17. A Sport Without Balls
A SPORT WITHOUT BALLS
“I know this isn’t the moment.” Connor hadn’t expected Jonathan would choose a demanding physical activity the day after Pride parade-induced exhaustion, but here they were, the two of them bicycling a country lane on Sunday afternoon.
It should be lovely.
He should be enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.
He should be able to feel his ass.
Connor couldn’t believe how good it felt to stop and plant two feet firmly on the ground, with absolutely nothing touching his butt. Nothing. He would not take sitting down on something that was wide enough to cradle his entire buttocks for granted ever again.
That rickety desk chair in his classroom? Best friend. Jonathan? Not best friend. Maybe not even friend.
“I have something I need to say.”
From ten feet in front of him, the villain who had claimed this activity called “cycling” would be fun looked over his shoulder at Connor with that sly half-smile that employed more eyebrows than teeth and usually made Connor want to mash his body into a wall.
Not today, Satan.
“What is it that you need to whine about now, Connor?”
“I don’t think you’re getting this ass tonight.”
Jonathan burst into laughter and raised his hand to his chest. In honor of Pride, he’d painted his short nails alternating colors of the rainbow, and Connor liked how they looked against his tightly fitted red and white cycling jersey. “I’m heartbroken.”
“You don’t have to act like you don’t care.” He stuck a finger under the edge of his helmet to scratch. Sweat made his scalp itchy.
“I figured you had more than twenty miles in that tank, but I was so, so wrong.”
“It was twenty-four. And I’ve got plenty in the tank.” He went to palm his cock, but his hand froze without contact because, yeah, his balls hurt too. And he didn’t want to investigate that.
Jonathan snickered. “But not enough in the trunk?”
“Too much in the trunk? Why Isn’t my butt helping me?” This was not like the seat on his rowing machine, and also, he’d been on it for a lot longer.
“Nope, it’s about conditioning. My ass is toned. My ass is, in fact, like stone.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, you’re wearing padded shorts and I’m not, so at this moment your ass is actually more padded than mine.”
“Blaming your gear, for shame.” Jonathan unsnapped his helmet and removed it, shaking his hair, and then peeled off a cycling glove. Normally, dark waves of hair fanned around Jonathan’s face, but after cycling, they clung to the sides of his head.
Connor watched him spike fingers through the damp hair at his temple and lift, letting strands sift through. The sweat on his forehead glowed. His lips parted as he breathed, and he looked almost as wrung out as when they collapsed in bed, but without the beard burn and pinkened lips.
Connor was tired, sweaty, and sore, but he watched. He watched.
“There is a beautiful patio at the end of this drive. They serve wine and what normal-sized people describe as hearty appetizers. And since it’s gravel, I’ll allow us to walk these machines up the hill.”
“Walking,” Connor groaned, less at the idea of walking than at the idea of the hill. “I think I remember that.”
“First you have to swing your leg out from across the bike.” And Jonathan demonstrated by lifting his leg high, almost a kick, and rotating his hips so damn fluidly Connor once again wondered why they weren’t lounging at home in bed.
Unfortunately, it was clear to him that at this moment, here, on this bike, his appreciation of Jonathan’s show-offy high-kick felt more like an idea someone else might have than a possibility he could act upon.
It was still uncertain whether he would ever again be able to use any body parts located between his knees and chest.
“Now, come along,” Jonathan said.
Connor heard his own moan, an unintentional sound that made him think his body wanted nothing to do with what his brain was dictating had to be done. “Wait, I have to think about it.”
“Connor.”
“I will do this, give me a moment.”
“I’ll order you a whole charcuterie board of your own when we get to the winery. You won’t have to share.”
He let out a long breath. “No olives.”
“If there are olives, I will eat them for you.”
“They can’t touch.” He was pretty sure he could unstraddle—destraddle—distraddle—the bike. For charcuterie.
“I understand.” Jonathan rolled his eyes, but it looked more like a reflex than mockery.
Only two weeks since they had met, but he already knew what Connor liked, seemed to remember every snippet Connor had shared, and was the first man who had ever tried to take care of him.
On Tony’s random, unannounced appearances, he’d been nothing like this.
He’d mistaken Tony’s booty calls for need, but standing on this gravel driveway, Connor remembered how for three visits in a row, Tony had ordered loaded pizzas from his favorite college pizzeria with those horrid canned black olives, even when Connor had wanted to cook.
Tony had laughed each time Connor had picked them off.
He’d clearly been nothing to Tony, not even worth changing his pizza order for, but Jonathan was pretty quickly becoming everything.
“I can do this.” He took a deep breath. “I can.’
“I know you can.”
Twenty minutes and two carafes of water later wasn’t enough recovery time, but at least Connor could sit without audible agony, even though his over-sensitized but simultaneously numb buttocks could feel every tiny perforation in the black metal seat.
He stared at the vines that climbed the trellises and hung from overhead beams, shading the patio and creating a retreat he would happily build in his own yard, if he could get home.
Jonathan’s car and its bike rack were an unfortunate twenty-four miles back through rolling wine country fields and roads, and then they had a twelve-mile drive back to Eugene.
Who had that kind of energy. Not him. And also, he didn’t know what the vines were. And even more also, his ass hurt too much to care.
“Here. This is for us.” Jonathan set a tray on the table. It held six glasses sized for cortado espresso drinks, but instead of coffee, three contained half-pours of red wine, and three held white.
“And this is for you.“ He pulled a slightly crushed palm-frond patterned seat cushion from where he’d clutched it between his arm and his body.
Connor blinked. He wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t ache that badly. Only his legs and butt hurt, cycling hadn’t affected his chest or throat. It hadn’t.
“I finagled it from the manager’s office, so you better continue to look sufficiently sore and useless to justify the sad faces I had to make.”
He tried not to let his voice shake. “Not a problem.”
“You don’t need to look that distraught. Our food is coming.”
He’d let too much show on his face, which was not a new problem, was in fact his forever-problem, but maybe he shouldn’t worry about it. Jonathan was absolutely into him, no matter what Hank or Trixie said he should or shouldn’t do.
Jonathan liked him, Jonathan liked spending time with him, Jonathan had introduced him to his friend Lily yesterday at the parade, Jonathan wasn’t keeping him a secret because Jonathan wasn’t Tony, so Connor didn’t need to bluster or clown around him.
Or hide. He could get emotional over a smushed chair cushion and it would be okay.
Jonathan’s finger brushed over the tip of Connor’s nose. It smelled like soap, like he’d washed his hands while he’d been inside. This touch was maybe, he couldn’t be sure, but maybe, a huge public display on Jonathan’s part.
He hoped his eyes told Jonathan that he would welcome more. Connor didn’t need to be a goofy guy friend right now; he could be a messy boyfriend. He could be himself. And right now himself was very sore and perhaps a bit emotional.
“You look like Ribby.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.” Jonathan made a hand rocking gesture. “But maybe I don’t understand?”
When he inhaled, he heard the air travel across the obstruction in his throat. “I think I’m just sungry.”
“Sungry?” Jonathan lifted one eyebrow.
“That hungry on a sunny day exhausted feeling,” Connor explained. “Or maybe it means sore and hungry. Both work right now.”
“That’s an excellent portmanteau. I intend to steal it.”
The order Jonathan had placed for them arrived, and the charcuterie plate was as generous as promised.
Also, the olives came in a tiny finger bowl that Jonathan immediately whisked to his side of the table along with his hummus, pita, and cucumber salad.
Jonathan had even pre-ordered two servings of tiramisu.
Connor glanced up from the breadbasket. “Eight pieces this time.”
Jonathan swallowed a nibble of his pita. “Four each, no fighting?”
“Seven and one, no fighting.”
“Not fair!” He waved a piece of cucumber speared on the end of his fork. “I rode as far as you did.”
“On a fancier bike, hauling less weight, and I’m not asking for a taste of your pita.”
Jonathan threw his head back and laughed hard enough that people at the next table turned.
“Shhh.” He knew he was bright red. He knew it. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t.” He finally stopped giggling. “That’s why it’s so funny. You referred to a—”
“Bread. I referred to the Middle-Eastern flat bread on your plate. Nothing else.” Objectively, he knew this teasing was nothing more than two guys bantering words the same way he and Hank put a pickleball in motion, a fast and fun way to spend time, with something to win at the end.
But this afternoon Jonathan’s face was perpetually lit with laughter.
Even in the shade cast by the canopy of vines, his skin glowed from more than the exertion of riding here.
Feelings swirled inside Connor’s chest each time he looked into Jonathan’s face, soft and hungry and possessive feelings, mixed with lots of other stuff he couldn’t categorize, so he took the easy route.
He ate.