14. Not a Dog Handler
NOT A DOG HANDLER
The second time Jonathan stayed at Connor’s, following directly after the successful Saturday picnic and concert, he was less surprised to wake up without Connor, but startled to be staring at Ribby.
Who was sitting alertly on the bed. Staring back.
No amount of miniature caprese sandwiches and tiny lemon tarts with glistening raspberries on top served to him on blue and white patterned melamine plates—paper is for sports fields, these are for outdoor dining, Connor had said with a rising flourish that was as close as Jonathan had heard his voice come to sounding like a gay influencer—could balance waking next to a dog.
“Get down.” He didn’t know if he should pull his hands out from under the covers and point, or if that would be like waving a toy and then the dog would open his mouth. “Go. Away.”
Obviously Ribby neither talked nor listened; he was a dog, and Jonathan was not a dog handler. When he’d said as much last night after Connor expected the three of them to share one picnic blanket, Connor had added “yet.”
There was no yet in this morning’s interlude. There was Connor, who had a dog, and Jonathan, who did not have a dog, and who was at Connor’s place again rather than vice versa precisely because he did not want fur on his own sofa and Connor and Ribby were a two-for-one deal.
Jonathan definitely did not want dog feet, which could not be removed like outdoor shoes, on the thrifted chaise longue he’d re-upholstered in a rose-colored wool blend during his first month in Eugene.
And that wasn’t even addressing dog claws.
He assumed Ribby had claws since he clicked on the kitchen tiles.
Jonathan had a faux zebra throw rug. Full incompatibility.
Connor would love the rug.
Jonathan could picture him in a pose similar to the one he’d adopted last night on the picnic blanket, legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, thighs emerging from his shorts hem and begging to be straddled.
In the privacy of Jonathan’s apartment, Connor could recline while wearing more minimal clothing than a public park required, and Jonathan could do the straddling rather than merely think about it.
The image helped Jonathan continue to avoid eye contact with Ribby, although he could hear the chuffing sounds coming from a chest cavity that might be comparably sized to his own.
Please, don’t let it be bigger.
Like the first time he’d stayed here, a sweaty, hideously garbed Connor clomped up the stairs and arrived with coffee.
This time he kept the familiar World’s Best Teacher mug and instead offered Jonathan a red one decorated with two truly atrocious cartoon anteaters, a little one wearing a tutu and a larger one sporting a gray old-lady bun and dangling reading glasses.
A speech bubble proclaimed learning is pretty.
“Not pretty great? Just pretty? And is that a female-coded anteater teacher? An elderly female. And you are…” He studied Connor from his broad shoulders to his bulging thighs. So much flushed skin, so much blond hair, so much muscle. “Very much not female.”
The coffee was too hot to gulp, so he took a sip. “Why does this exist?”
“Parents of a kid in my class last year gave it to me.” He sipped serenely from the simpler mug. “For Christmas.”
“Ugh. I hate people.”
“I know, right? Isn’t it ugly? And the sentiment is terrible, too.”
“I am telling you, this is neither beautiful nor even particularly useful, given how many other mugs you have, so you should not keep it in your home. You should not.” The temperature was now ideal. “That’s advice from William Morris, not from me.”
“It does have one special use that I kind of like.”
Jonathan glared at the mug. “What could it possibly be good for?”
Connor waited until Jonathan looked at him again. “Teasing you.”
He glared. At least, he tried to glare, but it was good coffee and this morning Connor’s workout shorts resembled Eighties basketball shorts, not the absurdly long modern ones, which did keep drawing Jonathan’s attention.
Connor smiled. “I wasn’t sure if they let their kid choose it, or what.
” He nodded at the mug Jonathan had lifted for another sip.
“I thought they liked me, but then they gave me that filled with hard red and white peppermint candies, like they had raided the dish at the register of a restaurant while the owner’s back was turned.
And their kid was definitely not on scholarship. ”
He set his coffee on top of a stack of books sitting on the bedside table and then wrestled Ribby off the mattress. “Not when Jonathan is here, go on, get down, you lumpy blanket. Down.”
Jonathan fixed his gaze on the liquid in his mug. He didn’t want to watch Connor hug and shove the large dog because he might not be able to stop himself from asking Connor to wash his hands. “Was the kid a sarcastic bastard, or just the parents, to give you that?”
Connor sniffed his T-shirt, then removed it before he flopped onto the pillow where Ribby had put his paws. His hair, which he appeared to have finger-combed into a state of fluffy disarray rather than a half-mashed, half-swirled mess, rested where a moment before there had been a dog.
And a dog butt.
Jonathan would also not focus on that. He would stare deeply into Connor’s eyes and admire the flecks of gold and brown and green that gave swirls of color to the hazel.
“She was a sweet girl who wore cat ears all day for months. Good reader.”
This was excellent coffee, hot and smooth with hints of nut, and worthy of his focus. As he sipped, he was aware of how the sheet puddled on his lap, because Connor had shifted on his side to face him, and let his gaze settle on Jonathan’s bare chest.
Connor absently stroked Jonathan’s closer arm, which wasn’t holding the cup, gliding to the edge of his tattoo but not touching the ink, then retreating. Watching Connor’s blunt fingers, so strong and tanned against his own arm, was hypnotic.
Someone should speak.
What had they been saying?
“I was a good reader.” That was the thread they’d abandoned. “And also a sarcastic bastard. They go together quite well.”
“As well as peanut butter and chocolate?”
Jonathan shuddered and must have made a face.
“What?” Connor pushed himself upright. He could move far too fast for the morning. “Are you saying you don’t like peanut butter and chocolate?”
“I like them both.” He took another sip. “Separately.”
“Then it’s a good thing I made slow-cooked oatmeal and berry compote instead of chocolate chip pancakes with peanut praline topping, isn’t it?”
He knew the look on his face must be uncomprehending, the sort people gave when they wandered into a zombie flash mob, but this casual mention of pancakes and peanut praline topping being on the menu wasn’t normal, not at all.
Unless maybe he had a new normal?
Connor took Jonathan’s coffee, which wasn’t yet half-finished, the monster, and set the mug on a coaster on the bedside table. The coaster featured a close-up photo of Ribby’s tongue, nose and one eye. It was not conventionally attractive.
Peanut praline topping.
Even that wouldn’t make him surrender as easily as Connor expected. “Tell me more about breakfast.”
Connor drew invisible lines down the middle of Jonathan’s chest until he reached the gathered sheet. Spread wide across Jonathan’s stomach, his hand was large enough to pretend the stretched fingers spanned his waist. “The important thing to know is that I turned off the burners and it will keep.”
He couldn’t help looking at Connor’s shoulders and chest, because somehow he’d slipped down the pillows to a position where Connor loomed above him.
He gripped the spot just above Connor’s elbows where the darkest color from his forearms shifted to a lighter golden tone, then followed those gradients to his upper arms, then to the even lighter skin at the middle of his shoulders that became deep tan again at the hollow of his neck.
Clearly Connor didn’t use enough sunscreen, because his body was an orchestra’s worth of small demarcations unified into a symphony by the flush across his chest.
At first, he resisted Jonathan’s tug on his shoulders, smiling down like this was a game. It was a game, one they would both win, but Jonathan was far more of an asshole than the man above him in the bed. He wanted complete victory.
He laid two fingers flat on his own lips and stared at Connor’s face, then very slowly drew those fingers down his chin, under his jaw, along the line of his throat and through the middle of his collarbone.
Connor watched. His lips parted. He stayed balanced above Jonathan, but he watched.
Jonathan moved his hand to his right nipple and let the tip of his middle finger, only that one, slowly circle while he held the rest of his hand tightly flexed away from his skin. Nothing should obstruct Connor’s gaze.
Connor’s elbows started to shake.
“How’s that plank position going?”
“Good.” Connor choked out an answer.
“Mmm.” He made the sound he reserved for warm salty cookies, a sound which he was certain Connor knew, and let his hand keep drifting toward the edge of the sheet.
He trailed his fingertips over his own skin, but he curled his hand so that the back of his palm brushed lightly across Connor’s stomach every time his diaphragm expanded.
Maybe in the future Connor wouldn’t dismiss peanut praline topping so easily.
Above him, Connor tucked his chin so that he could stare down the still separate lengths of their bodies. He was panting. Trembling. But he held himself above Jonathan.
“Hard workout this morning?”
“Usual.”
“Then why are you shaking, Connor.” He stroked the back of his knuckles from both hands along the skin of Connor’s inner arms, from wrists almost to his arm pits. That was a sensitive place for everyone, and Connor gasped.