12. That’s a Lot
THAT’S A LOT
Jonathan watched Connor carefully after he returned to the kitchen, but he didn’t wobble in front of the stove as he cooked a fresh batch of French toast, and he didn’t fumble pouring coffee or juice, so the trip upstairs to change must have helped him recover.
Connor had surprised him with the depth of his responsiveness, and Jonathan had wondered if he needed to do something more, something beyond ordinary kindness and concern, but thankfully Connor had bounced back quickly to grin at the stove and wiggle his eyebrows when he spoke.
Together, they set the small table with a decent set of plain white dishes, of which Jonathan approved, and a blue and gold patterned porcelain pitcher of maple syrup, tiny and pretty enough that Jonathan could wrap his palm around it, of which he triple-approved.
He stared at the plate of perfectly browned slices of bread Connor set in the center.
Connor held out the serving fork to him first. The golden egg batter had tiny dark flecks of real vanilla bean seeds, a clear sign that he’d woken up in someone else’s life. Best case scenario, no one would tell him to leave.
After his first bite, Connor looked at him with raised eyebrows and a questioning head tilt. “So?”
“Very toothsome.”
A smile twitched at a corner of Connor’s mouth.
“I’d go as far as delectable.”
Connor sighed. “Only that far?”
He cut another square and swirled it in the edge of the syrup puddle.
He couldn’t talk while he ate, not until at least half this French toast resided on the inside of his body, but the presence of the man across the table was as compelling as the breakfast. “Perhaps I would agree to scrumptious, but only if you let me eat in peace.”
A blow job and French toast. This morning was the best Jonathan could remember in quite possibly forever, but of course his brain intruded into his pleasure sooner than he would have liked.
With a twinge, he realized that Connor kept getting into situations where Jonathan ended up very much in charge, and he should probably research whatever sub care entailed.
He was good at research. And apparently, unbeknownst to him until this man, he was also good at being some version of a bossy dom.
He shouldn’t do it wrong, though, and he definitely wasn’t buying more leather until he earned about five more raises.
Connor stared at him and Jonathan realized he’d been asked a question.
“I missed that.” He raised an eyebrow to make Connor repeat himself.
“It was nothing big.” Connor fumbled with the cutlery at the edge of his plate. “What were you—”
He cut himself off, but Jonathan assumed he’d intended to ask what Jonathan had been thinking about, naturally. “You, asshole. I was thinking about you.”
Predictably, Connor flushed his lovely rose color and tucked his chin towards his chest. “Me?”
He sipped his coffee, which had grown tepid, so he held it out wordlessly to Connor.
The other man took the mug, stood, and immediately refilled it from the pot.
“That is what I was thinking about.”
“Coffee?”
“No, you and your…” He fluttered his hand in Connor’s direction. “Wants? Needs, perhaps?”
Connor’s eyebrows moved, both of them, inwards. “I don’t understand.”
“I was thinking about how much you appear to like it when I tell you to do things. You appear to really like it, shall we say. And I shouldn’t abuse that and perhaps I need to do research to make sure I don’t harm you. Accidentally.”
Connor stared at him, lips parted and eyes wide, and Jonathan was completely unable to interpret his expression. It could be shock, it could be awe, it could be nausea. “That’s…Wait, do I…Am I?”
“I don’t know, Connor, are you?”
“What?”
Jonathan closed his eyes. “Save me from this. Change the subject. What were you going to ask me when I was so rudely considering your feelings and needs?”
Not waspish. Do not sound waspish. Not over French toast, not sober, not without cocktails and annoying house music to take the blame.
“I was saying that I have a softball game tonight. You could—” He pressed his lips together so hard they folded inwards. “Sorry, that’s a lot. I’m a lot. Maybe next week, next Tuesday?”
Jonathan ignored Connor’s self-editorial comments. The man had rather loose boundaries between his brain and his mouth, which Jonathan shouldn’t find charming, but Connor’s consistent failure to perform the expected role of single gay man somehow emerged as captivating.
Gay men didn’t see each other every night after merely two hookups. It wasn’t done.
And yet.
“I have the closing shift tonight, noon until eight.” He looked at the time on his phone. “I need to leave soon to get home and change.”
“That’s too bad. That’s, yeah, too bad.”
“I do not work Friday night. Tomorrow.” Jonathan glanced up from his remaining bites of French toast, saw Connor’s tentative smile, and then looked back at his plate. Even discussing tomorrow felt crazily committed. They should be talking about next week. Who made plans for the next day?
“Ah! That would be…” Connor’s voice trailed away. “Oh, I’m umping.”
“I feel like I should know what that means, but what it sounds like right now cannot possibly be what it means.”
“Baseball referee. I’m an umpire for a youth tournament this weekend. I also do soccer ref work in the summer for extra money to take trips.” He patted his stomach, as if it would vibrate, but it did not. “And the running around lets me eat extra pancakes.”
“I see.” They both had lives. Jonathan wasn’t available tonight, Connor wasn’t available tomorrow, all of that was reasonable and normal. He wasn’t a pound puppy needing to be adopted.
“I’m not scheduled for Saturday night. Tournament barbecue, umps not required.”
Jonathan assessed the silence that fell between them.
It wasn’t precisely uncomfortable, but also, it wasn’t a reading nonchalantly level of ease.
He gathered that Connor, in a belated fit of self-awareness or perhaps self-preservation, wasn’t going to say more unless Jonathan gave some hint of his availability.
“I also am not scheduled for Saturday night.” That was the truth, and the truth was polite and appropriate, but nothing more.
A flare of hope shouldn’t be working its way through his body and raising expectations about seeing Connor in two days, because it was ridiculous, bordering on absurd, perhaps even staring into the abyss of needy, to have expectations for a Saturday night after nothing more than two hook ups and two breakfasts.
“That’s a yes for Saturday, then?” Connor’s eyes crinkled at the sides.
Jonathan shrugged and nodded at the same time. “If you want it to be.”
“I’ll be pretty beat after doing four games during the day, though.”
“And I’ll be tired after a ride with my cycle group.” He too had a busy weekend already planned. It wasn’t like he didn’t have options.
“So.” Connor turned his head to the side and looked at him consideringly. “What should we do?”
“Since we’re two gay men on a Saturday night, probably find a club and go dancing.”
“What?” The whites of Connor’s eyes looked almost as large as the white around the fried eggs he’d cooked for himself with the French toast, but which Jonathan had declined.
“Joking.” He was joking about dancing after a hard morning cycling, but taking the floor to gyrate against a solid wall of Connor had possibilities. If he had any rhythm at all, which was doubtful, it would be amazing.
“I do dance. I do. I’m in high demand at friends’ weddings because I’m one of the guys who dances. And it’s a great way to meet—”
“I know exactly who you can meet on a dance floor.”
Connor shut up and his lips firmed. Jonathan sipped his coffee and waited, watching Connor think. If his eyebrow motions were a cheat sheet, it was possible that the other man had discarded two ideas before he settled on one that he was about to share.
“Got it!” Connor lifted a finger. “A friend of mine has a music thing Saturday night. Kind of low key, since we’ll be tired, and it’s at a park, so it’s free.”
“What is it?”
“A concert in the amphitheater at Alton Baker Park.” Connor lowered his chin and looked at Jonathan through his golden lashes. “It’s old music.”
“Like ABBA old?”
“No, like dead guy composers. I have to think of the name of what she plays.” His hands did something in front of his body, fluttery fingers and arms moving in two different directions, that Jonathan did not understand, but which must be a pantomime of playing an instrument.
“A harp?”
“The angel instrument? No, that would be like this.” He reached far in front of himself, and his fingers fluttered as he pulled them toward his chest.
The man who managed to make a busy bartender take his order with merely a chin lift could not be pantomiming a harp and calling it ‘the angel instrument,’ absolutely not, so Jonathan knew he too was being played.
“I’m far too sober and under-caffeinated for charades, but dear God, I can’t help myself. Is it a theremin?”
“Isn’t that also a keyboard? No, the thing Trixie plays is like a giant violin, but standing up.”
“A cello? Or an upright bass? Is that what this was supposed to be?” He held his own hands in front of his body and moved them back and forth, but carefully emphasized his extended middle fingers.
“That’s you pretending to be a wild turkey doing a mating dance. I was definitely playing the bass.”
“I hope your friend has better form than you do.”
“She does. You should see her pitch softball. Excellent form. I can’t really judge her bass, though, for a lot of reasons.”
Jonathan let that comment pass. For a lot of reasons. “And a theremin is not like a keyboard. It’s a touchless electronic instrument invented by a Russian in 1920. You wave between antennas, that’s all.”
Connor stared. “I believe you. Sort of.”
Jonathan felt an admittedly petty surge of satisfaction over having both derailed and then taken back the conversation. “I don’t even believe me, but I learned a lot about Russian music and composers while skating.”