut up.”
“You do not need to shut up, but you do need to breathe.” Jonathan looked at the dog, curled half around C’s bare calf while his tail swished across the sidewalk. The dirty sidewalk. “Your place. And I like salmon.”
“Great. My place it is.” Connor’s lips curved and his eyes half-closed while he gathered the paper napkins and the plate with only crumbs from the scones. He gloated as if Jonathan had said I like you rather than a completely innocent comment about fish.
When Connor stood next to him, hands full, Jonathan deliberately let his gaze linger on Connor’s legs below his shorts, examine the dog, and then climb back up Connor. “Also, I am not ready for fur on my sofa.”
Connor threw his head back and laughed in a way that engaged his whole chest and would be vastly entertaining if he were shirtless.
“Noted. You’re anti-fur.” He slapped his own chest. “Guess I’ll have to try to change your opinion.”
“You’re more than welcome to try. Before or after dinner.”
He would gold medal in the sport of making Connor blush.